U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Nino Edition

I'm worried Kennedy goes down this first amendment rabbit hole and we have to do this all again with a new test case that satisfies his moving goalposts vision of what is 'bad' gerrymandering.

― officer sonny bonds, lytton pd (mayor jingleberries), Tuesday, 3 October 2017 19:10 (one hour ago) Permalink

Is there a first amendment issue in the case?

There isn't but Kennedy was speculating if maybe there is. I'll admit I dont know enough about the details to avoid confusing the issue even further ..

Kennedy was the first justice to ask a question in Tuesday’s opening arguments in the case, Gill v. Whitford. “Suppose the Court…decided that this is a First Amendment issue?” Kennedy asked Wisconsin’s solicitor general, implying that extreme partisan gerrymandering could violate the right to free speech by preventing those in the minority—in this case Wisconsin Democrats denied representation—from having an equal say in the political process.

Kennedy also seemed to suggest that the court could set a standard for when gerrymandering crosses a line. When Erin Murphy, who argued in favor of the Wisconsin Legislature, argued that state Democrats “have not come up with a workable standard to determine when a map is too political,” Kennedy responded that a manageable standard could be whether a map was drawn with the “overriding concern
” to “have a maximum number of votes for party X or party Y.” He asked whether such a scenario would violate the First Amendment or the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/anthony-kennedys-questioning-suggests-extreme-partisan-gerrymandering-could-be-in-danger/

OIC. That's weird, I don't think that works. But his other questions are encouraging.

Kennedy also seemed to suggest that the court could set a standard for when gerrymandering crosses a line.

"For example, when a congressional district crosses a state line."

‪ https://www.propublica.org/article/supreme-court-errors-are-not-hard-to-find‬

Factual errors found in recent Supreme Court cases including erroneous data used by Roberts re voting registration rates among blacks and whites in 6 southern states in Shelby County case . Roberts & majority struck down part of the Coting Rights Act in this case.

In all, ProPublica found seven errors in a modest sampling of Supreme Court opinions written from 2011 through 2015. In some cases, the errors were introduced by individual justices apparently doing their own research.

these weren't errors, they were lies.

One of the many ugly products of ideologically-driven mostly-conservative think tanks is the wide availability of 'studies' and 'papers' full of purportedly accurate statistics that have never been properly peer-reviewed. There's a lot of legitimate appearing shite out there with deeply skewed or fabricated data. The data stream is so polluted that it is no wonder that garbage data has made its way into jurisprudence, too.

The biggest and most consequential errors pointed out in articles were in immigration cases. In those cases (kim, nken) the Bush era DOJ straight up lied to the Court, and the Court straight up regurgitated the lies, and their opinions turned heavily on those lies. Dark stuff.

Apparently Gorsuch is not liked by libs and conservative justices, Nina Totenberg says.

Totenberg, a renowned court reporter who is friendly with several justices, noted that Gorsuch “ticks off some members of the court—and I don’t think it’s just the liberals.” Without exposing her sources—“you talk to former law clerks, you talk to friends, you talk to some of the justices”—Totenberg then dropped a bombshell:

"My surmise, from what I’m hearing, is that Justice [Elena] Kagan really has taken [Gorsuch] on in conference. And that it’s a pretty tough battle and it’s going to get tougher. And she is about as tough as they come, and I am not sure he’s as tough—or dare I say it, maybe not as smart. I always thought he was very smart, but he has a tin ear somehow, and he doesn’t seem to bring anything new to the conversation."

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/10/why_rumors_of_a_gorsuch_kagan_supreme_court_clash_are_such_a_bombshell.html

Ooh I can't wait to forward this to my wife

Yup. He strikes me as a classic mediocre white prep school guy.

He's the "yeah, I said it guy" -- the guy who was "edgy" because, among a mostly conservative to moderate liberal crowd, he was the one who was a little more open and direct about his conservative ideology. Faced few real challenges to his understanding or comfort in the world.

He's like the dickish right wing strawmen who would show up on the West Wing from time to time

He strikes me as a classic mediocre white prep school guy.

I think what has impressed his conservative colleagues most is not his brilliance, but his absolutism, which in low-light can sometimes be taken for brilliance. He also carries himself like a man convinced of his intellectual perfection and this, too, impresses some people.

I felt that way about Scalia sometimes, but Scalia is Wittgenstein next to him.

Jiggerypokerystein

Senate Republicans are officially blowing up the blue slip this week for circuit court nominees, ending a century-old tradition. Barack Obama and Democrats, when they were in charge, respected the long-standing prerogative of senators to block nominees they don’t approve of from their home states. That’s one reason there are so many vacancies. But Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) bowed to pressure from the White House and scheduled confirmation hearings for two appellate courts nominees where a home state senator had not returned the blue slip.
Brookings senior fellow Sarah Binder explains on Monkey Cage how “shredding blue slips empowers the White House”: “Grassley’s move undermines Democrats’ parliamentary ability to block Trump nominees in the Senate — even when the American Bar Association deems Trump’s picks unqualified for the bench, as has happened with four of 58 nominees. As a result, Trump is likely to nominate candidates more quickly than previous presidents.

-Washington Post

this does not have anything to do with the Supreme Court

Supreme Court's caseload will be influenced by how circuit courts rule. Circuit Court judges sometimes end up on Supreme Court. There's no thread for these courts and I didn't feel like just placing it on the Politics thread.

But I can if it will make you happy.

