U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Ginsburg Edition

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/coney-barrett-christian-law-fellowship-blackstone/2020/09/27/7ae41892-fdc5-11ea-b555-4d71a9254f4b_story.html

Barrett was a paid speaker five times, starting in 2011, at the Blackstone Legal Fellowship, a summer program established to inspire a “distinctly Christian worldview in every area of law,” tax filings show. It was founded to show students “how God can use them as judges, law professors and practicing attorneys to help keep the door open for the spread of the Gospel in America.”

The Blackstone program is run by Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal advocacy group whose founding leader has questioned the “so-called separation of church and state” as it is often understood. In the years Barrett spoke there, the fellowship’s suggested reading list included a book co-written by the same leader that lamented how Christians for too long had been “AWOL from the courthouse.”

When Barrett was before the Senate in 2017, to be confirmed as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, she was asked about those speaking engagements and grilled particularly on ADF’s stance on gay rights. Senators did not address the program’s goal of connecting Christian teachings to the practice of law, which has been little noted in the context of Barrett’s role on the courts.

“I would never impose my own personal convictions upon the law,” Barrett said at the time, when asked whether her deeply held faith was at odds with her ability to render impartial judgments.

oh never

RECUSE AMY, RECUSE

Biden about to announce new student loan actions

Barrett was a paid speaker five times, starting in 2011, at the Blackstone Legal Fellowship, a summer program established to inspire a “distinctly Christian worldview in every area of law,” tax filings show. It was founded to show students “how God can use them as judges, law professors and practicing attorneys to help keep the door open for the spread of the Gospel in America.”

Constantly shocked that right-wing religious nuts are true believers and not just running a 250-year con.

Not so shocking to me. The vilest posts I've seen on social media from people I distantly know (mainly bigotry against the LGBT community and Muslims) all come from people who wear Christianity on their sleeves and try to "outpious" everyone else. To be clear, I think they're in the minority - most practicing Christians I know do not remotely have the same prejudices - they just seem like moronic assholes who warp religion to mentally justify their own disgusting beliefs.

Also per Alfred, some more details:

In his remarks just now, Biden said using the Higher Education Act would take longer than his original plan, but he called it “legally sound” and said, “In my view, it’s the best path that remains to providing as many borrowers as possible with debt relief.” He said that he had directed his team to move forward as quickly as possible, and that Education Secretary Miguel Cardona had just taken the first step to start the process.

(Some people had proposed that the Biden administration use the Higher Education Act to grant student debt relief before the administration instead used the pandemic emergency law to do so. In February 2021, for example, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts introduced a resolution urging that step.)

Here’s a seven-page paper from September 2020 by Harvard Law School’s Legal Services Center, commissioned by Senator Warren, explaining how the Higher Education Act could be used to cancel student debt. (One of the authors of that paper, Toby Merrill, now works at the Education Department as a deputy general counsel.)

Not so shocking to me. The vilest posts I've seen on social media from people I distantly know (mainly bigotry against the LGBT community and Muslims) all come from people who wear Christianity on their sleeves and try to "outpious" everyone else. To be clear, I think they're in the minority - most practicing Christians I know do not remotely have the same prejudices - they just seem like moronic assholes who warp religion to mentally justify their own disgusting beliefs.

Yeah i mean tbh God is love and if people don’t want to live in communion with their fellow humans because they believe some hateful shit, that’s on them.

The US and western society in general tends to make people believe that there are only so many resources to go around, when in fact, there is plenty. So much of the hatred and lack of understanding of others comes from this sense of false scarcity, a false consciousness that all resources need to be hoarded. Getting people out of this mindset is really the only way things will change, and tbh, I’m not hopeful. I just don’t understand why people don’t want to live in fellowship, even tolerance, of the people around them. It’s not Christian— it’s nihilism. It’s the very root of evil.

yes i am stoned and spent three hours climbing today, my hippie is coming out

That’s okay, just don’t tell Mary Woronov. #onethread

I want to rant here and am sorry in advance if it offends people

I don't blame RBG. She should have retired when she had the chance, yes, but that wouldn’t have changed the current ideological make-up of the Supreme Court or the recent decisions, it would just have meant 5-4 instead of 6-3 decisions for the conservative majority.

I blame Mitch McConnell, who for a whole year blockaded Obama’s Garland nomination until Trump was elected, and then when RBG died in late 2020 shoved Barrett’s nomination through the Senate in a record 8 days just before the 2020 election! He considers it his crowning achievement, and I guess it is if you’re looking at from a completely predatory partisan point of view

I also blame the voters in 2016 who sat out the election because they didn’t like Hillary’s laugh or thought she was shrill (exactly like with Harris today), or who believed all of the malevolent propaganda that the GOP had been repeating about her over and over again since the 90s (I remember it vividly, since 1992!), or who sat out the election because ‘Bernie was shafted’ or who voted for Jill Stein out of protest, or who actually thought Trump would be the lesser of two evils.

