US Supreme Court Discussions

[Frelga]

Once a court sides with the virus, I don't expect to see anything that is not bonkers.

[N.E. Brigand]

First sign of the new reality. It's no longer the Roberts court. It's now the Barrett court.

In a 5-4 ruling, Supreme Court sides with religious groups in a dispute over Covid-19 restrictions in New York

Sotomayor's dissent makes clear the major flaw in Gorsuch's concurrence: New York's rule treated houses of worship the same way it did other places which have "large groups of people gathering, speaking, and singing in close proximity indoors for extended periods of time," like "lectures, concerts, movie showings, spectator sports, and theatrical performances."

She also makes a good point about how the same members of the Court who declined to give any attention to Donald Trump's description of his 2017 travel ban as a "Muslim ban" now feel that Andrew Cuomo's remarks about Covid in New York's Orthodox community deserve scrutiny.

I can't remember: did Trump ever refer to the ban as a "Muslim ban" after the Court ruled in his favor? What would happen if they did? If they ruled that it wasn't really a Muslim ban, and *then* he said, "Actually it was a Muslim ban," could a lower court say: "Based on this new information, the Supreme Court was obviously wrong on the facts, so I'm issuing a new ruling blocking the ban"?

(And more abstractly, what should a lower court do if the Supreme Court makes a ruling that is obviously wrong on the facts? If the Court says that law X is invalid because the sky is green not blue, and everyone knows the sky is actually blue, what do we do about that?)

[Frelga]

Comparing a church to a bike shop seems genuinely bonkers. I hope they at least bothered trying to make more reasonable comparisons at some point.

Or put it another way, if reasonable comparisons could be made, they wouldn't have to resort to the clearly bonkers arguments.

[narya]

I can see a comparison between a religious rally and a sporting or music event. Can you only shout enthusiastically, get warm vibes, or feel ecstacy about certain things/people?

[Inanna]

Interesting reporting on the census/apportionment case in front of SCOTUS:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/30/us/s ... cting.html

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Listening to the oral arguments in the Texas v. U.S. case (the ACA case). Justice Breyer is seriously pissed off.

From what I have heard so far, I am fairly sure that Chief Justice Roberts is not going to vote to overturn the full law. I'm not sure where the fifth vote against overturning the law will come from.

Eta: Justice Sotomayor is pissed off too.

ETAA: Justice Kavanaugh is sounding promising at the moment, though reading judges can be misleading. It sounds like he wants to throw out the mandate but keep the rest of the law.

ETAAA: This is a irrelevant comment, but Justice Barrett voice reminds me of fingernails on a chalkboard.

Breyer did end up writing the decision, and they didn't even reach the merits of the case, so there was no question of throwing out the mandate but keeping the rest of the law. The ruling was that Texas and the other plaintiff's did not have standing to challenge the law because there was no harm to them, and there was not only a fifth vote, but a sixth and seventh. Only Alito and Gorsuch dissented. Even Thomas agreed! And Barratt, after so much todo was made about her criticism of Roberts saving the ACA in the first place.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/17/politics ... index.html

[N.E. Brigand]

Listening to the oral arguments in the Texas v. U.S. case (the ACA case). [...]

Breyer did end up writing the decision, and they didn't even reach the merits of the case, so there was no question of throwing out the mandate but keeping the rest of the law. The ruling was that Texas and the other plaintiffs did not have standing to challenge the law because there was no harm to them, and there was not only a fifth vote, but a sixth and seventh. Only Alito and Gorsuch dissented. Even Thomas agreed! And Barrett, after so much to do was made about her criticism of Roberts saving the ACA in the first place.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/17/politics ... index.html

A talking point being pushed by some in the conservative intelligentsia today is that liberals were foolish to ever have believed that the many conservatives who took this ACA case all the way to the Supreme Court (the third time the ACA has been challenged there) really wanted to overturn the ACA.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I honestly don't even know what that means.

[Frelga]

I have stopped paying attention to anything the right wing says and very close attention to what they do.

[N.E. Brigand]

I honestly don't even know what that means.

I have to run to a meeting, but I think Dave Weigel of the Washington Post sums it up fairly well:

It's not all that different from the Jan. 6 spin. Oh, hah hah, the plan didn't work? Well, joke's on you for thinking we were serious!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I have stopped paying attention to anything the right wing says and very close attention to what they do.

I try to pay attention to everyone, whether I agree with them or not. We are still part of the same human family, whether we want to admit or not.

I honestly don't even know what that means.

