Some context: 1. The Fedearl court system is divided into circuits [1]. These circuits can be (and are) organized differently to each other. They generally are

Some context: 1. The Fedearl court system is divided into circuits [1]. These circuits can be (and are) organized differently to each other. They generally are divided into Districts (eg the Southern or Eastern District of NY) and may be further divided into divisions, usually with the idea that a person bringing a suit is relatively geographically close to the court. This unfortunately is the basis for "judge shopping" where you basically know what judge you'll get if you file in a certain area; 2. Florida is in the 11th Circuit. Texas is in the 5th Circuit; 3. The Circuits tend to reflect the politics of their constitutent states thanks to the Blue Slip system [2]. So to appoint a Texas judge, you need essentially a sponsor in a US senator from Texas. The politics will tend to align; 4. Circuits are divided into Distrct Courts and Appellate Courts (ignoring magistrate judges for now). A decision by a Federal district court is not binding to any other court. If a ruling is appealed it goes to that circuit's appellate court. Whatever that appellate court rules is binding to that circuit; 5. There are 9 Supreme Court ("SCOTUS") justices. SCOTUS has absolute discretion in deciding what cases to take. It requires 4 of the justices deciding to take any case. This can be (and has) done strategically, specifically to take or avoid taking a case when a particularly ideological block of the court feels they'll get a decision they do or do not want. The court is, and always has been, political. 6. One way to force SCOTUS's hand is if different circuit appellate courts rule differently on the same fundamental issue. That's basically what happened here between the 5th and 11th Circuits. Both Texas and Florida had passed differnet laws against censoring or "deplatforming" political candidates in the wake of, for example, former President Trump being banned from Twitter in the wake of Jan 6. The court said, essentially unanimously, that neither circuit had considered the First Amendment argument against these laws, which is actually pretty wild. It's worth adding that the First Amendment (like the entire Constitution) is a restriction of government actions. If this wasn't clear enough, the first five words of the First Amendment are, quite literally: > Congress shall make no law ... It's worth adding that the 14th Amendment later extended restrictions on government actions to state and local governments. Both the Texas and Florida laws should've failed immediately on First Amendment grounds. SCOTUS simply sent the cases back to the respective courts to consider this issue. I suspect we'll see these cases again as one or both of these courts will do mental contortions to decide that these laws have no First Amendment issue. [1]: https://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/u.s._federal_courts_circuit_map_1.pdf https://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/u.s._federal_co... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_slip_(U.S._Senate) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_slip_(U.S._Senate)