I know many people in my dark blue state who just couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Hillary, and all I could think was, are you that brainwashed? I see those voters now, some of them my family members, as narcissistic, selfish, uncaring and unwilling to see the future consequences for other more vulnerable people. It was just incredibly disappointing.

People should really examine where their received ideas are coming from, seriously, because a lot of them are hammered down from right-wing propaganda over years and years, filtered through mainstream media

I agree with most of your first three tweets.

ok rant over, want to say just be strategic and vote for the lesser of two evils likely to win whenever you get the chance, and VOTE!

People in a dark blue state voting for Hilary wouldn’t have changed anything

I think he was ranting about the mindset more than the strategic implications within the electoral college.

that wouldn’t have changed the current ideological make-up of the Supreme Court or the recent decisions, it would just have meant 5-4 instead of 6-3 decisions for the conservative majority.

Roe v. Wade would have been a big exception. They needed five to rule specifically overturn it, but Roberts did not join the majority on that count. (Barrett did.)

I blame Mitch McConnell, who for a whole year blockaded Obama’s Garland nomination until Trump was elected, and then when RBG died in late 2020 shoved Barrett’s nomination through the Senate in a record 8 days just before the 2020 election! He considers it his crowning achievement, and I guess it is if you’re looking at from a completely predatory partisan point of view

This above all, but what's really galling is that the GOP gets away with it. McConnell's big concern was repercussions in the form of voter backlash, but he kept rolling the dice because more often than not, it did not materialize. (see 2016 when the GOP held on to Senate control, or rather the post immediately following the one I just quoted)

*rule specifically to overturn

Many actual leftists refused to vote for Hillary because, well, her actual record? Believe it or not, Dan, there are people who don’t think feminism, the environment, or gay rights end at the borders of the US, and admitting to aiding and orchestrating a coup from arch-conservatives in Honduras was enough for me to say, “I will not vote for this person.” HRC seemed perfectly fine with government death squads killing lesbian and indigenous environmentalists in Honduras, so excuse me if I take such policy at its face value and refuse to excuse it with my vote.


(I also knew that my vote in a deep blue state didn’t mean much, and blaming individuals for this shitty quirk of our system is about as petulant as one can get).

I do blame RBG for not retiring — I blame her a lot! 5-4 is a lot different than 6-3, not least because it's only one justice away from flipping the balance. There's no excuse for her not stepping down in Obama's second term, none at all. That said, of course I also blame all the other people Dan S cites. And more broadly I blame a tremendous amount of white liberal complacency that for a long time didn't understand how fragile the gains they they assumed were set actually were. (In some cases, still doesn't, even as they are literally being systemically erased.)

Fwiw, Dan S, I do agree that many of the more mainstream complaints about Hillary— her being “shrill” and so on— are absolutely sexist and I always found it surprising when supposed “liberals” bought into that obviously misogynistic BS.

My issue is that it seems as tho any criticism of Hillary’s actual policy and politics have been irrevocably reduced in many minds as associated with this vile sexism. At times this association exists, but the idea that one can’t have legitimate and serious criticisms of Hillary without being called a “sexist” is absurd and a sign of the failure of the mainstream liberal imagination both in looking beyond the more facile notions of representation as well as demanding more from the people who are supposedly on our side.

I think you can recognize Hillary's many faults and still think she mostly (barely) lost because of sexism.

well now it hardly matters who's in office as any progressive gains are likely to be wiped out indefinitely by SCOTUS unless one or more justices dies/retires (the latter ain't gonna happen).

it will still matter who's in office imo

I mean obv it would be much worse to have a Republican in office, but when it comes to D-candidates, not so much.

(do not take that as a treatise against running more progressive candidates, because we obviously should and quit thinking about "electability" when nominating candidates, and progressive candidates are STILL more likely to fight harder and find creative ways to respond to shit SCOTUS rulings instead of the Biden shrug. just frustrated that many of us will be dead before the court is restored to any normalcy of operation)

Life was never not going to be an incredible, awful struggle, is basically my worldview the older I get

demanding more from the people who are supposedly on our side.

This.

Well yeah, because we can't demand jackshit from the people who aren't. They want us all locked in Gitmo.

I also blame the voters in 2016 who ... actually thought Trump would be the lesser of two evils.

― Dan S, Sunday, July 2, 2023 11:04 AM (yesterday)

want to say just be strategic and vote for the lesser of two evils likely to win whenever you get the chance, and VOTE!

― Dan S, Sunday, July 2, 2023 11:40 AM (yesterday)

make up your mind!

the debater scores his point

Harvard University says it may still consider race in its admissions process despite the Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action in higher education, maintaining in a statement that the decision allows schools to consider an applicant's racial background, among other factors, provided that the prospective student explains how it has impacted their life. (Per Roberts: "Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant's discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration or otherwise.")

