Sorry to step on Alain, but it looks like we need a SCOTUS open thread since we may be about to find out if the chief justice openly embraces partisanship in the service of white supremacy. I’m following along at SCOTUSblog.
ETA: The majority punts on partisan gerrymandering. Justice Kagan’s dissent: “the partisan gerrymanders here debased and dishonored our democracy, turning upside-down the core American idea that all governmental power derives from the people.”
ETA 2: Good-ish news on the census question? From SCOTUSblog: “The majority upholds the district court’s remand to the agency for further explanation of its decision.”
ETA 3: “The Chief Justice explains that, although it is fine when an agency has stated and unstated reasons for a decision — and fine with a new administration comes in with policy preferences — here, the only stated reason for the decision to add the citizenship question seems contrived.”
Ya think? It sounds like the Court Republicans are saying the rule change is fine, but the agency needs to come up with a less obvious lie to justify it.
Rommie
Roberts can play in the NFL with those punting skills.
plato
Juuust great. Obama, Hillary, Biden, they all warned this would happen. The rethugs will just go nuts now.
Dorothy A. Winsor
carcin
Roberts 5-4 majority declares that partisan gerrymandering is simply too hard for the Courts to weigh in on….
laura
Shorter Robert’s- question of partisanship that would be answered in favor of the Dem challengers shall not be answered.
Tony Jay
Did I just read that right? The Republicans majority says that gerrymandering is bad, but as long as you do it successfully enough to keep control of the State and Federal Governments, they’re cool with it?
That’s, uh, yeah…..
rikyrah
The ENTIRE Phuck.
Rommie
So this is the first clear-cut case of a huge decision that goes the other way with Justice Garland? I hope it’s not the start of a trend…
Eolirin
We’ll have to push for state solutions to this, one by one. It helps that anti gerrymandering initiatives tend to be very popular even with republican voters. But it’s gonna be a slog.
Joe Falco
@Tony Jay:
It’s basically the spoils system being enshrined into what’s left of our democracy. As long as you win, that’s all that matters. Fair representation is dead.
Alain
No worries, Betty – I just wanted to throw something light and fun in case we’re all in need of some of that. Still awaiting the Census question…I’m afraid.
Tony Jay
It’s pointed out in the comments that every challenge to gerrymandering on racial grounds is now going to be defended as purely (protected) political gerrymandering.
plato
Eolirin
@Rommie: It’s hardly the first, unfortunately.
Tony Jay
@Joe Falco:
Yeah, that’s exactly what it sounds like.
Brachiator
@plato:
WTF?
kindness
The conservatives on the Supreme Court aren’t going to wait to remake this country into their preferred image.
We’re fucked. When we do take the Executive, the Senate & the House together we need to pack the courts. A 15 member Supreme Court sounds about right.
Eolirin
@kindness: Or could just try Kavanaugh on perjury and force him off the court.
carcin
Sounds like the decision is _mostly_ a punt back to the states (or Congress, to enact a federal law). So, as was said above, expect a long, slow grind for non-partisan redistricting commissions and other remedies, via legislative action, ballot initiatives, etc.
The flaw, of course, is that many (most) of these remedies are controlled by the gerrymandered political bodies themselves…another fun Catch-22 of the broken American political system, yay!
plato
Time for blue states to secede? The ‘union’ has become too big to even act as a democracy let alone as a nation, what with open collusion & collaboration with enemy states.
Rommie
@Eolirin: I guess I’m thinking more of clear and obvious – I know there were decisions last year and this year that would have swung the 5-4. But this is the first one that’s A Big Deal, I think. It feels that way, anyway.
SFAW
IATMFA
Impeach
ALL
The
Mother
Fuckers
Already
If we are fortunate enough to take back the Senate, start with Shill Barr, move on to the Traitor-in-Chief, then Gorsuch, keep going until we run out of fascist motherfuckers.
Yes, I know it’s not practical, I know I’m not being rational, I know the likelihood of success for any of them is at or near zero. I don’t care. They’re destroying this country.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Meanwhile, we argued about a $12 vs $15 minimum wage and a trade agreement its most vociferous opponents have probably completely forgotten about
(they kicked the census case back to the lower court? Pete Williams reading in real time… good news? Maybe?)
danielx
Shocked but not surprised. Or is it the other way around? Whichever, I am quite certain that any number of Republicans are grinning like the ghouls they are.
Betty Cracker
@Eolirin: It sure will be a slog. The success of the Florida felon voting rights restoration ballot initiative showed that pro-voting rights initiatives can win even in red/purple states. But of course the Republican governor and legislature watered that down immediately and raised the bar to creating ballot questions, so it’ll be even harder to fight their cheating.
Eolirin
@Rommie: The upholding of the Muslim ban was a pretty big deal too, imo. Off the top of my head.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
state legislatures and the courts, two power centers the GOP has been focused on for two generations, as the left gets more and more caught up in the Cult of the Presidency
Eolirin
@Betty Cracker: We need to push back on that and use it as a wedge to win state governments back. With enough work, I think we can pull it off; gerrymandering tends to become counter productive in wave elections. And people of all party affliations really hate the unfairness of it, so it needs to be a bigger focus in organization efforts.
The Moar You Know
@Rommie: Oh, it is. And we let it happen, because of reasons that I’m still unclear on.
Was voting in 2010 really so hard?
Dorothy A. Winsor
This is dangerous. Between the expected growing problem with the Electoral College and state legislatures not matching the state’s popular vote, we are headed toward long term minority rule. IMHO, people won’t put up with that forever.
SFAW
@plato:
More than a couple of times, I have cited the NPR interview I heard in august or September 2016, where a(n allegedly) Democratic voter was asked about voting for Hillary, and she said (more or less) “Give me a reason, and don’t mention Donald Trump or the Supreme Court.” Part of me wants to find that moron, grab her by the throat (literally), and say “ARE YOU FUCKING HAPPY NOW, YOU FUCKING MORON?” Which would be the last thing she would hear in this plane of existence.
I probably need to start taking some psychoactive meds, to help me deal with these things in a more constructive manner.
Dorothy A. Winsor
plato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yup, turn up every fucking two years, instead of just every fucking four years.
glory b
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Don’t forget about the ones that said, “Don’t try to blackmail us into voting for Clinton with the judges and the courts!”
I used to teach a class about the judicial system. My students were always surprised to hear me tell them that the most important thing a president does is appoint judges.
oatler.
Kagan’s dissent was way too polite.
A Ghost To Most
After approving gerrymandering, Roberts tries to tend to his legacy with the Census question.
Since they sent it back down, the Nazis may get another chance to come up with a rationale. Good luck with that.
Mike in DC
The question is whether:
1) the state courts can provide relief
2) the ruling frees Congress to intervene to stop partisan gerrymandering
Eolirin
@plato: State and local elections can happen even outside of that, it really needs to be every year, every election.
But to be able to do that means you need to be able to get to the polls, and that’s hard for a lot of people.
Joe Falco
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
We argued about a lot of things. At the same time, the media picked over every unsavory detail they could find or make up about Clinton and Comey gave us his October Surprise. Let’s not get into bloodletting on our own side when we were being (and still are) besieged by actual enemies.
rikyrah
Michigan Curmudgeon (@MichCurmudgeon) Tweeted:
@PoliticsWolf Irony: four of the five justices who voted to uphold gerrymandering were appointed by Presidents who lost the popular vote. Minority rule is at the heart of gerrymandering. (Makes me even prouder of our success in passing Prop 2 to end gerrymandering in Michigan.) https://twitter.com/MichCurmudgeon/status/1144249285577465856?s=17
Betty Cracker
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I fear it may be a temporary defeat. Basically, Roberts signaled that they need to lie more convincingly about their rationale.
danielx
Well, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh know why they were nominated and selected.
rikyrah
Thread
MikeFarb (@mikefarb1) Tweeted:
Who appoints our Supreme Court? The President?
Or a Catholic fundamentalist who controls a network of right-wing groups funded by dark money? https://twitter.com/mikefarb1/status/1017472640624349185?s=17
rikyrah
Oliver Willis (@owillis) Tweeted:
dear democrats, try craven power-grabbing politics on sometime. there are no invisible judges or hall monitors. https://twitter.com/owillis/status/1144251737106210819?s=17
rikyrah
Jared Rizzi (@JaredRizzi) Tweeted:
Citizens United v. FEC (2010)
Shelby County v. Holder (2013)
Rucho v. Common Cause (2019)
Federal courts will not save meaningful democracy. https://twitter.com/JaredRizzi/status/1144251187295903745?s=17
Eolirin
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Hell, the Senate is the biggest problem with regard to population distribution we’re going to be facing.
