Yesterday Insider posted that the city of Austin is trying to get the Supreme Court to review  the Austin v Reagan decision.  Hamlin Cody’s Richard Hamlin has this comment:

No one can be certain, or even predict, whether the Supreme Court will hear a case.   The Court’s Rule 10 says whether to hear a case is completely discretionary.  The rule gives non-binding examples of reasons to hear a case.  As applied to the Reagan case, the most common reasons are:

•  A conflict between U.S. courts of appeal on important federal questions; or
•  The supreme court thinks the there is an important question of federal law that it has not decided, but should decide.

If four justices decide the case is important enough to hear, the court will call for briefs.  It happens rarely.    According to Wikipedia, the court gives a full review to only about 1% of the petitions filed with it.  It will dispose of another 1/2% without a full review.

Prediction:  the court will not hear this case.  While the First Amendment issues involved in the on-premise/off-premise dichotomy are important, there are several pending cases that will give the court the opportunity to decide the issue — if it wants to do so.  If it expresses an opinion, it will leave details such as digital v. static to be decided according to whatever decision it reaches on the larger issue.

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