SCOTUS - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

[LFC]

Oct 13, 2022 14:37:25 GMT LFC said:

So much for not causing chaos right before an election.

And here we go.

The Republican National Committee and other major campaign organs of the party on Monday seized on a recent Supreme Court order in an attempt to get undated and incorrectly dated Pennsylvania absentee ballots invalidated for the upcoming elections.

The Supreme Court last week rendered moot a March decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that undated ballots should be counted, as the date or lack thereof has no bearing on whether the individual is qualified to vote. The appeals court found that requiring the date is a technicality that violates the “materiality provision” of the Civil Rights Act.

That decision came from a dispute over the ballots in a 2021 race for a spot on the Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas. The Republican candidate, who lost by a handful of votes, asked the Supreme Court to nullify the appellate court’s decision.

Last week, the Court complied. Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, had written previously that the Third Circuit’s decision was “very likely wrong” and invited an involved party to file a petition for certiorari so the justices could correct it.

The RNC, joined by the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, heeded the conservative justice’s advice and went to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The Republicans are asking that the court uphold the date requirement for the upcoming midterms, invalidate the acting Secretary of State’s guidance that undated ballots should be counted and order that all county boards of election segregate undated or incorrectly dated ballots from the rest.

Acting Pennsylvania Secretary of State Leigh Chapman had issued a statement after the Supreme Court mooted the lower court’s ruling last week.

“Today’s order from the U.S. Supreme Court vacating the Third Circuit’s decision on mootness grounds was not based on the merits of the issue and does not affect the prior decision of Commonwealth Court in any way,” she said. “It provides no justification for counties to exclude ballots based on a minor omission, and we expect that counties will continue to comply with their obligation to count all legal votes.”

While the Republicans argue that counting undated ballots will “erode public trust” in Pennsylvania’s elections at a “vital time” in the country’s history — while conveniently omitting their party’s own role in creating an environment of doubt and conspiracy theories around elections — the political calculus here is clear. Pennsylvania Democrats voted by mail significantly more than Republicans did in 2020. The stakes are all the higher given that Pennsylvania is hosting marquee elections for a critical Senate seat and a governor’s mansion, the occupant of which gets to select the secretary of state.

The GOP organizations are candid in their intent to remove ballots they think will work against Republican candidates.

[goldenvalley]

Oct 18, 2022 19:32:52 GMT LFC said:

Oct 13, 2022 14:37:25 GMT LFC said:

So much for not causing chaos right before an election.

And here we go.

The Republican National Committee and other major campaign organs of the party on Monday seized on a recent Supreme Court order in an attempt to get undated and incorrectly dated Pennsylvania absentee ballots invalidated for the upcoming elections.

The Supreme Court last week rendered moot a March decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that undated ballots should be counted, as the date or lack thereof has no bearing on whether the individual is qualified to vote. The appeals court found that requiring the date is a technicality that violates the “materiality provision” of the Civil Rights Act.

That decision came from a dispute over the ballots in a 2021 race for a spot on the Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas. The Republican candidate, who lost by a handful of votes, asked the Supreme Court to nullify the appellate court’s decision.

Last week, the Court complied. Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, had written previously that the Third Circuit’s decision was “very likely wrong” and invited an involved party to file a petition for certiorari so the justices could correct it.

The RNC, joined by the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, heeded the conservative justice’s advice and went to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The Republicans are asking that the court uphold the date requirement for the upcoming midterms, invalidate the acting Secretary of State’s guidance that undated ballots should be counted and order that all county boards of election segregate undated or incorrectly dated ballots from the rest.

Acting Pennsylvania Secretary of State Leigh Chapman had issued a statement after the Supreme Court mooted the lower court’s ruling last week.

“Today’s order from the U.S. Supreme Court vacating the Third Circuit’s decision on mootness grounds was not based on the merits of the issue and does not affect the prior decision of Commonwealth Court in any way,” she said. “It provides no justification for counties to exclude ballots based on a minor omission, and we expect that counties will continue to comply with their obligation to count all legal votes.”

While the Republicans argue that counting undated ballots will “erode public trust” in Pennsylvania’s elections at a “vital time” in the country’s history — while conveniently omitting their party’s own role in creating an environment of doubt and conspiracy theories around elections — the political calculus here is clear. Pennsylvania Democrats voted by mail significantly more than Republicans did in 2020. The stakes are all the higher given that Pennsylvania is hosting marquee elections for a critical Senate seat and a governor’s mansion, the occupant of which gets to select the secretary of state.