And the hardest to fix.
rikyrah
Oliver Willis (@owillis) Tweeted:
democrats: arent we good boys and girls
*nobody cares*
republicans: *just grab power, do horrible shit*
democrats: hey! how’d that happen. can we get a “no fair” ruling.
*nothing happens* https://twitter.com/owillis/status/1144252262539300866?s=17
rikyrah
Armando (@armandodkos) Tweeted:
So on gerrymandering, the Court says political parties must do everything possible to maximize their power to the detriment of voting rights. Every Blue state must now act accordingly. Andrew Cuomo- I’m looking at you. c @tomwatson https://twitter.com/armandodkos/status/1144247606157217794?s=17
Walker
@A Ghost To Most:
His legacy was destroyed back with the voting rights case.
Fair Economist
Roberts is, as always, a sly evil partisan who knows when he should pretend to be reasonable. Census piddling will have a marginal effect, moving a half dozen or so House seats. The gerrymanders, OTOH, can guarantee control of the gerrymandered states indefinitely along with a gain of about 1/4 of the House seats from each such state. So he is half reasonable on the census and a monster on gerrymandering.
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Do you think this would have happened, if, in the interim, they hadn’t of literally found the smoking gun on the dead man’s harddrives?
A Ghost To Most
@Walker: Agreed, but that won’t stop him from trying. Roberts care more about his legacy than about Americans.
J. Toobin thinks the question WILL end up on the Census.
Eolirin
@Fair Economist: They could’ve gone further on the gerrymandering. There are still remedies available so it doesn’t actually protect them, it just cuts off one avenue for dealing with them. Unfortunately that avenue was the easiest, but that just means we have to fight harder.
germy
eclare
@SFAW: I remember that, I’ll join you. I think she was somewhere in Colorado.
Frankensteinbeck
Hasn’t the Supreme Court said this before? I know there have been cases decided on whether the gerrymandering was partisan or race-based. It’s why they haven’t struck down gerrymandering already.
Alain
@Alain: phew. So glad they didn’t add that question to the 2020 Census. I spent 9 years working with Census data and Census-derived data and learned more than you’d ever want to about it, surveys, etc. This would have poisoned a huge source of fundamental data that governments and private business of all sizes depend on – from township to state, and most kinds of business. v
bbleh
@Tony Jay: Comments also note that every partisan gerrymander will now be cast as a racial gerrymander. The case involving new evidence of racial discrimination appears not to be affected.
@Mike in DC: From what I read, states DO have the authority to address gerrymandering, likely even in federal elections — the Constitution says they set the rules — and so does Congress. The problem of course is that it’s the very same legislatures that create the problem. And some states don’t allow ballot initiatives, or require that they be approved by the lege.
Fair Economist
@Eolirin: The current Republican gerrymanders will never backfire. In order for Democrats to win more seats nationally than expected, they have to win more than 62% of the vote. Even Roosevelt could not manage that, and it wouldn’t matter anyway because we would have an overwhelming majority anyway.
oldgold
In 6 of the last 7 presidential elections the Democratic candidate has won the popular vote. Yet, we have a Supreme Court filled with right-wingers. Paging Mr. Madison!
raven
@Alain: So when they do something we don’t like it’s the end of the world and when they do something we do like it’s only temporary!
Brachiator
SCOTUS is slow walking its eventual deferrence to Trump Authoritarianism.
Soprano2
I wonder how long the Trump administration is now going to claim they can wait to print the Census forms. Remember, they claimed they had to start printing them next week. I bet they’ll now say “Well, we can wait until October or November” to try to come up with a better lie about why they want to add the citizenship question.
Fair Economist
@Eolirin: Oh yes, the Repub justices could have been worse on the gerrymandering ruling. That was my point – Roberts is semi-reasonable on secondary issues but a monster on critical ones like gerrymandering.
Hoodie
@rikyrah: Probably didn’t matter except as a matter of convenience. Roberts is a careerist functionary who likes to maintain a facade of intellectual honesty, and this was a meaningless bone he could throw as meager compensation for the cowardly gerrymandering ruling.
Eolirin
They don’t need to win more seats than expected nationally, they need to win more seats locally, in only those states where ballot initiatives and state courts aren’t options. In some places that may be even harder but in others, easier. We need to use every method available. And even if we can’t get it done in some states, we only need critical mass for the federal government, at which point we can try to solve things there for the remaining states.
