SCOTUS Watch

FTC exclusive: Barrett’s chambers refused to allow livestreaming or any video for 9/12 McConnell Center event; newest justice feted with McConnell-hosted dinner, free hotel & flight & personalized Louisville Slugger bat, per just-received public.

Maybe, the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court will be on notice about such things. The link provides more detail of what the Fix the Court records request obtained, including the Court's public information office ("PIO" in lingo) reminding event planners and so forth what ethical rules (voluntary as they might be for members of the Supreme Court) require. Barrett's refusal for open government should be kept in mind while she and others do not want to be considered partisan hacks.

On the partisan hack front, a look at the C-SPAN website to check the timing of the daily Biden press briefing provided this video:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas joined the Heritage Foundation for an even marking thirty years of service by Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. The Senate minority leader spoke about the importance of the Judiciary, while Justice Thomas thanked all those who have helped and supported him along the way as he reflected on his time on the Supreme Court.

I wonder how Breyer feels about this and its effects on his sads on how the Court's legitimacy is more in question of late.  Quite seriously, this is horrible stuff.  You really should not have someone tossed out as the "intellectual leader" of the current Court or whatever, and place him in a blatantly partisan situation like that.  As someone said, what if Kagan had a joint appearance with Senator Majority Leader Chuck Schumer?

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Fridays repeatedly in the last year or so have brought various special news of interest from the Supreme Court, at times later in the evening.  There is as you might recall no conference scheduled this week. But, we had big news.  The Supreme Court accepted two Texas abortion law cases, with oral arguments scheduled November 1st.  

Today being the 22nd, let's say that is very fast as the Supreme Court goes.   The speed is also a creature of their own creation. If, like four justices (including Roberts), wanted at the end of August, they simply stayed the law, there could have been a steady and deliberate legal process without such glaring speed.  It not only would be a good idea to protect abortion rights, but as a matter of good litigation discretion. 

The Firearms Policy Coalition, a pro-guns rights group, for instance, submitted a brief warning what a "keep away" law of this nature could be used for in other contexts.  It also was left to Justice Sotomayor, Breyer and Kagan perhaps (again) strategically silent, to remind that every day is a glaring undue burden on abortion rights.  

If the idea is that the Supreme Court will probably eventually hold against Texas being able to do this, it doesn't really improve the argument that they were dead wrong not to stay the law. The law being so clearly wrong even for a conservative court sympathetic to its stance on abortion only underlines it should have been stayed.  

To be clear, the two cases (though Texas was open to making it about that) were not taken to examine the substance of the law, that is, if you can block abortion where there is a "heartbeat."  The federal case concerns the power of the United States to bring its lawsuit.  The state case, looking at the question presented, is about the procedural barrier of even having the law examined until someone eventually gets sued for a bounty etc.  

We shall see what happens, but the Supreme Court is not really being "reasonable" here because (eventually) they stop this shitty law. It is especially not impressive if the idea is to provide "cover" when it gets around to watering down Planned Parenthood v. Casey.   

Some of the usual suspects might say otherwise. But, as with the Trump trio working with Moscow Mitch, their legitimacy remains quite dubious. The (eventual) removal of this issue from the "shadow docket" gets a minimum cookie in my book, at best. 

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We have the first correction of the term. Yes, we only had two per curiams, but on Friday, an edited version (a one word typo) was dropped.