U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Nino Edition

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

I am very self-satisfied and love to drop names.

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

Fuck these fuckers:

The Supreme Court’s conservative bloc may be preparing an attack on state sovereignty in order to maintain a Republican gerrymander through the 2018 midterms.

Last week, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court invalidated the state’s current congressional map, ruling that it favored the GOP in violation of the state constitution and ordering a new, nonpartisan map. Republican legislative leaders asked Justice Samuel Alito, who reviews emergency appeals out of Pennsylvania, to block the decision. Because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision involved only state law, Alito should’ve denied the request outright. Instead, he has ordered voting rights advocates to respond, raising the real possibility that a majority of the justices will vote to halt the ruling. If they do, the intervention will mark an extraordinary expansion of the court’s power to prevent states from protecting their residents’ voting rights

what the fuck

On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected an effort by Republican leaders in Pennsylvania to restore a Republican gerrymander that has allowed Republicans to dominate the state’s congressional delegation even in years when Democrats won the statewide popular vote.

Last month, the state supreme court ordered new maps drawn for the 2018 election. Now that the Supreme Court of the United States has officially stayed its hand, the state’s gerrymandered congressional districts are all but certain to become a relic of the past.

https://thinkprogress.org/breaking-pennsylvania-gerrymander-dead-d148d15b3710/

Alito?!

Huh. I had heard the PA GOP was refusing the state court's ruling to redistrict or whatever. Wonder if this will make a difference or if they'll be charged with contempt.

probably would have set dangerous precedent for all the other times republicans invoke states rights

Josh I suspect they thought SCOTUS was going to side with them so until the SCOTUS ruling, they could posture however they liked

More ethical issues re PA case (not that Gorsuch would see a problem though)--

Last week, after the Pennsylvania state Supreme Court invalidated the state’s GOP-friendly congressional map, top Republicans in the state Legislature asked the state Supreme Court to throw out the decision. One of the Democratic justices, they argued, should have recused himself from the case because of comments he made in 2015 opposing gerrymandering.

But one of these Republicans, Senate President Pro Tempore Joseph Scarnati, did not disclose a more serious conflict of interest: Scarnati donated $25,000 to a different state Supreme Court justice, Republican Sallie Mundy, in April 2017. The donation came through his political action committee.

State Supreme Court justices in Pennsylvania are elected in partisan campaigns, and according to campaign finance disclosures, last year Mundy received donations from Scarnati as well as two Republican members of the US Congress from Pennsylvania. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick donated $1,000 to Mundy’s campaign on July 27, 2017, after the gerrymandering case was filed in state court, according to Mundy’s filing. On November 1, 2017, after voting rights groups had asked the state Supreme Court to take the case, GOP Rep. Charlie Dent donated $1,000 to Mundy. Both Fitzpatrick’s and Dent’s congressional districts were at stake in the case. Both congressman also gave through their political action committees.

...The vote was 5-2, with Mundy one of the two dissenters. The court ordered new maps to be drawn in time for the 2018 midterm elections.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/02/republicans-fighting-to-protect-gerrymandering-in-pennsylvania-have-an-ethics-problem/

Looks like that Mother Jones article re the ethics issues was written before latest SCOTUS ruling

Courthouse News reports:

Offering no mention of the Florida school shooting, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas complained Tuesday about the growing stack of Second Amendment cases that are denied high court review.

“The right to keep and bear arms is apparently this court’s constitutional orphan,” Thomas wrote. “And the lower courts seem to have gotten the message.” Thomas penned the dissent this morning after his colleagues rejected a challenge to California’s 10-day waiting period for firearms.

Quoting the court’s last Second Amendment case, the 2010 ruling McDonald v. Chicago, Thomas noted that the Second Amendment is not a “second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.”

https://www.courthousenews.com/thomas-balks-as-court-denies-review-to-california-guns-case/

Thomas must be referring to the different body of rules that allows him to sexually harass scores of women and remain on the bench

reexamination of the evidence against Thomas by author Jill Abramson

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/the-case-for-impeaching-clarence-thomas.html