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Mr. Nice! posted:He was nominated because the president felt that he was the person that should be the next SCOTUS justice. There is no 10th dimensional chess. I'd qualify that a little bit and say he thought Garland was the right guy given divided government. I don't think Garland will turn out to be another Sotomayor, and I believe that is the sort of justice Obama would actually prefer. At minimum, I think Obama would prefer to cement his legacy with someone younger. But I don't doubt Obama likes the thought of Garland on the bench. Green Crayons posted:I've seen some pieces speculating that Kennedy's leftward drift this term has been because of Scalia's absence. I don't know how much Kennedy was persuaded by Scalia's opinions, so I don't have any basis for vetting the speculation, but its an interesting take of the soft power changes (as opposed to simply the reduction of 1 conservative vote out of 9 votes total) to the Court's dynamic because of Scalia's death. Even if there isn't a major leftward shift for Kennedy's overall jurisprudence, his decision to side with the liberals in both an AA and abortion case is pretty significant. I'm curious to see the extent and duration of this evolution. If I had to guess, I would say it has more to do with wanting to write in the majority. You can get more done by trying to move the majority just enough to get you on board than you can pissing into the wind with dissents. I doubt Kennedy wants to be irrelevant.
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Jul 2, 2016 22:25
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HappyHippo posted:Could it be that he's trying to avoid ties? Like if he's on the fence about a decision, but the options are to vote with the 3 conservatives for a 4-4 decision, or the 4 liberals for a 5-3 decision, might he be more inclined to avoid the tie? Look at his options (in broad strokes). If he sided with the conservatives (or authored an opinion conservative enough to get them on board), then all he would've done is kick the can down the road with a 4-4 ruling. A circuit split would be virtually inevitable, which would force another ruling a year or whatever down the line, and then he probably wouldn't have any negotiating power because the liberals would no longer need his vote. Or he could've done what he did, sided with the liberals on the current case, and won't have to deal with this for the foreseeable future. Bonus with the latter that he gets to write the opinion, although it must be agreeable enough to GSKB that he doesn't lose them. So siding with the liberals now gave Kennedy the most power over the decision that he is likely to get. Compare that to the math of a court with Scalia still alive, where kicking the can down the road isn't (e: much of) an option. That situation would've given Kennedy a lot of negotiating power to moderate one side or the other's opinion, and that probably wouldn't have resulted in the strong ruling we got. IANAL in giant capital letters but still, I think Scalia's absence matters even when the numbers don't immediately suggest it. e: My grammar was apparently a hot mess last night. AtraMorS fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Jul 3, 2016 |
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Jul 3, 2016 03:58
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AtraMorS posted:e: My grammar was apparently a hot mess last night. That wasn't the only thing if you anal in huge capital letters
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Jul 5, 2016 04:39
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Chokes McGee posted:That wasn't the only thing if you anal in huge capital letters
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Jul 5, 2016 05:00
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Second Circuit just denied Brady vs. NFL Please grant cert
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Jul 13, 2016 14:55
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exploding mummy posted:Second Circuit just denied Brady vs. NFL I don't know sports at all, but dude DID cheat
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Jul 13, 2016 15:13
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Very Serious People are tut-tuting about the Notorious RBG saying Donald Trump is a con man who would have a negative impact as President of the United States.
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Jul 13, 2016 16:00
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Really, NYT? Did they forget Scalia's entire career and Thomas' wife actively lobbying against healthcare when it went before his court?
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Jul 13, 2016 16:20
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Discendo Vox posted:I think I was thinking of Alabama: My friend made that documentary, I'm really glad to see it posted out in the wild 
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Jul 13, 2016 16:28
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FlamingLiberal posted:Really, NYT? Did they forget Scalia's entire career and Thomas' wife actively lobbying against healthcare when it went before his court? I don't recall any conservative justice making similar comments and there would have been an outcry if they did. I'm sure they thought them, but I agree that it's inappropriate for RBG to be saying these sorts of things.
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Jul 13, 2016 16:49
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evilweasel posted:I don't recall any conservative justice making similar comments and there would have been an outcry if they did. I'm sure they thought them, but I agree that it's inappropriate for RBG to be saying these sorts of things. In any other election I'd agree. Trump just sucks so much that this is an exception with no future bearing on such decisions. Like Bush v Gore.
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Jul 13, 2016 17:24
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SCOTUS decided a presidential election 16 years ago, the days of them being off-limits or whatever in the political arena are long over
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Jul 13, 2016 17:28
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After recently ruling on that abortion clinic case where for years it's been about "women's health" despite no one of note in the medical field advocating for it and then the entire right wing immediately complaining that this was a serious blow to the rights of unborn babies when it was struck down maybe she's had enough of this sort of bullshit where we just don't say what we mean and have to pretend it's fooling anyone.
