The Supreme Court refuses to become partisan in two fights over the midterms

The useful part

People complain that the current Supreme Court is a partisan institution, with the six Republican appointees deciding cases based on their partisan beliefs. Two recent and significant cases on the court's emergency docket refute that complaint, or at least the most simplistic version of it. The two cases are, first, the fight over Missouri's congressional map and, second, the suit to stop implementation of the U.S.

How it works

• Postal Service's rule, adopted at President Donald Trump's direction, to block the delivery to voters of vote-by-mail ballots unless they appeared on a list provided by their home state's election officials.
• Nothing in the 8th Circuit's new ruling negates what this essay says about the Supreme Court's avoidance of partisanship in its handling of the dispute.) Here's what transpired.

Details worth keeping

In both cases, the court foiled what Republicans – and specifically the Trump administration – wanted, and the court's fidelity to nonpartisan enforcement of the law prevailed over the position that the Republican litigants urged the court to take.