U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Nino Edition

That's a really well-done analysis.

There's a small part of me -- maybe both too optimistic and too cynical at the same time -- that wonders if this vote would go the same way even with another conservative justice, that the other four are throwing red meat to the base while not actually doing anything of consequence. Sort of the same way that the right wing doesn't seem to really want to overturn Roe v Wade, just to keep it as a cattle prod.

If the right wing doesn't really want to overturn Roe v Wade then they might want to think twice about supporting and voting for SC justices not just likely to overturn Roe V. Wade but promoted as such.

that wonders if this vote would go the same way even with another conservative justice, that the other four are throwing red meat to the base while not actually doing anything of consequence.

i'm not sure that's much more comforting than the existing scenario. they should never throw red meat to any base! of course, with my left bias i don't see the liberal wing of the court as doing the same thing, because i see their opinions as backed up by substantive reasoning. i suppose wingnuts think the same thing about the conservative wing

I think the liberal wing has definitely made politics/policy-based decisions with pretty thin basis in the constitution over the years - tbh, Roe v. Wade is probably one of the best examples. And I'm glad they did. But I think the court has always been political and we should be fully aware of the game we are playing rather than hope for some kind of objective constitutionalism.

A similar case in Oregon, based on the state constitution is now being considered by the Oregon Supreme Court. According to the newspaper, the lawyer for the plaintiff churches argued before the court that they should ignore the US Supreme Court's statement by Chief Justice Roberts in denying the California petition, because (...wait for it...) the SCOTUS ruling 'was made almost entirely along party lines'.

So much for the idea that the SCOTUS is viewed as a fair arbiter of constitutional disputes, voting without fear or favor. The trouble with this thinking (by an "officer of the court" no less!) is that every Supreme Court justice from now to doomsday will be identified as partisan and every vote beholden to party politics and should be ignored. With that sort of thinking infecting even the legal profession, you may as well burn down the SCOTUS building and plant grass. Grass isn't very useful, but at least people like it.

"you may as well burn down the SCOTUS building and plant grass."

Can we please?

The nice thing about having a functioning court system is that it allows for dispute resolutions that don't always require a civil war to figure out who wins.

It's only because of our frustrating federalist system that we need 9 people in robes to decide that abortion should be legal everywhere through the alchemical process of deriving an unstated "right to privacy" from the bill of rights and then in turn determining that that "right to privacy" includes the right to terminate a pregnancy. How about just legal abortion is good and most people want it?

You are making an argument made more often and more forcefully by anti-abortion advocates and it has much to justify it. The difficulty with "legal abortion is good and most people want it" is that majorities of voters in many states do not want it, and because of federalism those states can block a federal pro-abortion law from passing Congress and block any pro-abortion constitutional amendment also. The best you could get would be the federalist solution of maybe 20 states where it is legal and poor people in other states hung out to dry even more so than today.

I'm fully aware of that, but the flipside of it bites us in the ass more often than not. It's an inherently conservative institution because the Senate is inherently skewed conservative. History is far more full of examples of SCOTUS thwarting the liberal will of the people than standing up for the rights of the trampled.

*in part because the Senate is inherently skewed conservative. Not to mention that it's basically dumb luck who gets to nominate justices, and then the appointments stick for life. I hate the Supreme Court.

#SCOTUS rules that federal employment discrimination laws protect LGBT employees

— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) June 15, 2020

And by a 6-3 vote, too!

Roberts as umpire!

NEIL GORSUCH WROTE THE OPINION WTF

— Gillian Branstetter (@GBBranstetter) June 15, 2020

A rebrand!

Gorsuch's majority opinion is 29 pages.

Alito and Kavanaugh's dissents are a collective 138 pages.

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) June 15, 2020

Gorsuch's opening paragraphs:

Sometimes small gestures can have unexpected consequences. Major initiatives practically guarantee them. In our time, few pieces of federal legislation rank in signifi- cance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There, in Title VII, Congress outlawed discrimination in the workplace on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear. An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or ac- tions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.

Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result. Likely, they weren’t thinking about many of the Act’s consequences that have become apparent over the years, including its prohibition against discrimination on the basis of motherhood or its ban on the sexual harassment of male employees. But the limits of the drafters’ imagination sup- ply no reason to ignore the law’s demands. When the express terms of a statute give us one answer and extratextual considerations suggest another, it’s no contest. Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit.

this is wild

very good news

meanwhile, Alito is over here analogizing sexual orientation to rape so that's not super great https://t.co/JPOeW8UNRg

— delrayser (@delrayser) June 15, 2020

I guess Gorsuch joins Roberts in the evil but not stupid wing of the court. (Kav clearly stupid)

obvs the conflation of rape and gender identity says far more about anyone who would open the point to debate than it does about anything else

lol

Alito's dissent is followed by an appendix featuring 11 pages of dictionary definitions of the word "sex."

— sshackford (@SShackford) June 15, 2020

featuring 11 pages of dictionary definitions of the word "sex."

looooool

Apparently there are a bunch of uncompressed scanned images in the boomer opinion too which is why it is hundreds of megabytes

They are so upset lol pic.twitter.com/rCe642fmZ0

— Billy M (@Wideoverload) June 15, 2020

It's hard to overstate how much this administration has staked its anti-LGB-and-especially-T agenda on its misreading of Title VII. It's now an achilles heel in built into almost every terrible regulation and enforcement action for past 4 years.

— Josh Block (@JoshABlock) June 15, 2020

imgonnacum.gif

Alito online right now ordering one of these and asking everyone where he signs up to become a "TERF."

https://s31242.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/posieparkermainimage.jpg

lol at the fed society fretting

As Alfred likes to say, pobrecitos

Let's remember: Alito once admitted to putting John Cheever's Falconer down when in college because it was too seamy.

or semen-y

he likes no jiggery-pokery

As Alfred likes to say, pobrecitos

― all cats are beautiful (silby), Monday, June 15, 2020 3:55 PM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Is that that drink with the vermouth that he's always raving about?

Pobrecitos I make when I'm out of money.

Jiggery-pokery would also make a good bev name.

featuring 11 pages of dictionary definitions of the word "sex."

looooool

― A-B-C. A-Always, B-Be, C-Chooglin (will), Monday, June 15, 2020 11:37 AM (thirty-six minutes ago)

LGB-and-especially-T

LGB ‘n’ T..... with a twist

LGB and especially spillin' T

major source of my happiness: a righteous ruling by the court

minor source of schadenfreude: Alito’s batshit crazy meltdown

Quick glance that they also decided (or at least decided not to hear?) cases that would have strengthened ICE and gun rights nuts, but went the other way.

I didn't delve too far into those but I trust that the fed society upthread saying there were four straight massacres at SCOTUS this morning meant good things all around.

for roberts and gorusch, is this a signal that theyre concerned abt the legitimacy of the court? like, "ah ha we'll show you who the partisan shills are" while still voting mostly along party lines.

Gorsuch is just young enough to have grown up, I assume, around plenty of gays and closeted gays.

So… he’s alive?

so alive

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-L41MhFPU9s/maxresdefault.jpg

Ned shared w/me Rod Dreher's wheelbarrow of dung, but this paragraph struck me:

I have heard an argument that Roberts joined the majority in order to retain the right to assign the opinion. If Roberts had joined the other three in the losing dissent, Justice Ginsburg would have written the majority opinion, which would have looked different from what Gorsuch wrote. In other words, the chief justice made a strategic move to protect as much religious liberty as he could in the face of a conservative loss. The logic is: better a 6-3 decision with a conservative justice writing for the majority than a 5-4 decision with a liberal justice doing so. This may be the case; I don’t know. Keep it in mind, though; Roberts might not be the villain many of us social conservatives think he is.

Note the last sentence.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9d/86/28/9d8628720ddb92a3bbb3059789834944.png

the real test, of course, is how they will vote in the election :/