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Jul 13, 2016 17:31
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FlamingLiberal posted:SCOTUS decided a presidential election 16 years ago, the days of them being off-limits or whatever in the political arena are long over That they decided Bush v. Gore is one of the reasons that they shouldn't be openly advocating for a candidate. Radish posted:After recently ruling on that abortion clinic case where for years it's been about "women's health" despite no one of note in the medical field advocating for it and then the entire right wing immediately complaining that this was a serious blow to the rights of unborn babies when it was struck down maybe she's had enough of this sort of bullshit where we just don't say what we mean and have to pretend it's fooling anyone. It's part of the job.
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Jul 13, 2016 17:42
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evilweasel posted:I don't recall any conservative justice making similar comments and there would have been an outcry if they did. I'm sure they thought them, but I agree that it's inappropriate for RBG to be saying these sorts of things.
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Jul 13, 2016 17:44
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evilweasel posted:That they decided Bush v. Gore is one of the reasons that they shouldn't be openly advocating for a candidate.
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Jul 13, 2016 17:53
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twodot posted:I don't understand this standard, a conflict of interest is a thing that exists regardless of whether you openly talk about it. Why should it be reasonable for a Justice to believe a thing, but not state that they believe a thing? I could understand it being bad decorum to write "Trump's a poopy head" in an official document of some sort, but if they're allowed to vote, I don't see why they shouldn't express who they plan to vote for and why. A judge's job is to avoid not only an actual conflict of interest, but the appearance of a conflict of interest. There's an obvious increase in the appearance of a conflict of interest if, god forbid, Trump was elected and a signature policy of his came before the Supreme Court. It's also routine for people in certain jobs to be forbidden from openly campaigning. Lower court judges are forbidden from making statements like RBG's, but because there is no higher court than the Supreme Court those rules technically don't apply to the Supreme Court. Now, of course you cannot eliminate the appearance of a conflict of interest given who RBG is and what she believes, as appropriately expressed in her opinions and elsewhere. She's got a right to vote, she's got every right to vote and to make private statements of what she believes in. But making public statements like this dramatically increases the appearance of a conflict of interest, and its her job not to do that. Same as how she can have a private opinion on a case that hasn't been heard at the Supreme Court, but is not supposed to go 'well of loving course i'm voting against Texas' before the case is fully briefed. I love RBG, if she hadn't said this stuff we'd all know she was thinking it, but she still shouldn't have said it.
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Jul 13, 2016 17:58
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FlamingLiberal posted:Ok but she was attacking Trump, not advocating for Hillary unless I missed something For/against, in practice it's the same thing. Probably more problematic, really.
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Jul 13, 2016 17:59
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Like yeah we know he's a piece of poo poo and RBG's retirement is all but settled post-Hillary winning but jfc try to pretend to be objective for just a little while longer.
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Jul 13, 2016 18:01
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evilweasel posted:Now, of course you cannot eliminate the appearance of a conflict of interest given who RBG is and what she believes, as appropriately expressed in her opinions and elsewhere. She's got a right to vote, she's got every right to vote and to make private statements of what she believes in. But making public statements like this dramatically increases the appearance of a conflict of interest, and its her job not to do that. edit: I get "Public statements are strategically unsound, because Trump will incorrectly claim you've done something bad, and generating that fight is worse than whatever positive effect your public statements could have" though. twodot fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Jul 13, 2016 |
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Jul 13, 2016 18:07
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I mean Trump isn't just a conservative whose views RBG disagrees with, he is running on promises of massively problematic poo poo constitutionally. We all know that those promises won't come true, but I think it is reasonable for a justice to have opinions about some of that stuff.
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Jul 13, 2016 18:08
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twodot posted:This is not obvious to me at all. You acknowledge that we already know she holds those opinions, her saying those opinions aloud or in public isn't increasing any information anyone has. This reasoning how leads to results I think are strange. If she can make private statements, what happens when those private statements are made public against her will, does that create an appearance of a conflict of interest and who is at fault for that appearance? I don't think there's any issue at all in differentiating between a judge knowingly doing something that will increase the perceived conflict of interest, and a judge doing something that they have taken efforts (by doing it privately) to prevent it from creating a conflict of interest. That's, like, an incredibly basic distinction we draw all the time. If the judge was dumb about thinking the statements would be private then you can say they were dumb and shouldn't be dumb, but that's a very different thing. And yes, in many cases a lower court judge would be recusing themselves if they accidentally created the appearance of a conflict of interest that way.
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Jul 13, 2016 18:11
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Chin Strap posted:I mean Trump isn't just a conservative whose views RBG disagrees with, he is running on promises of massively problematic poo poo constitutionally. We all know that those promises won't come true, but I think it is reasonable for a justice to have opinions about some of that stuff. I have many, many views that it's reasonable for me to have but not reasonable for me to go to the press with. Like, I'm a lawyer, it is reasonable for me to think privately that some of my clients have a weak case, tell them they have a weak case, discuss with my colleagues they have a weak case, but if I start telling the public that it is a giant loving problem. It's one thing to have opinions, it's another thing to go tell those opinions to a reporter.
