U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Ginsburg Edition

tbf, the incompetence of the Texas AG and the utterly threadbare qualities of this law may be the saving grace here, but that's a small comfort in the grand scheme of things

To me it sounds like Barrett, Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch and maybe others may rule procedurally that this has to play out in the Texas courts first as in their view the chilling of the constitutional right here is not more severe than the chilling of other constitutional rights that have occurred ( 2nd a gun rts and 1st amendment religion ones)

The conservative justices are going to go out of their way to save the Texas attorney general

Kav sounded disturbed at the thought that anti-gun AGs will enforce similar laws.

98 percent of the time, yeah. But Kav sounded like he was on the fence.

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, November 1, 2021 11:24 AM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lmao, he's on the fence like Susan Collins is always on the fence.

I think the fact that there is no state-level recourse is a much stronger argument than the idea that some other state might do this but with guns

Another state might do this but with guns - at least this would force them to explicitly overrule Roe v. Wade, which they sort of don't want to do (they do want to do it, but via the back door).

Amy Coney Barrett now suggests that, due to the way the Texas law is written, clinics cannot fully vindicate their constitutional rights in state court. "The full constitutional defense cannot be asserted in the defensive posture, am I right?" she asks. Big remark from Barrett.

— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) November 1, 2021

xp

1. another state is never going to do this with guns

2. the SC can say it applies here, but not over here. There is no one to force them to be consistent.

it's not about who can make a more convincing argument

My take is that the Texas legislature and AG know that their willingness to endorse a crazy-ass law to effectively end abortions in Texas has nearly zero political cost, so they are quite willing to go to the SCOTUS with a nonsense argument in its favor, but the conservative justices know they would have to sign on to a written opinion in this case and it will have to make some kind of legal sense, because any argument they endorse in their opinion could affect vast swathes of settled precedents and procedures in ugly ways if the written opinion is just a pile of crazy nonsense. They need something halfway sane to hang their opinion on.

I think they probably do still see it that way a bit, but that they are also quickly learning that none of it matters and they can do whatever they want

I think these conservative justices really wish they could sign off on this, and it really really pains them that they probably can't, being able to do whatever they want aside. someone was asking from the bench, the brief window while I was listening, about whether a state government could pretty much do the exact same law with any constitutional right, from gun control, to same sex marriage to obtaining contraceptives, anything. I think there was a specific example about integrating the schools. and the lawyer for I presume Texas said, well, then it's up to the states to enforce the constitutionality. and the justice replied, well, that's not what happened in 1957 at all. The states totally didn't respect the constitutionality.

I'm starting to feel encouraged that SCOTUS might not let this stand, but at the same time I feel like there is a long history of the conservative court deciding not to let us descend into total hellscape at the last minute, such that we are thankful to have made only incremental steps toward hellscape.

Is the idea of packing SCOTUS dead now? Would it even be wise?

Esp in light of Manchin/Sinema wrecking ball elsewhere in politics?

was it ever alive?

It had a slightly detectable pulse right after the Barrett confirmation, but Biden backed off it, largely because it was too abstruse for the general population to understand. It's a dead issue, at least until the SCOTUS commits an outrage so massive that it makes people want to burn the court down.

It had a slightly detectable pulse right after the Barrett confirmation, but Biden backed off it

ah, because had Biden not backed off, it would surely be a one deal now

what with the support of the mighty Joe Biden and his imperial ability to change stuff

*done deal

an outrage so massive that it makes people want to burn the court down.

The planet will burn down before the Court does it for us.

Um, I think I indicated that it never had very robust support, YMP. I mentioned Biden because as long as he left the door ajar that he might consider backing it, it was barely alive, but the moment he publicly backed off it was completely and thoroughly dead.

cool, Aimless - didn't intend a dig at you. Rather I get a little grumbly at the general air of "Democrats could accomplish X if they wanted to" which is sometimes true! and sometimes not!

I think we are finding out what the limitations of razor-thin majorities, a presidency just barely hanging on, and a fragile coalition

Especially given the headwind of utterly committed and ruthlessly efficient lockstep obstruction

Like, Rs are incompetent in so many ways, just not this one. They have become really good at saying No regardless, No always, No entirely, because fuck you

that's called Murc's law and it's all over this board and Twitter always

I think these conservative justices really wish they could sign off on this, and it really really pains them that they probably can't

Maybe, I dunno. At least some of the conservative justices have an appreciation for the form of the law, and that Texas bill is so wonky in so many ways that I'd think it would offend some of them just on principle. Plus the courts are already full to the brim with cases that will give them the chance to narrow or jettison Roe if they want to, it's hard for me to see them endorsing this particular construction. It would absolutely set a precedent for private-cause-of-action laws that could be applied to just about anything.

