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Post by aj2hall on Sept 30, 2022 21:06:23 GMT
be worse. Voting rights, Affirmative action and LGBTQ rights are all on the chopping block www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/30/supreme-court-term-conservative-targets/Gift article - no paywall wapo.st/3rl4BQpThe cataclysmic Supreme Court term that included the unprecedented leak of a draft opinion and the end of constitutional protection for abortion would, in the normal ebb and flow, be followed by a period of quiet, to let internal wounds heal and public opinion settle.
That doesn’t appear likely in the term set to start Monday. Nothing in the behavior of the court’s emboldened majority suggests any inclination to pull back on the throttle. The Supreme Court is master of its docket, which means that it controls what cases it will hear, subject to the agreement of four justices. Already, with its calendar only partly filled, the justices have once again piled onto their agenda cases that embroil the court in some of the most inflammatory issues confronting the nation — and more are on the way.
“They’re impatient,” Harvard Law School professor Richard Lazarus said of the conservative justices, especially the longest-serving, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. “They’ve spent a lot of time waiting for this majority to happen, and they don’t plan to waste it.”
When the court gets involved in things that it doesn’t have to, especially if those things are very contested in the society, it just looks like it’s just spoiling for trouble,” Kagan said in an appearance at Northwestern Law School. “That makes people, again, rightly suspicious that the court is doing something not particularly court-like and law-like.”
Which brings me back to Baude’s description of this majority: fearless. I would choose a different word: heedless. Heedless of any constraints on its power or the effects on the judiciary. Heedless of the real-world consequences of its actions — on women, on minorities, on public safety and, most worrisome, on democracy itself.
As October Term 2022 gets underway, I search in vain for signs of this heedlessness abating. Seeing few, I worry, for the court and for the country whose future it will shape. |
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Post by aj2hall on Sept 30, 2022 21:12:02 GMT
Also, the Trump appointed justices in lower courts could be problematic for years. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/30/judge-cannon-trump-politicized-courts/The Supreme Court is facing a legitimacy crisis as its ongoing legal revolution becomes more and more alarming to a public unhappy about its recent rulings on abortion and gun rights. But there’s another legitimacy crisis brewing, one that can be seen vividly in Judge Aileen M. Cannon’s extraordinary rulings in the case involving Donald Trump’s hoarding of documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort
This may seem like a small thing. But it’s a direct assault on the idea that the courts are a venue where fairness prevails precisely because there are strict rules everyone has to follow, rules designed to get to the truth.
Almost two years after Trump left office, the poison he injected into the courts with the appointment of a long list of hack judges is becoming more clear. It’s increasingly difficult to look at important court cases of recent days and believe that whether you like the outcome, the procedures have been fair, the judges have worked to be objective and the integrity of the courts is intact.
Judges such as Cannon undermine a cornerstone of the legitimacy of the court system: the idea of “procedural fairness.” This topic has long been of interest to judges and lawyers, and research has found that people’s perceptions of whether they were treated fairly is often just as important as the outcome in determining their feelings about the process.
So how is the public supposed to believe we have procedural fairness in our court system when Republicans go shopping for a Trump judge who’ll strike down any law, regulation or presidential decision they disagree with — and so often succeed? When a case involving potential criminal actions by the former president is heard by a judge he appointed, a judge who will barely try to pretend she isn’t in the tank for him?
The Supreme Court gets the most news, and its conservative majority has shown they have few limits on their policy ambitions (and they’re just getting started). But if the whole court system is losing its legitimacy, it isn’t because the public is being too cynical. It’s because they know exactly what they’re witnessing.
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pilcas
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 2,938 
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Post by pilcas on Sept 30, 2022 21:40:53 GMT
We are going to end up like Russia.
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Sept 30, 2022 21:46:18 GMT
Again ..
Federal judges CAN be rotated, including SCOTUS.
Federal judges CAN be impeached!
I will have to search for the articles...
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Post by Scrapper100 on Sept 30, 2022 22:30:12 GMT
Again .. Federal judges CAN be rotated, including SCOTUS. Federal judges CAN be impeached! I will have to search for the articles... Only if impeached which takes both the house and the senate. |
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Sept 30, 2022 23:33:15 GMT
Again .. Federal judges CAN be rotated, including SCOTUS. Federal judges CAN be impeached! I will have to search for the articles... Only if impeached which takes both the house and the senate. not sure what is different from what I said? |
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Post by librarylady on Sept 30, 2022 23:45:07 GMT
I believe impeached means the charges are brought up against a person.
One has to be convicted/found guilty for any change to happen.
found this:
If a federal official commits a crime or otherwise acts improperly, the House of Representatives may impeach—formally charge—that official. If the official subsequently is convicted in a Senate impeachment trial, he is removed from office.
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Post by femalebusiness on Sept 30, 2022 23:51:00 GMT
We are going to end up like Russia. Worse. |
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Oct 1, 2022 1:22:36 GMT
House impeached = indicted
Senate guilty. = or not guilty
But you remain impeached whether guilty or not.
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Post by aj2hall on Oct 1, 2022 3:58:29 GMT
www.nytimes.com/2022/09/30/opinion/supreme-court-biden.htmlIn a recent speech at Independence Hall, President Biden called on Americans to stand against an assault on democracy — the ongoing assault waged by insurrectionists and would-be patriots, by election deniers and other extremists. “We are not powerless in the face of these threats,” he insisted. “We are not bystanders.”