The GOP organizations are candid in their intent to remove ballots they think will work against Republican candidates.

That's insane.  No one argued that the ballots were not in the elections office by the close of Election Day.  They were there on the appointed day, not late.  The date or lack of it is a useless technicality in light of all the circumstances. 

[LFC]

Oct 19, 2022 3:47:37 GMT goldenvalley said:

That's insane.  No one argued that the ballots were not in the elections office by the close of Election Day.  They were there on the appointed day, not late.  The date or lack of it is a useless technicality in light of all the circumstances. 

Hillary Clinton's Emails: "The letter of the law is the letter of the law!"

PA Ballot Dates: "The letter of the law is the letter of the law!"

Trump Stealing Classified Documents: "He has executive privilege for the rest of his life so the law doesn't matter!"

[goldenvalley]

Oct 19, 2022 13:31:09 GMT LFC said:

Trump Stealing Classified Documents: "He has executive privilege for the rest of his life so the law doesn't matter!"

Trump and his cult think executive privilege means he can anything he wants, any time he wants.  Maybe in the family owned business world that was true. Trump clearly thought so.

[LFC]

Oct 19, 2022 14:56:11 GMT goldenvalley said:

Trump and his cult think executive privilege means he can anything he wants, any time he wants.  Maybe in the family owned business world that was true. Trump clearly thought so.

Well, Trump is God(tm)'s instrument on Earth so he has even greater privilege than some measly, ordinary president.

[pnwguy]

Oct 19, 2022 13:31:09 GMT LFC said:

Oct 19, 2022 3:47:37 GMT goldenvalley said:

That's insane.  No one argued that the ballots were not in the elections office by the close of Election Day.  They were there on the appointed day, not late.  The date or lack of it is a useless technicality in light of all the circumstances. 

Hillary Clinton's Emails: "The letter of the law is the letter of the law!"

PA Ballot Dates: "The letter of the law is the letter of the law!"

Trump Stealing Classified Documents: "He has executive privilege for the rest of his life so the law doesn't matter!"
"He is God's Chosen One and can do nothing wrong!"

FIFY

"If the Deep State convicts him in a rigged trial, he will directly ascend to Heaven on the wings of angels, before our eyes!"

[LFC]

I'm honestly surprised that they decided Graham must testify. Feels like just another post-election delaying tactic brought to you by Clarence Thomas, the original right-wing partisan hack. They did give him a bit of air cover that, without evidence being presented in court, described what he did as “informal investigative fact-finding.” Uuuuhhhh, yeah.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a request from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to avoid testifying before a Georgia grand jury in a state criminal probe of Trump’s interference in the state’s 2020 election.

The order came without any dissents.

The Supreme Court did reiterate what lower courts held: that Graham can maintain limited, but significant secrecy about his actions in 2020.

Questions that he argues deal with issues around “legislative activity” can remain privileged, the court said — protected by the Constitution’s speech or debate clause. Because of that, the court said, halting the subpoena was “not necessary.”

Graham first appealed to Justice Clarence Thomas, who referred the matter to the full court.

The brief order also described Graham’s actions in 2020 as “informal investigative fact-finding.”

Graham’s activities in Georgia reportedly went further than simple research.

[LFC]

Roberts to the rescue!

Chief Justice John Roberts issued a further delay on Tuesday to the House Democratic majority’s four-year-long effort to obtain President Trump’s tax records.

In a short ruling, Roberts temporarily halted the House from accessing the returns.

Roberts ordered the House to reply to Trump by Nov. 10 — two days after the upcoming midterm elections.

With the Democrats likely to lose control of the lower chamber of Congress, the years that the House Ways and Means Committee spent trying to access the records might soon come to an end. The Roberts-issued delay raises the possibility that Trump may successfully run out the clock.

Roberts did not give a reason for the administrative stay, which essentially preserves the status quo in the case.

[LFC]

A brief history of how a Republican controlled SCOTUS has continually put its thumb on the GOP side of the election scale for decades.

