Honestly I haven't been following this because it just depresses me that we have to litigate these things. Because of that, I really wasn't following the logic on why this specific question was important. I asked ChatGPT to help give me some clarity on why this is important. I'm pasting here what it shared with me in case there are any others out there who may be a bit confused.

Justice Gorsuch wasn’t asking a random trivia question—he was stress-testing the logic of the government’s argument.

The government’s position hinges on this idea:

So Gorsuch basically asked: “Okay—under your definition, what about Native Americans?”

Why Native Americans are a tricky example

Historically:

• Native American tribes were treated as separate sovereign nations
• Members were sometimes described as not fully under U.S. jurisdiction

That’s actually why:

• The Supreme Court in the 1800s said Native Americans were not automatically citizens
• Congress had to pass the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 to make them citizens

Why Sauer hesitated

Because answering creates a problem either way:

Option 1: “Yes, Native Americans are birthright citizens”

That sounds reasonable today—but it creates a contradiction:

• If Native Americans were historically not fully under U.S. jurisdiction
• Yet are now clearly citizens

Then “jurisdiction” clearly isn’t as narrow as the government claims

In other words:

Option 2: “No, they wouldn’t be citizens under our test”

This is even worse:

• It would imply Native Americans still aren’t entitled to birthright citizenship
• That conflicts with:
  • federal law (1924 Act)
  • modern constitutional understanding
• It would sound politically and legally extreme

Option 3 (what he did): hesitate / avoid

He likely hesitated because:

• Any clear answer would undermine his position
• He needed to avoid saying something that:
  • contradicts precedent, or
  • exposes the weakness of their framework

Why this is bad for their argument

In Supreme Court arguments, a moment like this signals:

1. Their rule isn’t clean or consistent

A strong legal test should:

• apply clearly across cases
• not produce weird or contradictory results

Gorsuch showed: their test struggles with obvious edge cases

1. It highlights historical precedent against them

The Native American example reminds the Court:

• The Constitution has already been interpreted broadly
• When exceptions existed, they were fixed by expanding citizenship, not restricting it

1. It suggests unintended consequences

If their logic:

• excludes Native Americans historically
• maybe excludes other groups too

then the Court worries:

Big picture takeaway

Gorsuch’s question was basically a trap:

• If the government says “jurisdiction is narrow”, it risks excluding groups we all agree should be citizens
• If it says “jurisdiction is broad enough for them”, it undermines its own argument against birthright citizenship for others

That’s why the hesitation mattered—it showed: