3 ms·

Kagan's dissent regarding the standing of Missouri was fantastic. I am not a lawyer, but she seemed to clearly cut through every argument for hearing the case o

by scythe 3y ago

Kagan's dissent regarding the standing of Missouri was fantastic. I am not a lawyer, but she seemed to clearly cut through every argument for hearing the case offered by the majority. MOHELA is not financially tied to Missouri; states cannot sue on behalf of their citizens; the SC of MO ruled against Missouri's obligations to a very similar entity (MOHEFA) when MO was sued over those obligations (and Missouri, presumably since it was the defendant, repudiated such ties in that case!). Her case on the merits was... less convincing. I'm not convinced she's wrong, but I'm not convinced she's right. I have more thoughts, but they're long, and would distract from what I made this comment for. Nonetheless, having shown her case on standing, we do not need the merits. What is surprising (and disappointing) is that SCOTUS here seemed to have abandoned its usual (good) policy of steadfastly restricting what it has the responsibility to rule on.

paulmd 3y ago
You can't not view the standing question together with the standing for the discrimination case, where the court ruled that the possibility of prior restraint that the government had not undertaken, over actions the plaintiff had not taken, in a business that they had not started, constituted an actionable tort/harm that gave plaintiffs standing. The court is now allowing hypothetical harms, pre-crime. And the worst part is, we know that's not going to be evenly applied. The old regime is being swept away, this is now The Terrors, where different groups of people receive a different process with a pre-determined outcome based on which group you fall into. Even if you didn't like the court before, everyone got the same process, and that's different now. Nobody is even pretending there's any legal basis to these standings anymore. If you're in the right group, you can sue over harm to a business you didn't even start yet. You can sue for damage to someone else's business that you're not even a party to (as Missouri did).

by scythe 3y ago

paulmd 3y ago

You can't not view the standing question together with the standing for the discrimination case, where the court ruled that the possibility of prior restraint that the government had not undertaken, over actions the plaintiff had not taken, in a business that they had not started, constituted an actionable tort/harm that gave plaintiffs standing. The court is now allowing hypothetical harms, pre-crime. And the worst part is, we know that's not going to be evenly applied. The old regime is being swept away, this is now The Terrors, where different groups of people receive a different process with a pre-determined outcome based on which group you fall into. Even if you didn't like the court before, everyone got the same process, and that's different now. Nobody is even pretending there's any legal basis to these standings anymore. If you're in the right group, you can sue over harm to a business you didn't even start yet. You can sue for damage to someone else's business that you're not even a party to (as Missouri did).