I already did on the politics thread, but it probably got buried

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-guncontrol/top-court-spurns-challenge-to-maryland-assault-weapons-ban-idUSKBN1DR1SE

SCOTUS refuses to take up challenges to bans on assault weapons and open carry. So by letting state laws stand, they're kind of outlining the current majority's acceptable limits on the 2nd Amendment.

maybe by the end of the 21st century, early 22nd-ish, , long after the 4th world war, we'll finally get some meaningful gun reform

maybe then each member of your clone army will need a background check rather than just one check for all three thousand

also not about the supreme court

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/opinion/conservatives-weaponize-federal-courts.html?_r=0

https://blog.harvardlawreview.org/rulebooks-playgrounds-and-endgames-a-constitutional-analysis-of-the-calabresi-hirji-judgeship-proposal/

I do not know the authors personally, and I do not pretend to know their actual states of mind on this question. But here’s a perspective that would render the paper’s recommendation sensible to someone who understood that the Democrats could play the same game when they came back into power. It’s this: We don’t think in terms of the Democrats one day coming back into power. We are building for a world in which they never exercise power. And if the Democrats do return to power, then the Republic won’t be worth saving anyway. In other words, competition between Republicans and Democrats is no longer an iterated game in which two rival parties who see each other as legitimate contenders for political power expect to take turns exercising more and less influence within the system. It’s the last round, and it’s a fight to the finish.

Yesterday the justices heard oral argument in Carpenter v. United States, which asks whether the government must obtain a warrant before obtaining cell-site-location information from cellphone service providers. Amy Howe has this blog’s argument analysis, which first appeared at Howe on the Court. Additional coverage comes from Richard Wolf for USA Today, who reports that “[i]n a case that could have broad implications for privacy rights in the digital age, justices on both sides of the ideological spectrum said rapid advances in technology make decades-old precedents inadequate.” ...Kevin Daley at The Daily Caller, who reports that “[t]hough a majority of the Court appeared willing to extend protections to a user’s location data, the justices fractured as to how meaningful those protections might be, as well as the legal rationale on which they should rely.”

http://www.scotusblog.com/2017/11/argument-analysis-drawing-line-privacy-cellphone-records/

I'd got a bad feeling about this one.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who almost certainly holds the crucial vote in the case of a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, sent sharply contradictory messages when it was argued Tuesday at the Supreme Court.

He asked a lawyer for the Trump administration whether the baker, Jack Phillips, could put a sign in his window saying, “We don’t bake cakes for gay weddings.” The lawyer, Noel J. Francisco said yes, so long as the cakes were custom made.

Justice Kennedy looked troubled and said the administration’s position was an affront to the dignity of gay couples.

Later, though, Justice Kennedy said that a state civil rights commission that had ruled against the baker had “neither been tolerant nor respectful of Mr. Phillips’s religious beliefs.”

And check out the joker:

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, who seemed ready to side with Mr. Phillips, said wedding cakes can have shortcomings. “I’m yet to have a wedding cake that I’d say tasted great,” he said.

[laughter]

gorsuch the faithful heir to scalia

he's like the friend who tried too hard

it's weird how this whole case seems to turn on defining what "art" is (as opposed to simple commerce)

I wouldn't be surprised if there's an intentionally very, very narrow ruling in the defendant's favor

Gorsuch, for example, is a joek artist.

the President is a con artist ergo everything he does is legal

Gorsuchakidder

Wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, @GinniThomas, presenting an award to @JamesOKeefeIII today for "defending liberty." pic.twitter.com/bWXFgWa36x

— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) December 6, 2017

I am sure O'Keefe's efforts were described as doubleplusgood.

Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch wrote that reconsidering an execution because a juror considered the convicted a “n——r” would be “ceremonial hand-wringing.” Which, okay, but maybe preferable to ceremonial hand-bloodying pic.twitter.com/R2CwdOK7cb

— Adam Weinstein (@AdamWeinstein) January 9, 2018

Abe Fortas was forced into retirement with the threat of an impeachment vote. Can't really think of a good reason not to begin hearings against Gorsuch once Dems take Congress. https://t.co/t4EbYSo2K0

— slackbot (@pareene) January 9, 2018

Perhaps Pareene might get further if he suggested a reasonable grounds for impeachment. The time to effectively address McConnell's year long stonewalling of Garland has expired. He got away with it and then nuked the SCOTUS-nominee filibuster to get Gorsuch in, but those sins are on McConnell's head. Gorsuch has barely even participated in any decisions.

Wasn't there a whole fundraiser thing he did with McConnell afterwards or something?

the newest Supreme Court justice made a series of political stops with none other than Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. As reported by Law Newz, Jessica Mason Pieklo, a legal analyst and adjunct law professor at Hamline University School of Law, characterized them as “campaigning.”

https://abovethelaw.com/2017/09/justice-gorsuch-on-the-campaign-trail/

Ugh, Breyer:

The conservative-majority court granted a bid by Republican legislators in North Carolina to suspend the Jan. 9 order by a federal court panel in Greensboro that gave the Republican-controlled General Assembly until Jan. 24 to come up with a new map for U.S. House of Representatives districts.

Two liberal justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, objected to the high court’s action.

The Supreme Court’s decision to stay the order reduces the chance that the current district lines will be altered ahead of the November mid-term congressional elections. The court offered no reason for its decision.

No reason for the decision, eh

Ugh, Breyer and Kagan, it seems

Yeah, that was mentioned itt yesterday and totally fucking inevitable.

Sorry, mentioned in the US gov thread.

I enjoyed having dinner tonight at the home of Senator John Cornyn and his wife Sandy with our newest Supreme Court Justice, Neil Gorsuch, Transportation Secretary Chao and a few of my other Senate colleagues to talk about important issues facing our country.

— Sen. Lamar Alexander (@SenAlexander) January 23, 2018

i just... i know it's a waste of time but can you EVEN IMAGINE one of the lib just-- ah fuck it. nothing matters.

barf