While we await results, here’s a brief thread about something that tends to get lost in the shuffle when we talk about election outcomes: The right-wing Supreme Court tilting the electoral playing field in the GOP’s favor. (1/15)

I’ll start in 1976, with Buckley v Valeo, in which the Supreme Court declared that in campaigns & elections money = speech – thus advantaging the party of big business and wealthy special interests. (2/15)

Buckley v Valeo is why McCain Feingold was doomed to fail; it’s why Citizens United was possible. It’s why overturning Citizens United would be good but inadequate. (3/15)

I’ll skip ahead to 2000, when the Supreme Court handed the presidential election to George W. Bush in a 5-4 decision so absurd the Court itself insisted it not be used as precedent.

2 of the 5 justices who handed Bush the White House were appointed by his dad.(4/15)

Up next we have Citizens United, the 2010 case in which the Supreme Court extended its absurd “money = speech” position to invite unlimited corporate spending on elections. Really good news for the party of big business; really bad news for democracy. (5/15)

Let’s pair that with the 2018 Janus decision, one of several decisions in which the Supreme Court has weakened the political power of organized labor. Giving corporations more political power and working people less is a pretty good way to rig elections for Republicans! (6/15)

Circling back now to the big one: In 2013, the Republican Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. The VRA, as you probably learned in grade school, was a pillar of American democracy for more than 50 years, protecting the rights of Black people to vote. (7/15)

The Voting Rights Act was so essential to democracy, it was reauthorized in 2006 by a *unanimous* vote in the Senate. Just seven years later, the Court gutted it, with John Roberts claiming it was no longer necessary because racism is over. Dumb and dishonest. (8/15)

The fallout was as immediate as it was predictable: An immediate avalanche of state and local efforts by Republican politicians to re-write the rules of our elections to make it harder for Black people to vote. (9/15)

Did Roberts and his fellow right-wing justices see these GOP efforts to stop Black people from voting and realize the importance of the Voting Rights Act? Of course not. In the 2021 Brnovich decision the Court eviscerated what was left of the VRA. (10/15)

[goldenvalley]

Nov 10, 2022 16:53:32 GMT LFC said:

A brief history of how a Republican controlled SCOTUS has continually put its thumb on the GOP side of the election scale for decades.

While we await results, here’s a brief thread about something that tends to get lost in the shuffle when we talk about election outcomes: The right-wing Supreme Court tilting the electoral playing field in the GOP’s favor. (1/15)

I’ll start in 1976, with Buckley v Valeo, in which the Supreme Court declared that in campaigns & elections money = speech – thus advantaging the party of big business and wealthy special interests. (2/15)

Buckley v Valeo is why McCain Feingold was doomed to fail; it’s why Citizens United was possible. It’s why overturning Citizens United would be good but inadequate. (3/15)

I’ll skip ahead to 2000, when the Supreme Court handed the presidential election to George W. Bush in a 5-4 decision so absurd the Court itself insisted it not be used as precedent.

2 of the 5 justices who handed Bush the White House were appointed by his dad.(4/15)

Up next we have Citizens United, the 2010 case in which the Supreme Court extended its absurd “money = speech” position to invite unlimited corporate spending on elections. Really good news for the party of big business; really bad news for democracy. (5/15)

Let’s pair that with the 2018 Janus decision, one of several decisions in which the Supreme Court has weakened the political power of organized labor. Giving corporations more political power and working people less is a pretty good way to rig elections for Republicans! (6/15)

Circling back now to the big one: In 2013, the Republican Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. The VRA, as you probably learned in grade school, was a pillar of American democracy for more than 50 years, protecting the rights of Black people to vote. (7/15)

The Voting Rights Act was so essential to democracy, it was reauthorized in 2006 by a *unanimous* vote in the Senate. Just seven years later, the Court gutted it, with John Roberts claiming it was no longer necessary because racism is over. Dumb and dishonest. (8/15)

The fallout was as immediate as it was predictable: An immediate avalanche of state and local efforts by Republican politicians to re-write the rules of our elections to make it harder for Black people to vote. (9/15)

Did Roberts and his fellow right-wing justices see these GOP efforts to stop Black people from voting and realize the importance of the Voting Rights Act? Of course not. In the 2021 Brnovich decision the Court eviscerated what was left of the VRA. (10/15)

While in the Deep South states the point is to stop Black people from voting in other states like Texas and Arizona it is to stop brown people from voting too. 

[LFC]

It's tough to pass Clarence Thomas as SCOTUS's most corrupt shitbag but Sam Alito appears to have been working on doing just that for a while.

