U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Nino Edition

the anti-choice machine was prepared to start installing TRAP laws in states throughout the south/midwest if this passed through the court
curious to see how texas rebounds this on both sides of the issue

yeah the big thing is that there's a clear, applicable, and stringent precedent which limits any and all state laws restricting abortion rights. i don't know the national scene, but i can say for sure that indiana just this year passed a law placing some pretty severe restrictions on abortion access, restrictions which seem unlikely to pass the test the court established in this opinion.

yeah, I guess my question is whether this will stop states from passing similar laws or will we see more laws like this and a protracted effort to fight it out in the courts despite the ruling.

it will stop states from passing similar laws for the same reason states don't pass laws for other things that supreme court has ruled illegal - it will be instantly challenged in court and struck down at the circuit level

ok, that makes sense

LA/MS/AL, which have restrictions similar to TX, will have to be dragged kicking and screaming.

Yeah IIRC it's basically like, if some other state passes a similar law, much lower-level courts can rule it out right away like "look, this is already settled and we're busy, your law is unconstitutional, open-and-shut case" and higher courts can deny appeal pretty straightforwardly. The ruling reaffirms Casey, which was a shaky compromise ruling, by a court swinging rapidly rightwards; a different court would have used today's case as an opportunity to gut it entirely. Instead we've been told that Casey's "substantial obstacle/undue burden" language has teeth, and applies to weasely and arbitrary real-world laws. Medical-expert testimony trumps vague assertions by legislators as to the purpose and effects of abortion legislation. Huge win for common sense (invoked throughout to cut through the fog of lame counterarguments).

xpost

in other news the alabama supreme court is still claiming that obergefell is invalid, to no apparent effect.

Going over what cases they'll hear next and what they won't:

http://www.scotusblog.com/2016/06/court-to-hear-major-new-controversies-next-term/

Per the comments re the impact of yesterday's abortion decision, I think we're already starting to see it play out on two levels via cases denied review. First, to quote the ACLU's sharing it out, "The Supreme Court declines to hear a case in which a pharmacy objected on religious grounds to rules that it serve women seeking emergency contraception. This lets a favorable lower court ruling stand."

https://www.aclu.org/news/supreme-court-declines-hear-case-about-religious-pharmacy-turning-women-away

Second, and most immediately applicable in terms of yesterday's decision, Wisconsin and Mississippi were both told to pound sand in terms of laws restricting abortion providers. Lower courts had thrown them out, both states had appealed to the Supreme Court and...denied.

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/u-s-supreme-court-rejects-wisconsin-s-appeal-of-abortion/article_ab0f94fd-aef7-5d89-9d7c-a61333857460.html

Also noteworthy that the Friedrichs/CTA case was denied review (in that they'd already split 4-4) and everything goes back to lower courts. The presumption is that the usual suspects are crossing their fingers hoping for a favorable Scalia replacement before trying again. As that's the specific case or sort of case I have a lot of vested interest in, I'll be keeping a close eye on it.

Good piece on Tony: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/what-is-on-justice-anthony-kennedys-mind/489218/

yeah that's great

good piece

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/clarence-thomas-has-his-own-constitution

last sentence is the kicker

ha -- yeah, I've read that Nino line.

hey alfred so: when the voting acts right was put in place, or the part of it that mandated extra supervision of the states that had been especially egregious & so which needed monitoring -- was this just something the SC thought of? like they saw that this was a problem & so thought of a solution - a lil council that would monitor these specific areas -- & so created? + if so is this something they had done before/have done since? when i think of opinions like the recent abortion ruling, w/ginsburg setting out this v specific guidanc to lower courts, is there ever the likelihood that this kind of thing wd go beyond just opinion & into like an actual corrective model? i feel like it's necessary + intelligent + that i have only ever heard of it this one time.

ps ty for being my personal jurisprudential yahoo answers here

the Court didn't order the extra supervision: it was in the original bill iirc.