Yeah that's what I meant, more or less. That I bet they wish they could sign off on it, but it's just soooo dumb and dangerous they can't accept it. (Unless they accept it, of course.) The big waste of time mystery is that the only reason this is happening at all is because the five conservatives let it go forward via the shadow docket or whatever, which begs the question: if the law is so beyond the pale wrong and dangerous, then why did they leave it in place at all to work its way through the courts? This is exactly the sort of law that *shouldn't* be allowed to stand while it works its way through the courts, and clearly at least a couple of the conservatives recognize that, whatever they ultimately decide.

Cause-of-action laws are a pernicious development. Our Legislature used one to get around the Biden Education Dept. saying they couldn't force transgender students to use their "birth gender" bathrooms. The law gives parents a right to sue the school system if their child encounters someone of the "opposite birth gender" in a bathroom or locker room.

NY gun law looks likely to be struck down in part . Can't infringe on those conservative expanded gun rights

In a colloquy with New York’s solicitor general, Justice Alito expresses empathy for working class New Yorkers forced to brave the city’s allegedly crime-infested subways on the way home from work, asking: Don’t they need to carry concealed guns to protect themselves?—Mark Joseph Stern tweet

i listened to that clip. it is insane. he's suggests that anybody who has to travel on the subway at midnight must be aware of the danger and is probably carrying a gun already or should be.

That's always been the suggestion from gun nuts: if no one knows who's carrying, criminals won't be as likely to commit crimes. And yet, with many people carrying, crime continues. The only solution, obviously, is still more concealed guns.

this sense of an ever present danger is the thing that I have the hardest time wrapping my head around. The people that seem to feel this the most also seem to be the people with the least direct experience with these common situations like riding a subway or whatever. I could just be over-generalizing though.

that's always been a thing. It's the people who are close enough to cities that they're on their radar, but far enough to not actually have any real experience with them, thus your relatives in New Jersey voting for Trump.

https://i.imgur.com/OG8GqtO.gif?noredirect

what a dick--I can't imagine being a public figure and pulling that shit. he knows he's on camera. virtue signaling??

this sense of an ever present danger is the thing that I have the hardest time wrapping my head around. The people that seem to feel this the most also seem to be the people with the least direct experience with these common situations like riding a subway or whatever.

Yeah this is me w/r/t my exurban in-laws: yo nobody is commando-crawling up your half-mile driveway to steal your Precious Moments figurines. Your neighbors are 110% rural white Christians, they have their own damn figurines

These assholes are never challenged -- the one branch of government where their opponents don't even get to denounce them in public. I'm going to assume he forgot the camera was on precisely because Alito and his ilk (I include Breyer) think they're above criticism.

here we go

I'm so unused to Thomas talking that I couldn't recognize his voice.

ustice Sotomayor: "The sponsors of this bill, the House bill, in Mississippi, said we're doing it because we have new justices...Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception, that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?"

She was awesome.

I salute those of you who can handle watching this live, I think I’d be too tense.

Kavanaugh is using these arguments to claim that "returning abortion to the states" is the new middle ground. I think this is pretty clearly over. There are obviously five votes to overturn Roe v. Wade.

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) December 1, 2021

fuck these fucking motherfuckers

This question from Amy Coney Barrett is basically game over for Roe. She says: Now that all 50 states have "safe haven" laws that let women relinquish parental rights after birth, the burdens of parenthood discussed in Roe and Casey are irrelevant, and the decisions are obsolete. pic.twitter.com/omyhGISVmN

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) December 1, 2021

So basically you can drop your kid off at the fire station

fuck any stupid motherfucker that told me "Trump can't do that much damage, get over it". fuck right the fuck off.

Amy must be some kind of superhuman to have given birth to 5 kids and not felt any burden from them until after they were born.

and if she did it doesn't matter. As a super Catholic she thinks it's her lot in life to suffer.

Weird that non-Donald Trump Republicans get discussed as possible 2024 nominees. Trump can run as the president who finally appointed enough conservative justices to overturn Roe. Nobody's beating him in a primary.

— David Weigel (@daveweigel) December 1, 2021

So, in about 3 seconds on Twitter, not only is Roe v. Wade entirely dead, but Trump wins again in 2024 and by a landslide. Got it.