I have to run to a meeting, but I think Dave Weigel of the Washington Post sums it up fairly well:

It's not all that different from the Jan. 6 spin. Oh, hah hah, the plan didn't work? Well, joke's on you for thinking we were serious!

That comparison would make more sense to me if it were referring to the dozens of lawsuits trying to overturn the election. E.g., we weren't really trying to prove that there was election fraud; we were just making a point. But what point could Texas et al. have been trying to make when they brought the challenge to the ACA?

However, it is true that very few legal experts even on the right ever thought this lawsuit would get anywhere. It was not until the District Court judge, and to some extent the Circuit Court judges, bought into a legal argument that very few thought had much validity, that it suddenly seemed to be a real threat. It is somewhat heartening that as extreme as the SCOTUS has become in some ways, it still can serve as a buffer against what can only be described as "crazy".

[N.E. Brigand]

This seems like a nasty bit of union-busting from the court today:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/2 ... 7_ihdj.pdf

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I haven't looked at the decision yet, but I thought the same when I saw the headline. Pm the other hand my tentative response to the first amendment decision that was announced today was positive.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

This is news of action that the court refused to take, which is good news.

Supreme Court gives victory to transgender student who sued to use bathroom

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The 6-3 conservative majority flexed its collective muscles in the last two cases of the term, effectively gutting the last remaining enforcement mechanism of the Voting Rights Act (and probably stopping the Justice Department lawsuit against Georgia's new voting restrictions in its tracks), and adding to the harm of Citizen's United by invalidating requirements that the sources of "dark money" campaign contributions be revealed. Not a good day.

Supreme Court says Arizona limits don't violate Voting Rights Act

Supreme Court invalidates California's donor disclosure requirement

[N.E. Brigand]

The 6-3 conservative majority flexed its collective muscles in the last two cases of the term, effectively gutting the last remaining enforcement mechanism of the Voting Rights Act (and probably stopping the Justice Department lawsuit against Georgia's new voting restrictions in its tracks), and adding to the harm of Citizen's United by invalidating requirements that the sources of "dark money" campaign contributions be revealed. Not a good day.

Supreme Court says Arizona limits don't violate Voting Rights Act

Supreme Court invalidates California's donor disclosure requirement

I am assured by conservatives that because the ACLU supported the winning side in the dark money case, that makes it OK.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Well, that's a relief!

[N.E. Brigand]

This is a case where I think Antonin Scalia was right: he wrote in 2010 that the First Amendment doesn't guarantee anonymity.

[N.E. Brigand]

The 6-3 conservative majority flexed its collective muscles in the last two cases of the term, effectively gutting the last remaining enforcement mechanism of the Voting Rights Act (and probably stopping the Justice Department lawsuit against Georgia's new voting restrictions in its tracks), and adding to the harm of Citizen's United by invalidating requirements that the sources of "dark money" campaign contributions be revealed. Not a good day.

Supreme Court says Arizona limits don't violate Voting Rights Act

Supreme Court invalidates California's donor disclosure requirement

As far as the voting rights ruling, here's how I see it. I think Republican state legislators reason as follows: "Non-white voters are less likely to vote for us. Non-white voters are also likely to be poorer than white voters. We can't write rules that explicitly disenfranchise non-white voters. So let's write rules that make it generally harder for everyone to vote. Those rules will disproportionately affect non-white voters and thus will improve our chances in elections."

And here's what the Supreme Court ruled today: "To the extend that minority and non-minority groups with respect to employment, wealth and education, even neutral regulations, no matter how crafted, may well result in some predictable disparities in rates of voting and non-compliance with voting rules."

Maybe the Biden administration should sue the Supreme Court for violating the Voting Rights Act.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The 6-3 conservative majority flexed its collective muscles in the last two cases of the term, effectively gutting the last remaining enforcement mechanism of the Voting Rights Act (and probably stopping the Justice Department lawsuit against Georgia's new voting restrictions in its tracks), and adding to the harm of Citizen's United by invalidating requirements that the sources of "dark money" campaign contributions be revealed. Not a good day.

Supreme Court says Arizona limits don't violate Voting Rights Act

Supreme Court invalidates California's donor disclosure requirement

I am assured by conservatives that because the ACLU supported the winning side in the dark money case, that makes it OK.

Here is an opinion piece by Benjamin Chavis, the former head of the NAACP, making the argument that this case was a big win for civil rights.

US Supreme Court hits a home run for civil rights

I'm skeptical, but I have not read the opinion or the dissent at this time so I am going to refrain from expressing any further thoughts about until I have the opportunity to do so.