The case is back on the Justices’ conference list. (More on the dispute and the delay.)

The first thing the Justices will do is decide the motion to dismiss the cert petition (put in by North Carolina’s governor and AG, and opposed by NC’s legislature). If the Court grants the motion to dismiss, the case is over and the 4th Circuit’s opinion stands.

If the Court denies the motion, it will then consider whether to grant or deny the cert. petition, a decision in which the Court has complete discretion.

A third possibility is that the Court issues some other kind of order to resolve the motion to dismiss (such as asking for more briefing or sending the question to another court if that is procedurally possible) and does not yet rule on the cert petition.

Orders from the March 31 conference likely will issue on April 3. If the court is inclined to hear the case, we may well not hear anything on April 3, as they usually take another week to look over such cases to make sure there’s no procedural problem with the case which would make granting it problematic.