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Recent Noteworthy SCOTUS cases and verdicts (Page 6)
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OAW
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Dec 21, 2017, 03:47 PM
 
For me it comes down to the business model. If you are baker with an establishment that is available to the general public in order to sell cakes then you must serve any and all customers on a non-discriminatory basis. Period. OTOH, if you are a baker without an establishment available to the general public then you can service clients as you see fit.

OAW
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Dec 21, 2017, 04:03 PM
 
If a customer wants a wedding cake covered in dildoes that says 'god loves fags' should he have to make it?
     
Chongo
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Dec 21, 2017, 06:54 PM
 
Originally Posted by OAW View Post
For me it comes down to the business model. If you are baker with an establishment that is available to the general public in order to sell cakes then you must serve any and all customers on a non-discriminatory basis. Period. OTOH, if you are a baker without an establishment available to the general public then you can service clients as you see fit.

OAW
Yep.
45/47
     
OreoCookie
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Dec 21, 2017, 07:12 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
If a customer wants a wedding cake covered in dildoes that says 'god loves fags' should he have to make it?
What about a regular, run-of-the-mill wedding cake?

The issue is refusing service rather than acquiescing to an outlandish customer request — that's a crucial distinction. The gay couple did not force the baker to make a dildo covered cake, but the mere fact that it was a wedding cake for a gay wedding was enough, regardless of what the cake was supposed to look like.
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The Final Dakar  (op)
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Dec 22, 2017, 12:28 AM
 
Originally Posted by Chongo View Post
Yep.
Not a protected class.
     
Waragainstsleep
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Dec 22, 2017, 09:01 AM
 
Can't help but think its essentially unenforcible anyway. The baker can just claim the client was abusive over the phone and refuse service on that basis instead. Its a fascinating ethical question but the practicalities render it pointless litigating it.

If the law were to allow an exception based on religious freedom, is there anything to stop the clients from creating a religion that cannot tolerate being refused service as a core tenet? Who wins that case?
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
andi*pandi
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Dec 22, 2017, 11:41 AM
 
I'm sure plenty of KKK cakes have been baked by people of color, jews, etc, as not many KKK members wear their hoods to the bakery. They can go stealth mode and "pass for straight."
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Dec 22, 2017, 06:14 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
What about a regular, run-of-the-mill wedding cake?
I mean, sure, but one of the things Colorado was arguing was impermissible was selling a cake with a bible verse to a straight couple meant your must sell the same cake to a gay couple. I'm not comfortable with that. That strikes me as the exact place a religious objection is both understandable and reasonable.
     
OreoCookie
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Dec 22, 2017, 11:20 PM
 
@The Final Dakar
I don't want to come across as saying there is no nuance, I am definitely torn when I think through the consequences on either end. I don't think you should be able to force someone to print something that is offensive, just like I don't think we should force a kosher butcher to sell pork. The more difficult thing is whether and on what legal basis can we force a business to serve customers. For anyone who pretends this has a simple, clearcut answer I can easily cook up an example that will make them very uncomfortable.

That's why it is important to think through all arguments as they were presented. Cladding everything in religion is problematic, because businesses don't have religious associations. Nor do employees retain all rights when they voluntarily enter into a contract with their employer. Ditto for claiming that baking cakes is a protected form of speech.

But conversely, I don't think we can legislate kindness and acceptance. I recognize that the US is a more litigious society, so the idea of forcing a baker (or anyone else) to do something is pretty foreign to me. Like you wrote, there are clearly limits. The difficulty the Supreme Court has now is to establish a legal standard that draws the line. And they will have to do that even if they find in favor of the baker, because then they have to identify what makes a gay couple different from a black couple or a racially mixed couple. On the one hand, I don't envy them, but on the other, this is exactly what the Supreme Court is for.
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The Final Dakar  (op)
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Dec 23, 2017, 09:08 PM
 
Like I said, I don't like the lines either side drew. From the sounds of it neither did the justices. I do think they're more likely to end up ruling in favor of the gay couple, because ruling for the baker cracks the door open to religious based discrimination on other protected bases: Sex, race, religion.