Also, fucking Harvard could maybe spend some of its $55 billion endowment and expand its class size/opportunities.

Their endowment should be appropriated by the state and Harvard disbanded.

that NYT essay table posted up thread was good

here’s a more aggrieved and cynical take: https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/why-the-champions-of-affirmative-action-had-to-leave-asian-americans-behind

As Josh already stated, from same article:

(Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr.,’s opinion in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke) gave schools like Harvard—where, according to a study published in 2017, only four and a half per cent of the student body came from the bottom twenty per cent of the nation’s income earners and fifteen per cent of students came from families who make more than six hundred and thirty thousand dollars a year—the leeway to corrupt the original spirit of affirmative action and turn it into a counting game for rich kids. Harvard did not have to pursue such a comical vision of social justice. It could have vastly expanded its class sizes, relaxed its admissions standards, and cut off its pipelines from exclusive private schools. It could have opened its doors to hundreds of community-college transfers. If Harvard were truly committed to increasing access to an élite education, it could have invested a fraction of its fifty-three-billion-dollar endowment in free college-preparatory academies across America and guided hundreds of poor Black and Latino students through the university’s gates.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/07/supreme-court-term-wrap-unpacking-arrogance.html

Dahlia Lithwick interviewed three court watchers about their reactions to various cases and their observations about where the court is headed: Jamelle Bouie, former Slate writer and current New York Times opinion columnist; Sherrilyn Ifill, former president and counsel of the NAACP and newly named head of Howard University’s inaugural Vernon E. Jordan Jr., Esq. Endowed Chair in Civil Rights; and Steve Vladeck, law professor at the University of Texas and author of New York Times bestseller The Shadow Docket. excerpted their answers to her first question—lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

This is part of Opinionpalooza, Slate’s coverage of the major decisions from the Supreme Court this June. We’re working to change the way the media covers the Supreme Court. Sign up for the pop-up newsletter to receive our latest updates, and support our work when you join Slate Plus.

The month of June has proved to be quite a ride for court watchers. In the first weeks, the Supreme Court surprised us, fracturing in major decisions in all kinds of ways that went beyond the 6–3 splits we witnessed last year. The six-justice supermajority appeared disinclined to tear down quite as much as was expected—at least, they didn’t until things really ramped up at the end of the month, and LGBTQ+ rights, race-based affirmative action, and student debt relief programs were all upended in the span of 48 hours. Now, as the justices head off for their summer vacations—and as recent reporting has shown, with at least some possibly headed for private jets and glacier martinis—the rest of us are left to sort through what it all meant and how to compare it to last year’s Dobbs-shaped black hole.

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On the final episode of Amicus for this term, Dahlia Lithwick interviewed three brilliant court watchers about their reactions to various cases and their observations about where the court is headed: Jamelle Bouie, former Slate writer and current New York Times opinion columnist; Sherrilyn Ifill, former president and counsel of the NAACP and newly named head of Howard University’s inaugural Vernon E. Jordan Jr., Esq. Endowed Chair in Civil Rights; and Steve Vladeck, law professor at the University of Texas and author of New York Times bestseller The Shadow Docket. Below, we’ve excerpted their answers to her first question—lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Dahlia Lithwick: What does each of you clock as a unifying through-line, if one exists, about this past term? How do you connect it to the national earthquake that was the term before?

Sherrilyn Ifill: I have so many thoughts rushing through my head that it’s hard to pick which one. But I think as a top line, it is calling me back to the very first opening session of the Biden Supreme Court Commission. At that time, we had testimony from different experts, and people submitted testimony, and so forth. Niko Bowie testified first, and he offered an incredibly powerful and important and scathing account of the Supreme Court’s counter-democracy role over the course of its existence. He started out by popping the balloon of the idea that the Supreme Court is the place of last resort that has brought us to a more perfect union. And I remember, a number of my colleagues on the commission seemed quite shaken, or maybe some were offended. But there was no doubt that everything that he was saying was true.

And yet, we were doing this task of performing on this commission without seriously engaging the charge for change. And I think we see the consequences of that this year. Obviously, this was a devastating term, but I think really important for our maturation as a democracy in understanding that things are out of balance. And I think it’s time for us to take a very close look at the way in which we have allowed the mythology of the Supreme Court to set itself on top of our democracy, as opposed to being within our democracy. And I think this term best exemplifies that. I think it’s a historic term. I think it’s a term that will define the Roberts Court. And I don’t think it’s the kind of definition that he anticipated or wanted when he took the job.

