The case, Office of Senator Mark Dayton v. Brad Hanson, concerns a staffer, Brad Hanson, who was fired from his post as then-Sen. Mark Dayton’s (D-Minn.) state office manager shortly after taking medical leave to undergo heart surgery. Hanson sued Dayton soon thereafter for discrimination of a perceived disability under the Congressional Accountability Act.

Several justices questioned whether Hanson’s duties were essential to Dayton in the legislative process. Referring to a list of Hanson’s tasks in Minnesota, Justice Stephen Breyer asked, “What does he do? It seems a lot of the time he’s moving furniture.”

Manning also argued that, as a part of his staff, Hanson represented a “second self” for Dayton, a point with which Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg quickly took issue.

“How many second selves would there be?” she asked.

“Maybe [Hanson] was the 23^rd self,” Justice Antonin Scalia quipped.

In her brief to the court, Manning argued that this case became moot when Dayton left office. Justice David Souter and Scalia took this line of argument one step further, asking whether “The Office of Senator Mark Dayton” ever even existed, since his operating budget was appropriated to him by the Senate. Scalia went so far as to call Dayton’s office a “fictional construct.”

Richard Salzman, arguing on behalf of Hanson, said that at the crux of the case was whether the speech and debate clause granted senators “absolute immunity” in their decisions. He argued that Dayton’s decision to fire Hanson had no legislative bearing.

“There was no legislative act involved in Mr. Hanson’s firing. It was just a firing,” Salzman said.