Gorsuch voted to overturn Roe which was a fairly epic disrespect for court precedent.
Gorsuch had a long history on the bench as anti-choice. He overturned a 50 year old precedent, not one he’d just co-signed last year.
But I no longer put anything past this SCOTUS.
There’s more to the judiciary than just issuing rulings on a whim. They need the lower courts to line up behind them. And conflicting decisions at the highest level ultimately allow lower courts to rule at their own whim rather than according to a supreme precedent.
Imagine the SCOTUS ruling against California and sending it back down to a liberal California appellate court, only for the lower court to disregard the SCOTUS California ruling by referencing the Texas SCOTUS ruling. Or for the lower court or the state to feign confusion and refuse to follow the SC decision. Or do what so many other states have done and hastily engineer a new map that’s just different enough to force a new case. Without some kind of bright line distinction between the two decisions, they could just do that and send it back up to SCOTUS in a case that wouldn’t resolve before the next election.
As ACB said “we’re not just a bunch of hacks in here.”
If you’ve got to say shit like that out loud…
But she’s not wrong. These aren’t celebrity hacks who came in on the reality TV circuit, they’re legal street fighters who know how the system works in practice. If they do rule against California, it’ll be curious to see how they try to thread the needle. And how the California legislature - which still has plenty of time to submit revised (but still gerrymandered) maps - chooses to respond.
Gorsuch had a long history on the bench as anti-choice. He overturned a 50 year old precedent, not one he’d just co-signed last year.
There’s more to the judiciary than just issuing rulings on a whim. They need the lower courts to line up behind them. And conflicting decisions at the highest level ultimately allow lower courts to rule at their own whim rather than according to a supreme precedent.
Imagine the SCOTUS ruling against California and sending it back down to a liberal California appellate court, only for the lower court to disregard the SCOTUS California ruling by referencing the Texas SCOTUS ruling. Or for the lower court or the state to feign confusion and refuse to follow the SC decision. Or do what so many other states have done and hastily engineer a new map that’s just different enough to force a new case. Without some kind of bright line distinction between the two decisions, they could just do that and send it back up to SCOTUS in a case that wouldn’t resolve before the next election.
If you’ve got to say shit like that out loud…
But she’s not wrong. These aren’t celebrity hacks who came in on the reality TV circuit, they’re legal street fighters who know how the system works in practice. If they do rule against California, it’ll be curious to see how they try to thread the needle. And how the California legislature - which still has plenty of time to submit revised (but still gerrymandered) maps - chooses to respond.