FILE PHOTO: U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justices Samuel Alito (L) and Clarence Thomas at the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. Chip Somodevilla/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case involving a dispute between California and Florida over who can and cannot hold a commercial driver's license. Florida is making it clear that California will issue a driver's license to anyone who passes the required tests. Washington does as well. Florida restricts their drivers licenses to citizens only.
On Tuesday, the full court denied the "motion for leave to file a bill of complaint." It means the High Court told Florida they couldn't file the case there. Sometimes, when states are going up against each other, they'll go directly to the Supreme Court to settle the dispute. In this case, the Court refused to hear it.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito wrote a dissent.
The case involved a man from India who was given a commercial driver's license despite failing his test in Washington state. He was then involved in an accident with a minivan in which three people were killed. It was found that he didn't know enough English to read the road signs. Washington ultimately agreed that it had made a huge error in giving him the license. Thomas and Alito claim that this is "disturbingly common," though there is no evidence to support the claim. The citation was a press release from President Donald Trump's Department of Transportation, which doesn't include any evidence to verify the claim.
Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy claimed there was an outbreak of crashes in the summer of 2025, though the evidence doesn't support that.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) "has identified at least five fatal crashes involving non-domiciled CDL holders. To put this in perspective, with 1,600 fatal truck crashes reported through July 2025, these five crashes represent just 0.31 percent of all fatal truck accidents," COGO Insurance cited.
Alito and Thomas attacked the court for refusing to hear the case, writing, "Without explanation, the Court today denies Florida leave to file its suit and proceed to the motion-to-dismiss stage."
"This Court has exclusive original jurisdiction over Florida’s suit because it involves one State suing other States," they demanded.
"I doubt this Court has discretion to refuse to hear cases within its exclusive original jurisdiction," they added.
They go on to write that they have been demanding that the Court revisit the Court's precedents when it comes to these interstate debates.
"Even under the Court’s discretionary approach, it likely should have granted Florida leave to file its complaint," the men wrote.
"Alito and Scalia are bleak," an aghast lawyer wrote in response to the dissent.
One Georgetown University expert said that the men may be causing themselves more problems than anticipated with the dissent.
Law Professor Steve Vladeck commented, "The Thomas/Alito jurisdictional argument (that SCOTUS must hear state-v.-state cases) isn't crazy. But one of the strongest arguments against it is that states shouldn't be able to force the Court to have to hear these kinds of suits. Thomas's dissent here may unintentionally reinforce that view."
"As to the first factor, this Court has described as a 'model case' a dispute that 'would amount to casus belli if the states were fully sovereign.' In other words, the Court asks whether the dispute would be a matter of diplomatic concern in the international arena. This case appears to meet that standard," the judges write. It goes on to comment, "If Florida were an independent nation, it might resolve [this] dispute by diplomacy, by submitting it to international arbitration or by self-help measures."
Those "self-help measures," said Joe Dudek, a trial and appellate attorney, appear to include war.
"Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Alito: California's issuance of driver's licenses to illegal immigrants would justify Florida going to war with California if they weren't part of the same country," he said.