In a statement issued through a court spokesperson, Justice Samuel Alito denied leaking information about the U.S. Supreme Court’s then-upcoming decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. to Christian activists and friends with whom he dined on June 3, 2014.

The Hobby Lobby opinion, issued less than 30 days later on June 30, 2014, allows closely held private companies to deny medical coverage for contraceptives if the religious beliefs of company owners forbade such devices.

Alito’s denial that he played a role in any leak of the Hobby Lobby holding was reported by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and NBC News. The denial was issued in response to an explosive New York Times piece published Saturday morning. In it, the Rev. Rob Schenck, a onetime conservative Christian leader who has now aligned himself with more progressive causes, described a significant network of wealthy operatives — of which he was a part — who collectively sought to meet and make their views known to various justices and Supreme Court staffers through social events and through donations and functions involving the Supreme Court Historical Society.

According to the Times, Schenck said he was made aware of the Hobby Lobby ruling after Gayle Wright, one of his so-called “star donors,” and her since-deceased husband Don Wright, both of Ohio, dined with Alito and his wife at the justice’s home.

“The evidence for Mr. Schenck’s account of the breach has gaps,” the Times admitted.

However, the newspaper did link to and publish a letter reportedly written by Schenck to Chief Justice John Roberts over the summer. The letter claims “a donor” — who Schenck reportedly told the Times was Gayle Wright — leaked the Hobby Lobby holding to him after the aforementioned dinner with Alito. The letter then offers assistance should the Court wish to probe either the purported Hobby Lobby leak or the more recent leak of Alito’s eventual majority opinion to overturn the abortion rights previously enshrined in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

Additional New York Times interviews with Schenck’s relatives and associates generally indicated that Schenck prepared a pro-Hobby Lobby public relations push in the lead-up to the release of the opinion and ignored questions about whether materials in the alternative — if the court ruled against the evangelically-driven craft store chain — should be prepared in advance.

Of course he denies it but this is interesting to compare to his shrill whining over the leak of his anti-abortion decision.

[LFC]

Dems want answers on the Hobby Lobby leak.

Two senior Democrats in Congress are demanding that Chief Justice John Roberts detail what, if anything, the Supreme Court has done to respond to recent allegations of a leak of the outcome of a major case the high court considered several years ago.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) are also interested in examining claims about a concerted effort by religious conservatives to woo the justices through meals and social engagements. They wrote to Roberts on Sunday, making clear that if the court won’t investigate the alleged ethical breaches, lawmakers are likely to launch their own probe.

It's not the first time right-wing partisan hack SCOTUS has been asked about their blatant conflicts of interest. The article mentions this incredible conflict of interest.

At an evangelical victory party in front of the Supreme Court to celebrate the downfall of Roe v. Wade last week, a prominent Capitol Hill religious leader was caught on a hot mic making a bombshell claim: that she prays with sitting justices inside the high court. “We’re the only people who do that,” Peggy Nienaber said.

This disclosure was a serious matter on its own terms, but it also suggested a major conflict of interest. Nienaber’s ministry’s umbrella organization, Liberty Counsel, frequently brings lawsuits before the Supreme Court. In fact, the conservative majority in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which ended nearly 50 years of federal abortion rights, cited an amicus brief authored by Liberty Counsel in its ruling.

In other words: Sitting Supreme Court justices have prayed together with evangelical leaders whose bosses were bringing cases and arguments before the high court.

And then of course there's the classic case of Clarence Thomas "forgetting" to report $300,000 his wife made attacking the ACA, only to turn around and say there was no need to recuse himself from any ACA cases. Ditto Antonin Scalia who went on all expenses paid hunting trips with Dick Cheney and then said there was no need to recuse himself from a case specifically against Cheney. Of course they howled about the liberal side of the court needing to recuse themselves multiple times.

[LFC]

SCOTUS ruled that Trump has to turn over his tax records. Why? This explains it perfectly.

Aaron 🇺🇸
@bobbybigwheel

The Supreme Court is best understood as a group of DeSantis voters

[LFC]

Alito is giving Thomas a run for his money in the contest to be the worst SCOTUS justice. This was just f***ed up. Welcome to the highest court in the land.

So Much Wrong Here

Oral arguments before the Supreme Court on Monday in a closely watched public accommodation case were, I think the legal term is, a “shitshow.”

