The US Supreme Court Thread - Post Roe v. Wade reversal edition

Supreme Court rules 7-2 that the admin wasn't providing sufficient due process, following up on its April 19 per curiam opinion. Also notable is that the opinion calls out the admin for dishonesty about the timing of the events leading up to that first order. Also throws some shade at the district court and the Fifth Circuit for how they characterized some of the facts.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/su...tion-venezuelans-alien-enemies-act-rcna202094

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a1007_g2bh.pdf

Cross posted in the Immigration thread.

 

I can dream.

Oh, that's "A"rsenal, not "a"rsenal.

 

Professor Vladeck weighs in...

https://www.stevevladeck.com/p/151-the-supreme-courts-alien-enemies

 

I read the exact same thing ---- can't recall which Professor or pundit it was on Bluesky but I can probably find it. It's an interesting observation but it relies on a fair bit of hindsight is 20/20, IMHO.

What I mean is that it wasn't really until after the Thomas confirmation that we saw a concerted effort by the Federalist Society to be the entity really out front making these picks for Republican admins. The FedSoc definitely was involved before, but not to the degree they would be after this. Remember, one year previous to Thomas, HW appointed Souter, who was viewed as a solid conservative but a bit of a milquetoast pick, which is what the admin wanted with the memory of the Reagan admin's Bork fight still fresh.

And arguably, Thomas was even more of a blank slate than Souter given that he hadn't even been a judge for long when he was nominated, and thus had even less of a paper trail. Of course, they assumed he was a solid conservative, but remember, he was also championed by Jack Danforth, who certainly wasn't part of the Jesse Helms wing of the party. The Thomas nomination, IMO, similar to the Souter one, was more of a "needs must" appointment. They knew they'd have a bit of a fight, but it was mostly regarding his qualifications not the fear that he was a right-wing loon. And as an AA from the South, they knew they'd be putting a lot of the Southern Dems on the spot if they failed to support him. Full disclosure: I know this because I was working on the Hill and my boss was one of those Dems.

Now obviously, the allegations from Professor Hill threw a giant spanner into those works, but again, that was out of the blue. If they had known about her before the nomination, I'm convinced Thomas wouldn't have been picked, as they were looking for someone more easy to confirm to take Marshall's seat, more so than trying to appoint a far-right jurist.

Alito? Completely agree there was a right-wing agenda to nominate him, but I think W was more along for the ride than pushing it. The FedSoc hierarchy knew Alito was far to the right and pushed him for that reason. W at the time (hell, I bet we could go to a lot of old threads around here and see the evidence) was in a weakened position, despite winning reelection. The war was going crappy, Katrina made him look even more incompetent, and he tried and failed to push his buddy Harriet Miers for the opening and got slammed by his own party for the effort. I think he agreed to Alito as a way of throwing a bone to all the conservatives he wanted to assuage.

Abridged version: Alito was absolutely an effort to get the jurist we now see on the Supreme Court, even if W was more of a passenger than a driver. Thomas turned out that way---probably much more so than they had even initially hoped. But there was a bit of luck, just as we on the left benefitted (somewhat) from them being wrong on Souter.

And please don't construe any of this as an attempt to rehab HW or W.

 

I'm sure Scalia influenced Thomas considerably. But Thomas was already a FedSoc member before he was nominated. Not as notable as Scalia sure, (high bar there) but as I said, he wouldn't have been picked if they didn't feel he'd be a solid vote on the right. But again, I'd bet many of the FedSoc muckety mucks would admit surprise that he turned out to be even more conservative than Scalia.

 

He definitely cherry picked only half of a citation relevant to class certification. It's incredibly dishonest and if a litigant did that in a brief they could be sanctioned. See the link below for details.

https://bsky.app/profile/kovarsky.bsky.social/post/3lpdozwpxt226

 

Speculating, but I think he's just been emboldened by being in a solid majority, so he doesn't care about being consistent or disingenuous. He was known to be very conservative when he was on the Third Circuit, but I don't recall him having a reputation for being a complete hack.

 

I've only been a relatively recent observer of individual justices and their predilections. How much was Thomas a far right Justice from the start versus being influence by Alito (and possibly Scalia before)? And what is your view on the chicken/egg aspect of his conservativeness regarding his corruption (or does that matter at all)?

 

Thomas was far right from the go----surprisingly so----even before he started taking vacations with Harlan Crow. And he was on the bench for nearly 13 years before Alito was nominated so I don't think Alito has really influenced him. I'm sure Scalia influenced him to a decent extent, although not as much as the trope about him mocks. As I said in a previous post, in many ways, Thomas is more conservative than Scalia, especially with regard to some criminal justice issues.

 

Based on what yoss just said to me, to question to me is whether his conservatism allowed him to become more easily corrupt, or is his corruption is driving his conservatism. I would tend to lean to the prior.