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Chief
Pro
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A preview of today’s hearings, same as before.
Rising Star
That ad algorithm though...
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Chief
Yes. It's a mathematical certainty. It will happen.
I hope all those Jill Stein protest votes in 2016 were worth it.
Rising Star
i voted for her despite her shortcomings. One of the least capable democratic candidates was far and away a better leader than Trump, Bush, and Reagan. You can make the case for H.W. but otherwise it isn’t close.
Chief
The Supreme Court cant and won’t “completely strike down abortion.” What they can and will do is overrule or substantially limit Roe v Wade, which made it illegal for states to enact or enforce many restrictions on abortion. Alito and Thomas are on record supporting overturning Roe. Kavanaugh and Barrett are legal cyborgs groomed by the Federalist Society since law school to overturn Roe. That leaves Gorsuch and Roberts. Trump misread Gorsuch, who is a libertarian rather than an conservative. But he was raised as a Catholic and attended parochial schools in the 1970s, when Catholics came unhinged over Roe. I’d say there’s at least a 70% chance he’ll go with the conservatives.
That leaves Roberts. On SCOTUS the senior justice in the majority assigns responsibility for writing the majority opinion. The author has a lot of influence over how the court’s opinion is crafted, and thus how broad or narrow it is. If the Chief is in the majority he has that responsibility. Another important reality is that Roberts is a strong believer in stare decisis, a legal doctrine that obligates courts to follow historical cases when making a ruling on a similar case. The term literally means “the thing has been decided.” It’s not binding, but it’s a pretty big deal to traditionalists like Roberts, and makes them resistant to overruling or changing settled law, which Roe undoubtedly is. Also relevant is Roberts’ strong desire to preserve the appearance that the court is apolitical.
Given all of this I think Roberts will initially join the liberals and try hard to drag Gorsuch along. If he can’t do so he may switch his vote, assign the opinion to himself, and write it as narrowly as possible in the hope of pulling one of the conservatives out of the majority. If all else fails and Gorsuch sticks with the conservatives in favor of a sweeping ruling, Roberts may well flip back to the minority. The dynamics on the court are pretty interesting and the sort of wrestling and side shifting described above isn’t all that uncommon.
So bottom line there’s a substantial likelihood that Roe is gone or significantly narrowed. But we could end up with a pile of different opinions just like we did in Roe.
Very Sound analysis. The 9-0 for 5A and 9-0 against IRS nuking public review are more interesting.
Yes, and they will return it to the states to regulate and manage.
Hopefully not. Medical procedures should be treated uniformly in a country.
Enthusiast
It's a sad day for women if they do. Look how far we've come in the 50 years where we weren't forced to be baby factories.
Pro
Honestly, sounds like just another mechanism to keep those who are poor, well…poor under the guise of pro-life values.
There are no cases before the SC that completely strike down abortion rights. But, it is only a matter of time before one makes it through the system.
It would come down to Roberts and Kavanaugh.
Pro
They agreed to hear one just recently, it won’t be decided until next year though.