Since I think Colorado is being ridiculous, however, I also imagine their ruling will take a paddle to their law and chastise them for being too burdensome to the religious.

My 2¢
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Apr 4, 2018, 07:08 PM
 
Another bad one, though with a strong majority.
https://in.reuters.com/article/usa-c...-idINKCN1H917A
Over the dissent of two liberal justices, the court overturned a 2016 lower court ruling that had allowed the civil rights lawsuit seeking at least $150,000 in damages from University of Arizona Police Department Corporal Andrew Kisela to proceed.

The wounded woman, Amy Hughes, had accused Kisela of using excessive force in the 2010 incident in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.



In the case decided on Monday, the court ruled in an unsigned opinion that Kisela was entitled to qualified immunity protecting him from the litigation because he did not violate any clearly established law.

In a dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that Kisela’s conduct was unreasonable and the court should not shield him from liability. Sotomayor criticized the court’s decision as another example of its “unflinching willingness” to reverse lower courts when they deny officers immunity. Fellow liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined Sotomayor in the dissent.

The decision sends the wrong signal to police, Sotomayor wrote. “It tells officers that they can shoot first and think later, and it tells the public that palpably unreasonable conduct will go unpunished,” Sotomayor added.
This is why police brutality will not stop.

Coincidentally I listend to this podcast today, not knowing the twist at the end featured SCOTUS.
https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/th...erican-justice

Between these two cases, you can't sue the police for wrongful shooting and you can't sue the DA for wrongful imprisonment. That is a potent combination.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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May 14, 2018, 08:18 PM
 
Unanimous decision that driving a rental car you're not authorized to doesn't curtail your 4th amendment rights to unreasonable search and seizure. ****ing hell yeah.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Jun 4, 2018, 10:37 AM
 
SCOTUS punted on Master Cake or whatever on procedural grounds.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Jun 11, 2018, 10:22 AM
 
Ohios voter purge law was upheld 5-4. Haven't seen the reasoning yet. Curious to see if it spreads like voter id laws with this legitimization.
     
Thorzdad
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Jun 11, 2018, 11:35 AM
 
Oh, absolutely it will. Guaranteed.

From the short blurb I heard, the main gist is that the majority felt the law adhered to the National Voter Registration Act. Lower courts had ruled that the Ohio law did not follow the Federal act.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Jun 11, 2018, 12:18 PM
 
I'll have to get caught up but my understanding was it conflicted with the motor voter bill.
     
reader50
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Jun 11, 2018, 02:53 PM
 
I'm on the fence about this. On the face of it, it does violate the National Voter Registration Act. But it also takes six years of non-voting (and ignoring four years of notices) before a name is purged. It doesn't feel unreasonable. Especially if the person moved - say to another state.

Of course, this is likely just to test the waters. Followed by purge laws that gradually shorten up the time, and reduce the notices. Until you're purged without notice if you do not vote in every election.
     
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Jun 11, 2018, 03:06 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
Ohios voter purge law was upheld 5-4. Haven't seen the reasoning yet. Curious to see if it spreads like voter id laws with this legitimization.
Federal legislation mandates that people can't be purged from the voter rolls simply because they choose to exercise their right to not vote. But someone can be purged from the voter rolls if they have moved and not re-registered at their new residence. What Ohio has done is to effectively conflate the two. What's actually triggering the countdown is failure to vote in a two-year period .... aka a single federal election cycle. At those point the state of Ohio assumes the person has moved sends a notice warning them that they will be removed from the voter rolls if they do not respond. Failure to respond to a second notice OR to vote in the next two federal election cycles can then result in them being surreptitiously removed from the voter rolls. So a major election ... like a presidential election cycle as opposed to mid-terms ... can roll around and a person shows up to vote and finds out they they have been purged from the rolls because they didn't even notice, receive, or respond to a grand total of two notices sent. So technically people aren't being removed from the voter rolls because they chose not to vote when viewed in the most myopic view possible ... but essentially they are because the state of Ohio is choosing to make an invalid and erroneous assumption that the reason why someone didn't vote or respond to a mailing is because they moved. As usual the GOP is making a "legal" move ostensibly for "maintaining accurate voter rolls" when it's fairly obvious for all but the most deliberately obtuse among us that this is yet another voter suppression tactic that disproportionately impact urban areas that tend to vote for Dems.