This isn’t impossible to solve. It’s not even going to be as hard as, say, passing and ratifying the 19th amendment. But it’s going to be a slog for sure.
Porky Pine
@Mike in DC: Re your point 2, this is my question as well. If we can take the Senate and WH and hold the Congress, could we enact legislation requiring that the districts for federal elections (not reaching down into states’ internal districting) be drawn by nonpartisan boards incorporating citizen representation? In other words, federal election districting would follow a federally mandated method. This would seem to be consistent with the wording of Article I, Section 4: “[B]ut the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations [i.e., the states’], except as to Places of chusing….” IANAL, so I’m curious what the legal jackals think.
Betty Cracker
@Alain: I think at this point, it’s a practical matter: Can the Trump administration craft a more palatable lie in time to rig the 2020 census? The jury is out on that one, it seems…
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Since the president appoints judges, that office is pretty damned important.
I live in California, where the Democrats control the state legislature, so I don’t have much to complain about.
Eolirin
@Brachiator: State courts are just as if not more important here. We really do need much more engagement on local politics.
rikyrah
@Hoodie:
We will disagree. I think without LITERALLY finding the smoking gun, Roberts would have cobbled together some bullshyt as to why the question should be put on the census.
smintheus
@Dorothy A. Winsor: At most a modest and temporary defeat. They won the main point, that their plainly illegal action of putting the question in place was not illegal. Now all Trump & Co. need to do is generate a more plausible sounding pretext for including the question.
Meanwhile, the ‘punt’ on gerrymandering seems to open the floodgates to the most extreme machinations in the name of raw partisanship. Do partisan gerrymanders even need to create contiguous districts, or can islands of Democrats be set apart to create districts consisting of registered Democrats 100%? If federal courts can’t review partisanship in gerrymandering, then why can’t the most extreme forms of partisanship be employed openly?
Mai Naem mobile
You need to get rid of the electoral college. That’s your first chink in the wall.
Eolirin
@smintheus: State courts haven’t been ruled out I don’t think, and there’s potential voter backlash. Gerrymandering isn’t popular with even Republicans, being too grimy about it might tip the scales for things like governorships or Senate seats.
SFAW
@eclare:
I don’t recall, but I trust your recollection. It’s a bit of a jaunt from MA, so I’ll have to save up, but I’ll let you know if/when I do it.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: You are correct. The Republican majority* clearly signaled that the only objection was to the stated rationale and that wanting to include the question and change policies was perfectly legit.
*BTW, I think we should start referring to the SCOTUS 5 as “Republicans” instead of the more traditional “conservatives” on the court. They are behaving in a nakedly partisan manner and therefore should be branded as such.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Kagan lack of group think is curious – is he really a true believer in that stuff, and the conservatwits didn’t get it or Kegan pissy at the other conservative justices?
I think what the majority ruling is really saying is “As conservatives we must believe this, even though we know this is a dumb idea, so we want someone else to take the blame.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Brachiator: Yes. Obviously what I meant by pointing out there were other parts of the government that are important and that Dems/lefties tend to focus too much on the presidency is that the presidency is unimportant.
Mai Naem mobile
This might sound like a stupid question but can you go through state courts instead of federal courts on congressional districts?
A Ghost To Most
@Mai Naem mobile: The Popular Vote Compact will make the Electoral College obsolete, if enough states join. Currently at 181 electoral votes, but the low hanging fruit is already on board.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
Off topic, but relevant – Anyone who naively thought that the draconian new abortion laws in some states won’t be used to prosecute women for their miscarriages better think again:
https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2019/06/woman-indicted-in-shooting-death-of-her-unborn-child-charges-against-shooter-dismissed.html
She is being charged with manslaughter because she got into an argument with someone and they shot her in the abdomen, killing her 5 month fetus. The woman who shot her has had all the charges against her dismissed…
Then there is this lovely statement from the local police at the time of the shooting:
“The investigation showed that the only true victim in this was the unborn baby,’’ Pleasant Grove police Lt. Danny Reid said at the time of the shooting. “It was the mother of the child who initiated and continued the fight which resulted in the death of her own unborn baby.”
Eolirin
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Huh? Justice Kagan is not a he, and is an Obama appointee?
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker:
By their own introduced evidence, the printing deadline is any day now…
West of the Rockies
@rikyrah:
Hey, don’t say bad things about Republicans. You’ll hurt their feelings! Besides, Uncle Joe can reach across the aisle and work with his totally reasonable colleagues. Totes!