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Steve Vladeck: I’m going to pick a slightly provocative word, but the more I think about it, the better I think it is. The word of the term, for me, is arrogance. This is a profoundly arrogant institution, and I mean that in multiple respects. Arrogant from the sense of sort of picking and choosing the cases it wants in ways that are not necessarily advancing what the lower courts need, as opposed to the agendas of the justices. Arrogant in the sense of handing down decisions in major cases that really are punts, making you wonder why they took the case in the first place. Like what was the point of granting cert in Moore v. Harper if that was the decision we were going to get out of the court?

Arrogance in sort of turning its back collectively and individually on the idea that it ought to be accountable as an institution, and the justices ought to be accountable. Chief Justice Roberts’ letter in response to Chairman Durbin’s invitation to testify is, I think, actually one of the more important single documents of the term.

And arrogance in the sense that the chief’s majority opinion in the student loan case, I think, is really the bough on the tree of arrogance. Because it says: We are allowed to disagree with each other without you guys telling us that we are somehow undermining the institutional arrangements that guide our country. So, I just can’t get over the arrogance of both the court as a whole and the justices in the majority, for the most part. What’s related to that is that I think that arrogance is a lot more visible now.

oops didn't mean to include some of that Slate ad stuff

Remember everyone, under the Republican justices’ opinion in Citizens United, it’s legal for a billionaire to give a Super Bowl ring to a SCOTUS justice, unless the billionaire says the magic words “this is a bribe I am giving you in return for the following official actions.” https://t.co/JWe629W5KK

— Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) July 9, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/09/us/clarence-thomas-horatio-alger-association.html

But a look at his tenure at the Horatio Alger Association, based on more than two dozen interviews and a review of public filings and internal documents, shows that Justice Thomas has received benefits — many of them previously unreported — from a broader cohort of wealthy and powerful friends. They have included major donors to conservative causes with broad policy and political interests and much at stake in Supreme Court decisions, even if they were not directly involved in the cases.

Justice Thomas declined to respond to detailed questions from The New York Times.

In his early years on the court, Justice Thomas disclosed about 20 private plane flights and an assortment of other gifts, including cigars, a Daytona 500 jacket, a silver buckle and a rawhide coat. After The Los Angeles Times chronicled his gifts and travel in 2004, he stopped disclosing private flights and has seldom reported gifts or other benefits. After the Crow revelations, the justice said that “colleagues and others in the judiciary” had advised him that he did not need to report the hospitality of good friends.

His decision not to disclose many benefits for nearly two decades — beyond trips related to teaching, speeches and attending legal or academic conferences — has made it difficult to track potential conflicts of interest.

Another day another Clarence Thomas corruption story--

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/12/clarence-thomas-aide-venmo-payments-lawyers-supreme-court

Several lawyers who have had business before the supreme court, including one who successfully argued to end race-conscious admissions at universities, paid money to a top aide to Justice Clarence Thomas, according to the aide’s Venmo transactions. The payments appear to have been made in connection to Thomas’s 2019 Christmas party.

Justice Alito tells the @WSJ that Congress has no business policing SCOTUS. "I know this is a con­tro­ver­sial view, but I’m will­ing to say it... No pro­vi­sion in the Con­sti­tu­tion gives them the au­thor­ity to reg­u­late the Supreme Court—pe­riod." https://t.co/tor4akmv75

— Nate Raymond (@nateraymond) July 28, 2023

Impeach Alito & Thomas. That'd fix their wagons.

Yet the SC is dependent on Congress appropriating them money to operate (thinky face emoji).

just say you'll fund me for the rest of my life

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/alito-lays-groundwork-to-scrap-court-financial-disclosure-rules

So while they’re at it, why not scrap the 1978 Ethics in Government Act requirement that the justices file annual financial disclosure reports available for public inspection? The reports are fairly modest in scope, requiring the justices to disclose little more than their outside teaching and book income, spousal place of work, reimbursed travel, and major debts and investments, and each category contains significant exceptions: spousal salary, vacations paid for by “friends” and home mortgages, for example, are all exempted from disclosure.

Some, including Alito, argue that the justices aren’t currently bound by the law. The nine, he said, “voluntarily follow [the] disclosure statutes that apply to lower-court judges and executive-branch officials,” implying it’s been out of the goodness of their hearts that they’ve complied to this point.

But with this shot across the bow, it appears that the Age of Marginal Accountability may soon yield to the Era of You Can’t Make Us.

Here’s how I imagine the lawsuit seeking to overturn the law will proceed:

The effort will have an air of propriety because, for one, it’s not going to be Alito himself who files suit. It’ll be a lower-court judge, probably from Texas, who’s directed to do it, and he’ll file not in Washington, where the office that oversees the disclosure regulations is located, but in a friendly neighboring district.

Maybe he’ll get a few other judges to join him as plaintiffs to give the impression that the filing requirements are burdensome for jurists across the country.