U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Nino Edition

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 :/

interesting to go back and read this https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/10/argument-analysis-justices-divided-on-federal-protections-for-lgbt-employees/

The outcome of the two cases could hinge on Justice Neil Gorsuch, who at times appeared sympathetic to the plaintiffs’ argument but also expressed concern about the “massive social upheaval” that he believed would follow from a ruling for them.

#SCOTUS reverses decision by 4th Circuit, upholds permit for $8 billion natural gas pipeline that will tunnel under Appalachian Trail

— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) June 15, 2020

(and the other 6 in favor obv but I don't see their slay queen memes)

I may have actually injured a lung laughing at the mental image of a Clarence Thomas "YAAAAAAAAAS SLAY QUEEN" meme

https://www.denverpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Supreme_Court_Clarence_Thomas_21940.jpg

https://www.gstatic.com/tv/thumb/persons/985730/985730_v9_aa.jpg

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS

I worked as quickly as I could

https://i.imgflip.com/458lbi.jpg

GO GIRL

hahahahaha

The law school meme group is on fire today pic.twitter.com/1Ea4HgGr1V

— Detective Pikajew wants Bill de Blasio gone (@clapifyoulikeme) June 15, 2020

gotta say, gorsuch can write

Yeah, the paragraphs I quoted and the way he (or his clerks) wrote crystalline prose throughout meant he had non-lawyers in mind.

This Gorsuch decision is not originalist in any way; he acknowledges as much. It is simply a bad, outcome-driven legal decision. And it throws religious liberty, free speech, and employment law into complete turmoil.

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 15, 2020

mmmmmm delicious tearx

Gosh what are plainspoken decent Americans going to do if they can't discriminate against gay and trans people?? Such turmoil, so upheaval

what "turmoil"?

Well there's obviously going to be turmoil the instant a gay person needs to be fired for being gay and their employer has to invent some other excuse. It'll be chaos!

cynically, at-will employment laws in many states mean all gay/trans people will now just be documented as "lazy"
it's still a great ruling and good step

Tossing out at-will laws is a whole other battle that needs to happen.

Having not yet read the opinion, I can say this seems to bring Title VII in line with California law. So, Mr. Shapiro, no real turmoil here.

wait hang on a second

The question came to the court in three different cases, all argued on the same day last October. Donald Zarda, a skydiving instructor, and Gerald Bostock, a child-welfare-services coordinator for Clayton County, Georgia, filed lawsuits in federal court alleging that they were fired because they were gay, which violated Title VII. In Zarda’s case, which was continued by his estate after he died in a base-jumping accident in 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit agreed with Zarda that Title VII bars discrimination based on sexual orientation.

a very good decision by his executor. the costs of the suit, plus damages, will probably be awarded to his estate.

Intentionally burning down a neighbor’s house is arson, even if the perpetrator’s ultimate intention (or motivation) is only to improve the view.

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/104435162_10163654192200304_7525541803262283713_o.jpg?_nc_cat=107&_nc_sid=dbeb18&_nc_ohc=68-04CRt3ikAX8OePDC&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-1.xx&oh=8ee017cf244aaf8c813ad98c687f4575&oe=5F0C3929

i made that for u guys

*bows*

NY Times op-ed by U. of Texas Law Professor re one of the things the majority of the current court is doing--

But for all of the attention that we pay to these “merits” cases on the court’s docket, the Trump administration, with a majority of the justices’ acquiescence, has quietly racked up a series of less visible — but no less important — victories by repeatedly seeking (and often obtaining) stays of lower-court losses.

Such stay orders are generally unsigned and provide no substantive analysis. But they nevertheless have the effect of allowing challenged government programs to go into full effect even though lower courts have struck them down — and often when no court has ever held them to be lawful in the first place.

Until the Trump administration, they were exceptionally rare. But they have become almost commonplace in the past three years, clearing the way for the president to proceed with many of his most controversial policies without a final determination of their legality.

during the 16 years of the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, the government asked the justices for such emergency relief only eight times — and the justices granted half of the applications. Moreover, none of the eight decisions to grant or deny such relief was 5-4.

But in just three years, the Trump administration’s Justice Department has sought 29 emergency stays from the Supreme Court — including 11 during the court’s current term alone. And the justices, or at least a majority of them, have largely acquiesced, granting 17 of the applications in full or in part, rulings that have had significant and lasting ramifications on the ground — and that have often been quite divisive on the court.

It was a partial stay from the Supreme Court that allowed President Trump to put much of his travel ban into effect until the policy was revised in late 2017. A stay from the Supreme Court allowed the president to divert military construction funds to help build his border wall. And stays from the court have allowed the administration to keep enforcing an array of asylum policies — like the “Remain in Mexico” program and the public-charge rule — that have come under fierce legal criticism.

At the very least, if the justices mean to change the rules for when government litigants should be allowed to obtain emergency relief, they should say so. Otherwise, the court’s behavior in these cases gives at least the appearance of undue procedural favoritism toward the government as a litigant — a “disparity in treatment,” as Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned in February, that “erodes the fair and balanced decision making process that this Court must strive to protect.”

Especially when that disparity seems to repeatedly favor conservative policies over progressive ones, it gives at least the appearance that the court is bending over backward to accommodate a particular political agenda — a message that, now more than ever, all of the justices should be ill inclined to send.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/17/opinion/supreme-courts-trump-relief.html?action=click&algo=bandit-story&block=more_in_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=156040531&impression_id=639045339&index=0&pgtype=Article®ion=footer

court rules against Trump’s plan to end DACA!

BREAKING Court invalidates Trump Administration's recission of DACA

— Todd Zwillich (@toddzwillich) June 18, 2020

(It bore repeating.)

Well the ruling was against how he went about it, so I guess they can take another run at it if he wins in nov

Second (and *not* last) #SCOTUS decision is in June Medical. Court *strikes down* Louisiana abortion ban.

4-1-4, with Chief Justice Roberts concurring in the judgment:https://t.co/4VQgovHgjK

— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) June 29, 2020

Money quote from Roberts' concurrence in the judgment, which goes on for 16 pages: pic.twitter.com/1s5D2d0VhJ

— Cristian Farias (@cristianafarias) June 29, 2020

I think I actually feel a trace of optimism for this country for the first time since Reagan was elected

has someone awakened Susan Collins from her faint

You're saying because she voted for him, thinking abortion safe? I'd love to have her gone, but didn't she spike up in her polling again? You think people will be sophisticated enough to turn this against her again?

She’s like nine points behind her democratic challenger according to what I just read

https://d279m997dpfwgl.cloudfront.net/wp/2019/03/AP_18334546967309.jpg

oh I see Roberts has now gotten back to destroying the country

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/06/supreme-court-espinoza-montana-religious-schools.html

correct!

he's only interested in preserving the reputation of the court as being free from outside influence. in these lower public profile cases, he's more than fine with shitting out these garbage rulings.

really didn't need to read this before it was time to sleep but thanks for sharing, cos I would have otherwise missed it tomorrow.

"Thomas, joined by Gorsuch, asserted that the very concept of separating church and state “communicates a message that religion is dangerous and in need of policing, which in turn has the effect of tilting society in favor of devaluing religion.”

you're saying that like it's a bad thing, guys.