Yes

...the Voting Rights Act. Signed on Aug. 6, 1965, it was meant to correct “a clear and simple wrong,” as Lyndon Johnson said. “Millions of Americans are denied the right to vote because of their color. This law will ensure them the right to vote.” It eliminated literacy tests and other Jim Crow tactics, and — in a key provision called Section 5 — required North Carolina and six other states with histories of black disenfranchisement to submit any future change in statewide voting law, no matter how small, for approval by federal authorities in Washington. No longer would the states be able to invent clever new ways to suppress the vote. Johnson called the legislation “one of the most monumental laws in the entire history of American freedom,” and not without justification. By 1968, just three years after the Voting Rights Act became law, black registration had increased substantially across the South, to 62 percent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/29/magazine/voting-rights-act-dream-undone.html

RIP scalia http://amylhowe.com/2016/08/31/north-carolina-comes-one-vote-short-stay-election-law-case/

miss you Nino

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--Qzg-Ub3L--/mfxzbhxkwyzn7vyijjag.jpg

Still shaking my head at those 4 conservative justices that would have allowed the NC voting changes.

http://images.onionstatic.com/clickhole/3282/8/16x9/640.jpg

http://www.clickhole.com/article/political-crisis-antonin-scalias-vacant-supreme-co-4774

^ Onion-level

definitely onion-level

Thomas is not having it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/inside-the-republican-creation-of-the-north-carolina-voting-bill-dubbed-the-monster-law/2016/09/01/79162398-6adf-11e6-8225-fbb8a6fc65bc_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_northcarolinavote-950am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

4 Justices in denial or able to rationalize anything.

Thomas is not having it.

he's just jealous

easy to imagine Clarence keeping a 5x7 framed photo of that making out couple on his desk.

asking his law clerks if they are hot or not

It's based on an anecdote in one of Toobin's books: Thomas kept a photo of the lesbian clerk and her partner.

ew

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-band-idUSKCN11Z1UN

lol crazy

http://abovethelaw.com/2016/09/could-a-legal-love-triangle-scuttle-scotus-hopes-for-this-leading-jurist/

juicy goodwin liu drama!

still want that guy to be president someday

michele obama going in rn

https://twitter.com/PhilipRucker/status/786607670170161152
https://twitter.com/PhilipRucker/status/786607809613950980

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/colin-kaepernick-rbg_us_57ff56ade4b0e8c198a62512

RBG needs to stop doing interviews

That doesn't at all shock me.

really couldn't care less about the RBG thing

a lot of it is people wanting an old lady for a meme

You think that's bad, you should ask JPS what he thinks about flag burning.

I mentioned that on a friend's FB post on Tuesday.

I saw JPS and my first thought was you were making some esoteric existentialism joke.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/kaepernick-ginsburg-walks-back-criticism

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg walked back Friday her criticisms of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick for refusing to stand during the national anthem.

"Barely aware of the incident or its purpose, my comments were inappropriately dismissive and harsh," she said in a statement via the Supreme Court public information office. "I should have declined to respond.”

she should decline to respond, period

*burns Notorious RBG jersey*

now the possible are outcomes are 1) GOP folds before the election and we get a relatively older justice that even fox admits that Garland is the most conservative nominee from a democratic president in the modern era, or 2) GOP folds after Clinton wins and appoints Garland in the lame duck session, which effectively grants them an extra decision point that they normally wouldn't have, or 3) GOP wins the election and blood flows from our tear ducts. Those are all weak outcomes imo.

― Karl Malone, Thursday, March 17, 2016 10:12 AM (seven months ago)

now that options 1 and 3 are pretty much off the table, looks like option 2 is becoming more likely:

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) has long been signaling that Senate Republicans should confirm Merrick Garland, President Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court, in the lame duck session if Hillary Clinton wins the election, and on Thursday he confirmed his position.

"I said if we were in a position like we were in in '96 and we pretty much knew the outcome that we ought to move forward. But I think we passed that awhile ago," Flake told Politico. "If Hillary Clinton is president-elect then we should move forward with hearings in the lame duck. That's what I'm encouraging my colleagues to do."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/flake-confirm-garland-if-clinton-wins

although there is an option 4 - dems take the senate and HRC nominates a more liberal, younger candidate - which i didn't consider at the time

what does "extra decision point" mean?

heh, i was confused by that too, looking back. the context was that obama had just nominated garland, even after there were clear indications from the GOP that they weren't going to consider ANY nominee. i think at the time i was arguing that obama should have nominated a more liberal nominee in the first place: forcing them to decide between a relatively liberal, non-Garland candidate in March, or possibly a different, even more liberal candidate in Jan 2017, after HRC was inaugurated, if the democrats took over the senate. the "extra decision point" i was referring to was during the lame duck session, giving the republicans the option to wait until then to confirm Garland. Nominating Garland effectively gave the GOP the option to do nothing, wait around, and then go with Garland if that was the best option available. and that's what has happened: if there are enough republicans like Flake, they'll confirm Garland during the lame duck. but if obama would have nominated someone more liberal in the first place and forced their hand, they would currently be choosing between the more liberal candidate at hand or an even more liberal candidate under a HRC presidency.

ok so it's not that clear, sorry.