On February 28, the U.S. Supreme Court released an orders list, showing which cases it decided to hear, or not to hear, at its February 24 conference. For the second week in a row, the Court has not yet decided whether to hear Burris v Judge, and/or Quinn v Judge, numbers 10-367 and 10-821. These are the cases over the special U.S. Senate election in Illinois last year. The case has been re-listed for the March 4 conference.

The 7th circuit had ordered Illinois to hold a special election for the Class III U.S. Senate seat, on November 2, 2010. This is the U.S. Senate seat that President Obama had been elected to in 2004. When he resigned from the Senate to become President, the Governor of Illinois had appointed Roland Burris to fill the seat. Some Illinois voters had sued to force the state to hold a special election. The 7th circuit had ruled in favor of a special election, to be held in November 2010, with the winner to take office immediately. But the 7th circuit also refused to let Senator Burris run for the seat he was holding. Instead it ordered that only the candidates who were already on the November 2010 election for the full 6-year term could run in the special election. The Governor of Illinois then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the 7th circuit had been wrong to order a special election. Also Senator Burris had appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that if the special election was to be held, the 7th circuit had been wrong to dictate which candidates could run.