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Jul 13, 2016 18:13
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Over / under on RGB recusing if it comes down to a SC case in November?
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Jul 13, 2016 18:58
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Potato Salad posted:Over / under on RGB recusing if it comes down to a SC case in November? 7
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Jul 13, 2016 19:01
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evilweasel posted:I love RBG, if she hadn't said this stuff we'd all know she was thinking it, but she still shouldn't have said it. I think it was Slate that put out an article yesterday saying "she's a judge, and she shouldn't be doing this, but she knows that so it makes what she's saying have that much more weight if she thinks that preventing a Trump presidency is worth burning her credibility to stop.
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Jul 13, 2016 19:06
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Potato Salad posted:Over / under on RGB recusing if it comes down to a SC case in November? About the same as Thomas recusing himself on an ACA case.
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Jul 13, 2016 19:10
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Potato Salad posted:Over / under on RGB recusing if it comes down to a SC case in November? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over–under
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Jul 13, 2016 19:13
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Link is broken.
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Jul 13, 2016 19:26
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When you have a candidate running who professes not to believe in the rule of law, I think normal rules of decorum don't apply. Donald Trump hasn't said "laws suck" in so many words, but he has promised to do many things that are flat-out illegal, notably ordering the army to commit war crimes.
Arsenic Lupin fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Jul 13, 2016 |
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Jul 13, 2016 19:45
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Gyges posted:About the same as Thomas recusing himself on an ACA case. I still maintain that if there's any justice in the last century we can trust to rule on the merits rather than any conflict of interest, it's Clarence "the federal government probably shouldn't exist" Thomas.
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Jul 13, 2016 19:50
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i am very concerned that a judge said something mean about Donald J. Trump
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Jul 13, 2016 19:54
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evilweasel posted:I have many, many views that it's reasonable for me to have but not reasonable for me to go to the press with. Like, I'm a lawyer, it is reasonable for me to think privately that some of my clients have a weak case, tell them they have a weak case, discuss with my colleagues they have a weak case, but if I start telling the public that it is a giant loving problem. It's one thing to have opinions, it's another thing to go tell those opinions to a reporter. Then again, historically, appeasement is not the correct or safe stance to take with fascist scum. And frankly, the ideas that Supreme Court judges must keep their opinions secret or that they do in any meaningful way are myths designed to sanctify the court's political power.
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Jul 13, 2016 19:58
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I can't fully disapprove of RBG commenting on Trump (and definitely don't disagree with what she said) but I think that she should really have considered retiring if she feels she needs to comment on this political race. Of course that's a way higher stakes move as it restores a conservative supreme court and would give Obama's successor 2 new appointments. Of course it would also put a poo poo load more pressure on the Republicans in terms of blocking nominations. Blocking 1 is pretty bad but 2 open spots would be tough to maintain.
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Jul 13, 2016 20:07
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uninterrupted fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Sep 11, 2020 |
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Jul 13, 2016 20:25
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:Then again, historically, appeasement is not the correct or safe stance to take with fascist scum. in the spirit of open honesty this is a stupid statement with no relevance to anything whatsoever that is being discussed and we are all stupider for having read it OneThousandMonkeys posted:And frankly, the ideas that Supreme Court judges must keep their opinions secret or that they do in any meaningful way are myths designed to sanctify the court's political power. Yes, that is exactly the point: that the functioning of the judiciary requires a certain amount of legitimacy and that means that at a basic level maintaining that legitimacy is part of the job, even if you think it's bullshit. The entire point of a court is that, win or lose, people accept the judgment and if you lose that then there's no point.
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Jul 13, 2016 20:53
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Keeshhound posted:I think it was Slate that put out an article yesterday saying "she's a judge, and she shouldn't be doing this, but she knows that so it makes what she's saying have that much more weight if she thinks that preventing a Trump presidency is worth burning her credibility to stop. The key phrase being "worth burning her credibility." Maybe she figures she has credibility to burn. If so, she's probably correct based on what I'm reading here.
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Jul 13, 2016 20:57
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uninterrupted fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Sep 11, 2020 |
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Jul 13, 2016 21:01
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uninterrupted posted:Quote where in the constitution it says that supreme court justices can't air their opinions about political candidates or stop hand-wringing about a vague "loss of legitimacy" in a lifetime appointment position. Really? "Quote the constitution"? Don't you have a Sovcit thread to be writing or something?
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Jul 13, 2016 21:05
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@EvilWeasel: confidence in the supreme court has fallen noticably over the last 15 years or so (with no apparent effect of bush v gore). Hard to say why. in any case, IMO being for or against a particular person for their personal qualities is not a big deal; how often does the SCOTUS make rulings based on someone's personal qualities...? the judges are inherently political, it's partisanship we should discourage....
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Jul 13, 2016 21:06
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