A narrowly divided Supreme Court on Monday upheld Ohio's system for culling its voter rolls, blessing a process that could undercut Democrats by reducing the turnout of minority and younger voters.

The 5-4 ruling found that Ohio's practice of stripping voters from its rolls if they don't vote over a six-year period and don't respond to mailed warnings did not violate federal law.

Writing for all the court's Republican appointees, Justice Samuel Alito said Ohio's process of sending a notice to people who don't vote during a two-year period, then removing them if they don't respond to a second notice or vote in the next two federal general elections, complies with the requirements Congress set out back in 1993.

"The dissenters may not think that the failure to send back the card means anything, but that was not Congress’s view," Alito wrote. The National Voter Registration Act "plainly reflects Congress’s judgment that the failure to send back the card, coupled with the failure to vote during the period covering the next two general federal elections, is significant evidence that the addressee has moved."

Alito rejected the notion that the notice resembles the kind of junk mail that many people throw away without opening. "It was Congress’s judgment that a reasonable person with an interest in voting is not likely to ignore notice of this sort," he wrote.


The decision could embolden red states to be more aggressive about policing their voter rolls. Voting rights advocates say such practices disproportionately remove minority and younger voters. These groups tend to move more often than older white voters, and some younger voters accustomed to doing business online may be less attentive to so-called snail mail.
Justice Stephen Breyer, in his dissent, said Ohio was too reliant on voters' failure to respond to the forwardable notices.

"A forwardable notice that elicits no response whatsoever tells the State close to nothing at all," he wrote, joined by the court's Democratic appointees. Breyer said Ohio's system leaves many voters in the position of being stripped from the rolls simply by failing to vote, which federal law prohibits states from using as a reason to remove voters.


"Ohio’s system adds to its non-voting-based identification system a factor that has no tendency to reveal accurately whether the registered voter has changed residences. Nothing plus one is still one," the Clinton appointee added. "To add an irrelevant factor to a failure to vote, say, a factor like having gone on vacation or having eaten too large a meal, cannot change Ohio’s sole use of 'failure to vote' into something it is not."
Justice Sonia Sotomayor's solo dissent painted Ohio’s voter-purging campaign as part of a tradition of efforts to throw up technical obstacles to minority voting.

“Congress enacted the NVRA against the backdrop of substantial efforts by States to disenfranchise low-income and minority voters, including programs that purged eligible voters from registration lists because they failed to vote in prior elections,” Sotomayor wrote. “Concerted state efforts to prevent minorities from voting and to undermine the efficacy of their votes are an unfortunate feature of our country’s history."
Supreme Court upholds Ohio voter purges | Politico.com

OAW
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Jun 18, 2018, 12:39 PM
 
SCOTUS punted on two of the gerrymandering cases. Travesty.
     
reader50
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Jun 18, 2018, 02:14 PM
 
If all the cases were already decided in favor of democracy, that isn't a problem. Were there any outliers?
     
reader50
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Jun 18, 2018, 06:47 PM
 
After reading up on this, it's not so simple. SCOTUS sent the cases back to lower courts for further hearings. They may still take the case(s) later. It would be incredibly useful if partisan gerrymandering were illegal across the US.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Jun 18, 2018, 09:43 PM
 
My understanding is they punted on standing. But what I heard seemed specious – that a voter had to show why they had been in harmed in their specific district. But once you start moving around district lines it's a knock-on effect. You can't rig the outcome without affecting the whole.

To me, this is just post-poning it on technical grounds to avoid making a 'controversial' decision. It's a travesty because they waited so long to punt and now there's less time for suits between now and November. Plus, you know, who would uphold gerrymandering.
     