Dahlia Lithwick has the best rundown on all the egregious ways in which the shifting tone of the court played out in a case about whether a Colorado website developer could hypothetically refuse to sell her product to same-sex couples:

[T]he secret sauce here is to make the actual names and actual faces and actual suffering of the parties in any case about competing rights as small as possible, because then it is easier to rule against them and act like the consequences will be minimal.

Justice Samuel Alito – thin-skinned, mean-spirited, and graceless – was outdone by Justice Elena Kagan and reacted with a wtf moment:

As if that weren’t enough, Alito aimed his misguided “humor” at Kagan twice:

Thomas is more corrupt for sure but long ago he at least learned, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

[LFC]

Strap in. We're about to see if right-wing partisan hack SCOTUS is going to dismantle free and fair elections in any part of America where Republicans have gained control of the state legislature.

In Moore v. Harper—scheduled for oral argument on Wednesday, Dec. 7—the Supreme Court will decide whether to resurrect the previously dead “Independent State Legislature Theory”–in a way that some commentators believe may pose “an existential threat to our democracy” and could enable “the Republican blueprint to steal the 2024 election.”

Proponents of the “ISLT”–Independent State Legislature Theory–believe that the U.S. Constitution bestows unreviewable power upon state legislatures to determine how congressional elections–and by extension Presidential elections–are conducted.

The case is so controversial that more than 70 amicus briefs–“friends of the court”–have been submitted, including everyone from former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to the ACLU, with 48 of them being opposed to the legitimacy of the ISLT.

[LFC]

Kagan brings up the realities of the rather strange, bizarre, and clearly partisan hack created "independent state legislature theory", where a state legislatures control of elections is not bound by the state's own constitution and the state supreme courts have no oversight.

As the Supreme Court confronted the independent state legislature theory on Wednesday, much of the discussion centered on parsing the Constitution, leafing through historical evidence and arguing over the meaning of old cases. 

But Justice Elena Kagan paused the proceedings for a few minutes, expanding on what it would actually mean if state legislatures were allowed to become the only entities empowered to control federal elections, to the exclusion of state courts and state constitutions. It’s a role she’s been stepping into during arguments of late, taking the cases out of legal abstraction to articulate the full scope of the possible harms.

“I’d like to step back a bit and just think about consequences, because this is a theory with big consequences,” Kagan said. 

She then reeled off a list: a legislature could engage in the “most extreme forms of gerrymandering” and there’d be no remedy, even if state courts found that the maps violate their constitutions; legislatures could pass endless voter restrictions without fear of a check; they could strip voter protections; they could even, she pointedly added in a seeming allusion to Donald Trump’s fake electors scheme, insert themselves into the process of certifying elections. 

“You might think that it gets rid of all those checks and balances at exactly the time when they are needed most,” Kagan said. “Because legislators, we all know, have their own self interest: they want to get reelected. So there are countless times when they have incentives to suppress votes, to dilute votes, to negate votes — to prevent voters from having true access and true opportunity to engage the political process.”

Kagan highlighted a truth that has been buried in assertions by the proponents of the ISLT that the state legislatures are closer and more connected to the people than other branches, vesting them with more trustworthiness. In addition to the frequent incentives for legislators to use laws and restrictions to pick their voters rather than the other way around, many legislatures are so egregiously gerrymandered that they are, most often, far to the right of the constituents who elected them. 

Alito continues to be the loudest of the partisan hacks, offering up a question that completely and totally ignores the orders of magnitude difference in power the state supreme courts currently have (simply of veto) and the power he seemingly would give a state legislature (total control with zero oversight or appeal to do ANYTHING they wished, right down to canceling results and creating their own slate of electors).

Justice Samuel Alito seemed to take a shot back at Kagan later in the proceedings. 

“There’s been a lot of talk about the impact of this decision on democracy,” Alito said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Do you think it furthers democracy to transfer the political controversy about redistricting from the legislature to elected Supreme Courts where the candidates are permitted by state law to campaign on the issue of redistricting?” 

Sam Alito is proving himself to be even worse than Antonin Scalia. He effortlessly casts aside the Constitution, consistency applying originalism, precedent, and the language of the law to get to the result he clearly wants; Republican theocratic rule.

[jackd]

Where in the Constitution is it provided that states must have legislatures? Or how they are constituted? Only in state, not federal, constitutions.

