Update on New Hampshire v. Massachusetts

On Saturday, I provided an overview of New Hampshire v. Massachusetts, an important “original jurisdiction” state vs. state case currently before the Supreme Court. At that time, I noted that we might know as soon as today how the Supreme Court intended to handle case, because this is the day when the Court would issue orders related to cases that went to conference on Friday, January 22 (including this one).

In reality, the only step the Court took on the case today, was issue an order inviting the acting Solicitor General “to file a brief in this case expressing the views of the United States.” Obviously, this is only a very modest step. But it does suggest the Court is taking the case seriously, and is unlikely to dismiss the case out of hand, as it did with a number of previous original jurisdiction cases, such as last month’s “Texas Turkey” attempting to overturn the election results in some key swing states.

It will also be interesting to see where the Biden Administration comes down on the case. As a general rule, Democratic administrations often favor the interests of high-tax blue states, which might mean supporting Massachusetts’ efforts to tax remote workers employed by Massachusetts f