Thorzdad
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Jun 18, 2018, 10:48 PM
 
It’s starting to feel like some legislature could bring back a poll tax and nothing would be done about it.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Jun 19, 2018, 12:22 AM
 
That's what voter ID is, so...
     
Chongo
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Jun 19, 2018, 12:36 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
That's what voter ID is, so...
It took my mother to the MVD and she got a State ID, for $0.
45/47
     
andi*pandi
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Jun 19, 2018, 12:56 PM
 
which state? Did you have her original birth certificate?
     
Chongo
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Jun 19, 2018, 03:58 PM
 
Originally Posted by andi*pandi View Post
which state?
Arizona
Did you have her original birth certificate?
She did not need it because she was replacing her expiring driver’s license. She doesn’t need it because she doesn’t drive anymore. She hasn’t since she retired.
Original? You should know from the Birther requests that your state of birth has the original long form, and you can request an official photocopy. She has that, with the addendum listing her name. It was originally filed as “baby girl Perez” She obtained it when she applied for a passport when she flew to Mexico with her sisters and mother. My grandmother was born in the NM territory

I have an official photocopy of mine. I requested it when I traveled to Canada with my father in law on several fishing trips on Lac Suel and adjoining lakes In Ontario Provence. This was before the change to needing a passport when crossing the border.
45/47
     
andi*pandi
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Jun 19, 2018, 04:05 PM
 
In many areas, it costs to get an official copy. This is assuming that they can still find your original if you are an older person, there are many instances of city hall burning down, files being lost, many people do not have an original. If they never had a drivers license at all, it is more difficult too.

I do have my original card. Somewhere. And my passport.
     
Laminar
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Jun 19, 2018, 04:41 PM
 
Originally Posted by Chongo View Post
It took my mother to the MVD and she got a State ID, for $0.
Of course, you're not counting the fact that you 1) were able to transport her there on your dime, not hers, and 2) you were able to do that for her during the convenient hours of 7:30a to 5p M-F. Not everyone has someone to drive them around for free, and not everyone can easily get time off during the standard work day, especially laborers and other hourly employees that risk termination or other repercussions for "skipping" a day of work.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Jun 19, 2018, 06:28 PM
 
Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
Of course, you're not counting the fact that you 1) were able to transport her there on your dime, not hers, and 2) you were able to do that for her during the convenient hours of 7:30a to 5p M-F. Not everyone has someone to drive them around for free, and not everyone can easily get time off during the standard work day, especially laborers and other hourly employees that risk termination or other repercussions for "skipping" a day of work.
...and she had a pre-existing driver's license.
     
Chongo
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Jun 19, 2018, 07:22 PM
 
Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
Of course, you're not counting the fact that you 1) were able to transport her there on your dime, not hers, and 2) you were able to do that for her during the convenient hours of 7:30a to 5p M-F. Not everyone has someone to drive them around for free, and not everyone can easily get time off during the standard work day, especially laborers and other hourly employees that risk termination or other repercussions for "skipping" a day of work.
....yet there are numerous volunteers to drive people to the polls, for free, but they can’t transport someone to obtain a state photo ID? That sounds like a good Eagle Scout project for you, start a Go-Fund-Me account to help those who can’t afford to, obtain state photo ID’s.
45/47
     
reader50
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Jun 19, 2018, 08:34 PM
 
Or the state could not require a photo ID to vote until / unless there's evidence of voter fraud happening. Why place burdens on thousands of low-income people, to solve a hypothetical problem? Shouldn't a state be trying to reduce burdens, especially on people with limited resources?

I'm of the opinion that this is a tactic designed to reduce Democrat turnout, so Republicans can win offices with a minority of voters. Continued unpopular policies will make gerrymandering and other tricks increasingly necessary.

note that I am not a Democrat.
     