[goldenvalley]

Dec 8, 2022 15:58:38 GMT jackd said:

Where in the Constitution is it provided that states must have legislatures? Or how they are constituted? Only in state, not federal, constitutions.

Tangentially the elections clause in the US Const. mentions state legislature.  So there's that.  But maybe we should consult the British Bill of Rights or some other ancient thing too.  Unless that doesn't give us the result we want.  

[LFC]

Dec 8, 2022 15:58:38 GMT jackd said:

Where in the Constitution is it provided that states must have legislatures? Or how they are constituted? Only in state, not federal, constitutions.

One of the earliest legal opinions I read on this noted that the term "legislature" was historically used to denote state government. It did not have the limited meaning it does today. So much for "originalism."

[LFC]

Not every decision they make is an upending of American democracy.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for California to enforce a voter-approved ban in America's most-populous state on flavored tobacco products, rejecting R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company's bid to block it on the grounds that the policy conflicted with federal law.

The justices denied the emergency request by R.J. Reynolds, a unit of British American Tobacco (BATS.L), and other plaintiffs to put on hold the ban on selling all flavored tobacco products in the state - including for vaping - that was overwhelmingly endorsed through a ballot measure on Nov. 8.

Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom in 2020 signed a law to ban products including menthol cigarettes and cotton candy-flavored vaping products, responding to concerns about a rise in e-cigarette and tobacco use by teens.

[goldenvalley]

Dec 13, 2022 17:02:12 GMT LFC said:

Not every decision they make is an upending of American democracy.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for California to enforce a voter-approved ban in America's most-populous state on flavored tobacco products, rejecting R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company's bid to block it on the grounds that the policy conflicted with federal law.

The justices denied the emergency request by R.J. Reynolds, a unit of British American Tobacco (BATS.L), and other plaintiffs to put on hold the ban on selling all flavored tobacco products in the state - including for vaping - that was overwhelmingly endorsed through a ballot measure on Nov. 8.

Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom in 2020 signed a law to ban products including menthol cigarettes and cotton candy-flavored vaping products, responding to concerns about a rise in e-cigarette and tobacco use by teens.

Yeah, that company spent a lot of time and money lobbying while the bill was in the legislature and then seeking to overturn it.  No real tv ad campaign showed up, at least not in my neck of the woods.  One of the BS arguments they made was that this law discriminated against black smokers because it banned menthol flavored cigs, as well as the candy flavored ones. Apparently research shows the black males buy menthol cigs more than other people do.

[LFC]

Dec 13, 2022 17:16:40 GMT goldenvalley said:

Apparently research shows the black males buy menthol cigs more than other people do.

That's why Tuckums is whining about this decision. Oh, yeah. And also ... California.

[LFC]

Prepare for the next wave of judicial destruction, brought to you by right-wing, partisan hack SCOTUS.

The Supreme Court’s reversal of abortion rights last year deviated so much from traditional decision-making that it might have soon appeared an aberration. But now into 2023, the six conservative justices are plainly positioned to remake the law across the board.

Their actions in a series of pending cases, reaching out for issues before they’ve been aired in lower courts and taking precipitous steps on culture war dilemmas, demonstrate that they will continue to defy norms and the usual judicial bounds.

“We are a court of law, not policymakers,” Justice Neil Gorsuch admonished his colleagues in late December, as he dissented from the majority’s latest incursion on immigration policy at the southern border. Gorsuch’s words were not without some irony as he usually joins with his conservative allies moving aggressively on the law.

Liberal justices had warned last June when the majority reversed Roe v. Wade that it had other precedents in its sights. “No one should be confident that this majority is done with its work,” the dissenters wrote.

The court this month is experiencing the relative quiet before the storm of its current session. It will soon begin handing down the first of its decisions for the 2022-23 term, typically saving the most difficult and consequential for later in the spring.

Many of the cases the justices have accepted for the session, including the dispute over Trump-era limits on asylum claims, reflect long-held agenda items of justices on the right wing. This court, for example, seems determined to end policies that consider people’s race to address shortfalls in campus diversity or gaps in voting rights.

Based on oral arguments last fall, the emboldened majority is poised, in cases from Harvard and the University of North Carolina, to eliminate race-based admissions at colleges and an array of practices that have opened the door for more Blacks, Latinos and other racial minorities on campuses.