Eolirin
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: Wonderful. That was my fear from the very beginning.
A Ghost To Most
@Mai Naem mobile: It’s sounds like state courts are the only recourse. The feds are out, unless it is race-based gerrymandering.
smintheus
@Eolirin: There are a fair number of states where Republican voters would be A-OK with blatant gerrymandering, and it could create an unbreakable GOP lock on all state offices plus total Republican control of the state judiciary.
Eolirin
@Major Major Major Major: Yes, well, we know how much they lie all the time, so can we really trust that?
I guess we’ll find out soon but still.
smintheus
@Mai Naem mobile: Yes. Republican justices in state courts can just as easily dismiss your arguments against partisan gerrymanders as the GOP hacks at the Supreme Court.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
I mean, this LITERALLY WAS the smoking gun.
Proved a lot of things.
Proved that this pre-dates Dolt45, which goes to our point that ALL Republicans are foul.
Hooks back to the story that I read a couple of months ago about the GOP Sabotaging the Census in 2014- by limiting the number of offices for 2020.
Proves that Wilbur Ross and everyone who ever testified about this PHUCKING LIED.
The racial component to explain WHY it should be done, was evident in the hard drives- can’t get around that.
Proved all of this
plato
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: Jeez, what a twisted fucked up argument.
smintheus
@rikyrah: Proves once again the wisdom of the old saying, “There is never a smoking gun”. Even a smoking gun is not “The Smoking Gun”. Because it just never is.
Gravenstone
@Soprano2: That future new lie is in a race with the information coming out from the hard drives of the deceased Republican operative. That information lays out in pretty stark terms that this approach of injecting the question of citizenship into the census is entirely politically (and racially) motivated.
rikyrah
With partisan gerrymandering decision (plus Citizens United/Shelby) Roberts Court has entered a new political Lochner era. This decision tears at the fabric of our democracy and puts the interests of the established few above the many. History will not be kind in its assessment.
— Eric Holder (@EricHolder) June 27, 2019
rikyrah
#SCOTUS relied on lies and cooked data in partisan gerrymandering and racial gerrymandering cases. The Census question case exposed all of it, so they made the sweeping decision to remove redistricting cases from federal judicial review permanently. They ain’t slick.
— skeptical brotha ? (@skepticalbrotha) June 27, 2019
rikyrah
By ruling that federal courts cannot review partisan gerrymandering no matter how extreme, John Roberts virtually ensured that the gerrymandering after 2020 will be even more extreme than in 2010. As Kagan wrote in her dissent, this is “rigging elections” https://t.co/hJRU8hvv7v
— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) June 27, 2019
Dorothy A. Winsor
@rikyrah: Except the victors write the history.
prostratedragon
@rikyrah: Shorter Eric: “Mr. Roberts, your tailor called. The albatross is ready.”
The Pale Scot
In other news; The Dalai Lama says Donald Trump has a ‘lack of moral principles”
Waiting for the inevitable response, ” The Dalai Lama is so low energy” ” The Dalai Lama’s ratings are pathetic” ” The Dalai Lama should go back to where he came from” ” The Dalai Lama the was one colluding”
Ksmiami
@oldgold: just start disbanding everything that’s where I am
Alain
@Major Major Major Major: Yeah, I think the ship has sailed for Census 2020. We can deal with this issue again when it returns, which it will.
Brachiator
@The Pale Scot:
Contrast this with the Dalai Lama talking about this former president, back in 2017.
I hope this gives Trump a little heartburn.
James E Powell
The supreme court is always a major consideration in presidential elections, but it was never more obviously central than it was in 2016.
For anyone who wonders why I will hate the NYT, CNN, and Bernie & his supporters forever, this is your answer.
Shana
@plato: Or in the case of Virginia every damned year. Like this one where every state House and Senate seat is up. And the Dems are down one or two seats in each. And whoever wins controls the redistricting. But try getting the kind of turnout as a presidential year. Grrrr.
The Pale Scot
@Brachiator:
SAD!
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@plato – Sadly it’s not the first time something similar has happened. When you are pregnant you are seen by many as a vessel, not an adult human with the right to control what happens to your body, this attitude also prevents many women from getting help quitting drinking or drugs, or trying to get prenatal care when they discover they are pregnant because they may be arrested or lose the child at birth.