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Jun 19, 2018, 09:04 PM
 
Its nice to know that at least one non-Democrat has noticed this is happening and does not approve.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
Laminar
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Jun 20, 2018, 09:26 AM
 
Originally Posted by Chongo View Post
....yet there are numerous volunteers to drive people to the polls, for free, but they can’t transport someone to obtain a state photo ID? That sounds like a good Eagle Scout project for you, start a Go-Fund-Me account to help those who can’t afford to, obtain state photo ID’s.
In 0.3 seconds you'd be screaming about crooked Democrats using bussing to illegally pump up their registration and poll numbers.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Jun 25, 2018, 05:56 PM
 
5-4 SCOTUS upheld most of Texas gerrymander. I've read a few articles on it but I'm not completely clear on the reasoning.

They also punted on North Carolina's gerrymandering.

Couple of cases left and it's looking like a bleak term for liberals. Predictions:
Travel Ban will probably be upheld doing some kind of intellectual dance that what Trump said didn't count towards intent
Union dues will be struck down ignoring that the free rider problem is inherently unfair in the opposite direction
and finally we have the CA abortion case where I'm sure anti-abortion clinics will have their free speech rights upheld against forced speech even though we do the same thing in the opposite direction at abortion clinics.


I think this term is on track for the most 5-4 cases, but don't hold me on that.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Jun 26, 2018, 07:22 PM
 
Sotamayor bringing the receipts on hypocrisy by the conservative wing of the court this very term.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Jun 26, 2018, 07:39 PM
 
Kennedy in his concurrence
There are numerous instances in which the statements and actions of Government officials are not subject to judicial scrutiny or intervention. That does not mean those officials are free to disregard the Constitution and the rights it proclaims and protects. The oath that all officials take to adhere to the Constitution is not confined to those spheres in which the Judiciary can correct or even comment upon what those officials say or do. Indeed, the very fact that an official may have broad discretion, discretion free from judicial scrutiny, makes it all the more imperative for him or her to adhere to the Constitution and to its meaning and its promise.
This reads like GOP congressmen who, when hearing about actions Trump took, they signal they're against it, 'but hey, what can we do, we're just the legislative branch.'
     
subego
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Jun 27, 2018, 02:42 PM
 
Everybody hold on to your butts.
     
Thorzdad
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Jun 27, 2018, 04:55 PM
 
Kennedy is retiring.
We are so screwed.
     
subego
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Jun 27, 2018, 05:06 PM
 


God, you’re such a ****ing knucklehead.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Jun 27, 2018, 06:03 PM
 
What a day to forget my phone at home, eh? Anyway I'll give my take when I have more time.
     
Chongo
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Jun 27, 2018, 11:23 PM
 
My bet is Federico Moreno.
45/47
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Jun 28, 2018, 07:12 PM
 
So, Kennedy stayed on another term and what did he accomplish that another conservative couldn't have? In several big cases the they had been putting off the court punted and/or ruled narrowly. Some of these were supposedly of some interest to him (Gerrymandering).

Gerrymandering: Punted to hell.
Colorado Baker Case: Punt.

Hell, in the 4th amendment case it was Roberts that sided with the court liberals. If I remember what I read correctly in 18 5-4 cases this year Kennedy didn't side with the liberals once.

He did manage to cripple unions, so he has that. But then he pulled a Corker: He decried the travel ban then ruled for it. He condemned how Trump went around his business and then gave the same man his seat to fill.

It's completely parallel to republican behavior everywhere else.
     
subego
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Jun 28, 2018, 07:27 PM
 
I read an analysis which said something similar.

He’s not a moderate. He’s a conservative who breaks on two issues.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Jun 28, 2018, 07:42 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I read an analysis which said something similar.

He’s not a moderate. He’s a conservative who breaks on two issues.
That's an analysis by someone looking more broadly at his career than I am (and likely way smarter about jurisprudence).

I'm just saying, I don't see what his motivation was to stay on the extra term. Were there any rulings he was a key vote on?