Lower courts had upheld racial affirmative action, rooted in Supreme Court precedent dating to the late 1970s. No split existed in lower regional courts – the usual grounds for Supreme Court involvement – but the justices granted appeals from conservative advocates who’ve asked the court to overrule the 1978 Regents of the University of California v. Bakke and subsequent decisions upholding the use of race in admissions.

The Supreme Court has also signaled a readiness to continue upending voting rights and election law, in pending cases from Alabama and North Carolina. The Alabama case centers on an essential section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that prohibits racially discriminatory redistricting maps and voting rules.

Even before the court had heard the merits of the case testing the protections of that section, it restored the state legislature’s map providing for only one Black-majority district among seven, despite the state’s 27% Black population. A three-judge panel had said the legislative map diluted the Black vote, and the panel declared that Black voters were sufficiently numerous in the state to merit a second district.

The case comes 10 years after Chief Justice John Roberts wrote a decision that gutted a separate significant section of the VRA. By a 5-4 vote, the court invalidated the provision that required states with a history of racial bias to obtain federal approval before changing electoral rules, for example, related to voter ID requirements.

The high court has also recently fortified its openness to Christian conservatives, agreeing on Friday to hear a case brought by a former mail carrier who sued the US Postal Service after being disciplined for refusing to work on Sundays.

Earlier this term, the justices took up a sweeping challenge to Colorado’s LGBTQ anti-discrimination law, in a case in which the law had not yet been enforced and the factual record unclear. A website designer who said she wants to design wedding sites but forgo services for same-sex weddings because of her Christian beliefs is arguing that the law broadly threatens free speech rights.

[LFC]

The God Squad (tm) is getting ready to potentially create some turmoil. As usual the issue is about the right to freedom of (the right) religion which they clearly want to amplify.

The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it will hear Groff v. DeJoy, a case that could give religious conservatives an unprecedented new ability to dictate how their workplaces operate, and which workplace rules they will refuse to follow.

Yet Groff is also likely to overrule a previous Supreme Court decision that treated the interests of religious employees far more dismissively than federal law suggests that these workers should be treated.

The case, in other words, presents genuinely tricky questions about the limits of accommodating an employee’s religious beliefs. But those questions will be resolved by a Supreme Court that has shown an extraordinary willingness to bend the law in ways that benefit Christian-identified conservatives.

That could lead to a scenario in which the Court announces a new legal rule that disrupts the workplace — and that potentially places far too many burdens on non-religious employees.

I smell a rise of various religions that have some veeeerrry convenient holidays. Of course right-wing, partisan hack SCOTUS will find against them because they're not the one true religion.

[goldenvalley]

Jan 18, 2023 22:24:32 GMT LFC said:

The God Squad (tm) is getting ready to potentially create some turmoil. As usual the issue is about the right to freedom of (the right) religion which they clearly want to amplify.

The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it will hear Groff v. DeJoy, a case that could give religious conservatives an unprecedented new ability to dictate how their workplaces operate, and which workplace rules they will refuse to follow.

Yet Groff is also likely to overrule a previous Supreme Court decision that treated the interests of religious employees far more dismissively than federal law suggests that these workers should be treated.

The case, in other words, presents genuinely tricky questions about the limits of accommodating an employee’s religious beliefs. But those questions will be resolved by a Supreme Court that has shown an extraordinary willingness to bend the law in ways that benefit Christian-identified conservatives.

That could lead to a scenario in which the Court announces a new legal rule that disrupts the workplace — and that potentially places far too many burdens on non-religious employees.

I smell a rise of various religions that have some veeeerrry convenient holidays. Of course right-wing, partisan hack SCOTUS will find against them because they're not the one true religion.

Those convenient holidays might be saints days even for non-Catholics.  My daughter in law is European from a very secular country but they had lots of saints days off. There is at least a Christian gloss on those even for the evangelicals who are so interested in asserting themselves in the public sphere.

And yes there will be disruption and tension.  I realized my kids' pediatrician who is Jewish had ongoing discussion with colleagues over who is on call and who needed to be in the office over the Christmas/New Year's holidays.  The idea was that Jews don't celebrate Christmas so they should cover the whole time while the others did holiday things like going to visit family over the week.  As the pediatrician said...we all have kids and they have the same time off school...we like to visit family during that time too!