Yet that role — bystander — is exactly the one Mr. Biden seems to have assigned himself when it comes to the Supreme Court, which is posing a more profound challenge to the American system of self-government than any violent mob has managed. The court’s conservative justices have issued a run of rulings that make it harder for many Americans, particularly citizens of color, to vote; make it easier for partisans to grab power by distorting the shape of legislative districts; and make it nearly impossible to counter the corrupting influence of money in politics. This is only a partial list — and is, most likely, only the beginning. In the term that starts on Oct. 3, the conservative bloc, six justices strong and feeling its oats, will decide whether an Alabama congressional map discriminates against Black voters and will consider a novel theory that state legislatures should have a free hand, unconstrained by state courts, in setting rules for federal elections.
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Post by aj2hall on Oct 3, 2022 0:27:26 GMT
I thought this was an interesting perspective www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/02/midterm-supreme-court-approval-ratings-dobbs/What makes this midterm election different from every other? Most midterms are about the party in charge. But in this one, two parties count as incumbents: the Democrats who control the White House and Congress, and the Republicans who control the Supreme Court.
GOP pollster Whit Ayres called my attention to this remarkable structural change. In the typical year, Ayres noted, the policies most relevant to the choice before voters are the work of the White House and Capitol Hill. “But in this case, the most significant policy action taken before the midterms,” he said, referring to the court’s decision overturning the abortion rights protections of Roe v. Wade, “was taken by a conservative-dominated, Republican-appointed Supreme Court.”
How this election turns out will depend in large part on which of the two incumbents draws the most voter anger. As a result, the beginning of the court’s new term on Monday has more electoral significance than usual. The more the court is in the news, the better it is for Democrats.
But Democrats are not letting up on abortion, guns and other issues where the incumbent court has taken stands out of step with public opinion. The beginning of the court’s new term, and the increasingly public clashes between liberal and conservative justices over its direction, will further underscore the depth of the political and philosophical conflict the country confronts.
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Post by aj2hall on Oct 3, 2022 0:35:59 GMT
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Post by aj2hall on Oct 3, 2022 20:15:06 GMT
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Post by aj2hall on Oct 3, 2022 20:19:45 GMT
These are the high stakes this term. Voting rights, LGBTQ rights, affirmative action and environmental regulations could all be restricted. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/01/supreme-court-cases-decisions-2022-2023/Date: Oct. 3
Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency
The court will take up a long-running challenge that could restrict the agency’s enforcement of the Clean Water Act.
Date: Oct. 4
Merrill v. Milligan, Merrill v. Caster
The court will consider whether the Voting Rights Act requires Alabama to create a second congressional district favorable to a Black candidate, a decision that could affect redistricting nationwide.
Date: Oct. 31
Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College; Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina
The Supreme Court once again will look at whether universities may consider the race of applicants when trying to build diverse student bodies. It will examine the admissions policies at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Lower courts found that both schools complied with Supreme Court precedents that said race may be used as one factor universities can consider in a wide-ranging evaluation of applicants.
Date: Not yet scheduled
303 Creative LLC v. Elenis
The justices will consider whether a Colorado designer can tell same-sex couples she will not create a website for their weddings, reviving the issue of where to draw the line between someone’s religious beliefs and state laws protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination.
Date: Not yet scheduled
Moore v. Harper
The justices will consider what would be a fundamental change in the way federal elections are conducted, giving state legislatures sole authority to set the rules for contests even if their actions violated state constitutions and resulted in partisan gerrymandering for congressional seats.
The justices will consider whether a Colorado designer can tell same-sex couples she will not create a website for their weddings, reviving the issue of where to draw the line between someone’s religious beliefs and state laws protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination. |
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Post by aj2hall on Oct 4, 2022 11:18:59 GMT
This sums up really well the case involving who has the power to decide elections, the danger to our democracy and just how monumental this case could be. heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-3-2022Also today, the Supreme Court began its new term this week with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on the bench. In the minority, Jackson will not change the right-wing slant of the court, which the editorial board of the New York Times on Saturday called “a judicial arm of the Republican Party,” discarding “the traditions and processes that have allowed the court to appear fair and nonpartisan.”
One of the cases before the Supreme Court in this session is Moore v. Harper, which is about the “independent state legislature” doctrine. That doctrine is a new legal theory based on the election clause of the U.S. Constitution, which reads that “the Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.” The theory says that this clause means that the legislature alone can determine elections in a state, unchecked by the state courts or even the state constitution.
The case comes from North Carolina, where the state supreme court in February declared that the new congressional and state legislature maps so heavily favored Republicans as to be “unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt.” The Republican-dominated legislature says it alone has the power to determine state districts.
Revered conservative judge J. Michael Luttig, who sat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, is clear about this doctrine’s illegitimacy. Calling Moore v. Harper “the most important case for American democracy in the almost two and a half centuries since America’s founding,” he made his understanding of that case clear in an article in The Atlantic today titled “There Is Absolutely Nothing to Support the ‘Independent State Legislature’ Theory.” The subtitle explained: “Such a doctrine would be antithetical to the Framers’ intent, and to the text, fundamental design, and architecture of the Constitution.”
Luttig correctly identifies this theory as “the centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election”; had it been in place, Trump’s scheme for throwing out Biden’s electors in favor of his own would have worked, and he would now be in the White House. Luttig calls it “baffling” that six of the Supreme Court justices have “flirted” with the theory, because “[t]here is literally no support in the Constitution, the pre-ratification debates, or the history from the time of our nation’s founding or the Constitution’s framing for a theory of an independent state legislature that would foreclose state judicial review of state legislatures’ redistricting decisions.” Indeed, the Constitution says just the opposite. |
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