How Supreme Court's Internet Tax Case Was Built 'From the Ground Up'

“‘It happens all the time,’ said former Maine Attorney General James Tierney, now a Harvard Law School lecturer who advises state attorneys general. Tierney did not want to comment on the Wayfair case specifically, but said that in general, it is not uncommon for states to pass laws they know would be tested at the Supreme Court. State laws on abortion rights and immigration, for example, have been passed in defiance of court precedents, Tierney noted.

But Tierney said that in recent years, he has detected more of ‘a defiance, a roughness in the air’ in cases brought to the Supreme Court aimed at busting precedents. ‘People are getting more feisty, more interested in challenging all this,’ he said. ‘You have these large interest groups that say, ‘We don’t care, let’s push it.’’”

Tony Mauro, "How Supreme Court's Internet Tax Case Was Built 'From the Ground Up,'" The National Law Journal, March 16, 2018.