These days the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing a lot from the Lone Star State. USA TODAY reportsthat nearly all the court's top cases come from Texas, from abortion and affirmative action to voting rights and immigration.
Not much has changed since Gov. Greg Abbott’s days as attorney general. Back then Abbott bragged: "I go into the office, I sue the federal government, and then I go home." But these days, Texas is more often on the defensive from the high court. Texas has potentially run afoul of federal law in cases involving aggrieved voters, students and abortion providers.
Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, says there is “a deeply held conviction among the political class in Texas that the federal government is overreaching and needs to be systematically checked.”
Other famous historical Texas cases include the 1973 abortion case Roe v. Wade and Van Orden v. Perry, which upheld the placement of a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the state capitol in 2005.