Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-601_bq7c.pdf
Page Number: 34

Cite as:  595 U. S. ____ (2022) 

5 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

II 
  I have no quarrel with the Court’s holding that no juris-
dictional bar precluded the attorney general’s intervention.  
On  the  facts  of  this  case,  however,  I  disagree  with  the 
Court’s determination that the Court of Appeals’ denial of 
the  attorney  general’s  motion  to  intervene  constituted  an 
abuse of discretion.  The Court reaches that result only by 
giving short shrift to a critical and unusual aspect of this 
case: The attorney general’s motion to intervene was based 
on  arguments  he  had  eschewed  below  and  was  filed  only 
after  judgments  had  been  rendered  by  both  the  District 
Court  and  the  Court  of  Appeals.    The  attorney  general’s 
change in position alone requires affirmance. 
  The  Court  correctly  observes  that  “[r]esolution  of  a  mo-
tion for permissive intervention is committed to the discre-
tion of the court before which intervention is sought.”  Ante, 
at 9 (citing Automobile Workers v. Scofield, 382 U. S. 205, 
217,  n. 10  (1965);  Fed.  Rule  Civ.  Proc.  24(b)(1)(a)).    The 
Court  may  reverse,  in  other  words,  only  if  it  determines 
that the Court of Appeals abused its discretion by denying 
the attorney general’s motion for intervention.  See gener-
ally NAACP, 413 U. S., at 366. 
  The attorney general sought to intervene in the Court of 
Appeals “to ensure that [the State’s] interests with respect 
to  H. B.  454” were “fully  defended.”    ECF  in  No.  19–5516 
(CA6, June 11, 2020), Doc. 56, pp. 5, 8; see id., at 13 (noting 
that there is “no doubt” that Kentucky, “through Attorney 
General  Cameron,”  has  a  sufficient  legal  interest  in  the 
matter).  In the District Court, however, the attorney gen-
eral  took  a different  view.    There,  he  represented  that  he 
had no interest in the case because “H. B. 454 does not con-
fer upon the Attorney General the authority or duty to en-
force the provisions as enacted,” and insisted that the law 
“does not provide the Attorney General with any regulatory 
responsibility or other authority to take any action related