The two issues he usually breaks from the conservative status quo on that I'm thinking of, he swung like the average conservative.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Jul 8, 2018, 05:55 PM
 
The Atlantic published a piece that better echoed my analysis: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...y-here/564176/

For those who can’t imagine the Supreme Court without Justice Anthony Kennedy, here’s some faintly good news: you don’t have to.

Though Kennedy’s resignation doesn’t take effect until July 31, the post-Kennedy court first convened on the first Monday in October 2017. The “Justice Kennedy” who sat at the right hand of the Chief Justice for the last nine months was not the Justice Kennedy who defined the court for the past 25 years.

That Elvis left the building sometime last summer.

To understand what I mean, consider some statistics assembled by the wizards at SCOTUSblog. In the past term of the court, the court decided 19 of its decisions by 5-4 votes. SCOTUSblog sorts those one-vote results into three categories—cases decided by the five conservatives voting together, which count as “conservative victories”; cases decided by the four liberals and Justice Kennedy, which count as “liberal victories”; and cases decided by scrambled lineups. The first two categories together are the court’s “ideological” cases.

In the 2016-17 term, conservatives won 33 percent of those ideological casts. Between 2005 and 2016, the highest “conservative victory” percentage was 73 percent.

In 2017-018, the “conservative victory” percentage was 100 percent.
Beyond that, Kennedy, always a conservative, has been moving right since the advent of Barack Obama. That president, and his signature health-care statute, alarmed a lot of old-style conservatives. They regarded Obama as (as Alexander Hamilton described Aaron Burr) an “embryo-Caesar.” America, they sincerely thought, was becoming a collectivist nightmare of big government.

If Kennedy felt that way, it would explain the testy and contemptuous tone that pervaded his bench conduct during Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. The case tested the ability of state legislatures to authorize public-sector unions to collect “agency fees” from non-members they are required to represent. At argument in February, this courtliest justice quite uncharacteristically lost his temper with a lawyer defending the state’s “partnership” with unions “It can be a partner with you in advocating for a greater size workforce, against privatization, against merit promotion, against—for teacher tenure, for higher wages, for massive government, for increasing bonded indebtedness, for increasing taxes?” The moment was entirely improper, and revealing.
     
OreoCookie
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Jul 8, 2018, 11:51 PM
 
I think the narrative that Kennedy is a moderate is promulgated by some disgruntled arch conservatives who judge him solely by him not falling into line when it came to abortion and gay marriage.

14 out of the last 18 Supreme Court judges have been appointed by a Republican President, and the court has moved to the right over the years. Now Roberts is widely reported to be at the center of the court.
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The Final Dakar  (op)
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Oct 22, 2018, 10:30 PM
 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...=.33debf81eab9
The Supreme Court on Monday night shielded Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross from answering lawyers’ questions in a lawsuit challenging his decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census form.

The government had asked the Supreme Court to block questioning of Ross as part of a lawsuit filed by several states, including New York, and civil rights groups. The groups are seeking to stop the administration from adding a citizenship question to the decennial count.

The court’s action makes it unlikely that Ross will have to give a deposition in the case but allows the suit to go forward, at least temporarily. It said it will entertain other objections from the government before the trial, which is scheduled to start in New York on Nov. 5.

The unsigned order seemed like an attempt by the court to avoid a 5-to-4 split in its first politically significant action since the addition of new Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.
Hard to figure out what's going on here since there's no vocal liberal dissent.
     
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Oct 22, 2018, 10:59 PM
 
Perhaps they want to avoid making the Supreme Court appear partisan? And I reckon that also some conservative-leaning justices are not fans of Kavanaugh's blatantly partisan tirades during his confirmation process — not because they necessarily disagree with his political stances, but because they want to protect the (relatively positive) repute of the court.
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Thorzdad
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Oct 23, 2018, 08:09 AM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
Perhaps they want to avoid making the Supreme Court appear partisan?
I'm not sure how protecting a Cabinet member who is at the center of a multi-state lawsuit looks non-partisan, especially following the Kavenaugh spectacle. If anything, it looks like they're signaling that the court has the administration's back now.
     
 
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