In 2010 a woman in Tampa was detained and forced to spend 3 days hospitalized because her doctor recommended bed rest to try to avoid a miscarriage. The woman refused the recommendation because she was a single mom with 2 kids and could not afford to take the time off. The Florida States Attorney office obtained a hospitalization order…
Also in 2010. in Indiana, Bei Bei Shuai tried to commit suicide while pregnant and while she survived, she gave birth prematurely and the baby died soon after. She was then jailed and charged with murder. She later accepted a plea agreement pleading to criminal recklessness and time served (178 days).
Woman in the U.S. and other countries have been refused a glass of wine in restaurants because they were visibly pregnant…
rikyrah
@James E Powell:
They will NEVER be forgiven.
Eljai
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: Well, I usually try to keep my rage in check, but I’ll make an exception. Also, looks like I need to make a generous donation to the Yellowhammer Fund.
Anonymous
I suspect this is the worst, most un-democratic judicial opinion since Dred Scott. To me it reveals that there are 5 justices on the Supreme Court who oppose democracy in a fundamental way.
Does this warrant impeachment of these judges? I think so. In a democracy, can we afford high court justices who don’t believe in democracy? No. And actually, since they decided that money is speech [I’ve never heard a single word from my $100 bills, much less an opinion on politics] we’ve know these men [funny how they’re all men!] don’t believe in real democracy of the people.
Really, if you are a democratic revolutionary, like George Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, this is just cause to put the mad dogs out, just like the tory royalist revanchists that were driven out of the nation after the Revolutionary War that led to the foundation of democracy in the modern world. Force them to resign, with an admission that they violated their constitutional duties on the bench, and then exile them to Hungary, where they will be more comfortable with their government.
Or offer them impeachment and a long, long jail term. Traitors to Democracy and America!! And screw the Constitutional definition, this is vile rot, a stinking cancer at the heart of our nation! They voted for political slavery in modern America !
chris
Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t Warren have a plan for this? Something, something, federal election laws?
glory b
@Mai Naem mobile: Yes. PA Supreme Court struck down the partisan gerrymander of our congressional districts.
apocalipstick
@plato: How would that work? Blue states are not contiguous. Two blue coasts separated by a continent of red isn’t very workable. Besides, we already fought a war over this in the 19th century.
Time to buckle down and work from the bottom up, just as the Right did.
apocalipstick
@Fair Economist: More to the point: gerrymander effectively enough and the count won’t matter.
patrick II
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
“At this point” is carrying a huge load there.
TenguPhule
@Eolirin:
Which require control of the state government. Which requires ungerrymandered voting districts.
Oh wait….
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
Fascism has taken control.
TenguPhule
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Not that long. We’re headed to something much worse instead.
TenguPhule
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
So at some later point, Roberts thinks the Republicans can get away with this one.
I wish the times would stop being so interesting.
apocalipstick
@Anonymous: Conviction in an impeachment trial results in removal from office. Any prison sentence would have to be the result of a criminal conviction.
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker:
Literally.
germy
germy
artem1s
Bigger question, will this mean the Federal courts won’t intervene if the States refuse to enact voter driven redistricting laws? NC, OH and I’m sure other states have been waiting for their voted on legislation to be enacted. In Ohio we have passed TWO separate levies concerning redistricting and the GOP dominated state legislature has ignored both of them.
TriassicSands
Once again Roberts reveals himself to be the cowardly partisan. Gorsuch and Thomas don’t care — all that matters to them is pushing the radical right-wing agenda. They’re willing to accept any rationale, no matter how dishonest or corrupt, if it gets them closer to the right-wing hell they aspire to. Roberts, being the Chief, knows his name is attached to every controversial decision, so when the deception is as obvious as it is in this case, he loses his nerve and calls on the most dishonest and corrupt administration in American history to come up with a better lie, so he can pretend they deserve support.
I don’t know which is more disgusting — the open, naked partisanship of Gorsuch, whose perjury in his hearings becomes more clear with each decision, or the spineless, weaselly partisanship of the Chief who wants to have it both ways. He wants the Court to be seen as above the fray, while he and his four radical pals push their Republican agenda.
He doesn’t mind lies, he just wants a better quality lie.
lurker dean
good point on the census issue. hopefully this reading is correct. still, it appears that roberts has left the door open in a future case.
sgrAstar
@Alain: I think it’s important to understand that we have NOT WON on the census question. The craven SCOTUS invited the gov’t to put firward a better argument…and they will. Not optimistic, at all.