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If you lose 9-0 in the Supreme Court, and your expected side (in this case, progressives) is the one writing the opinion, you should have known you were going t
by rossdavidh 2y ago
If you lose 9-0 in the Supreme Court, and your expected side (in this case, progressives) is the one writing the opinion, you should have known you were going to lose, and you messed up letting it get to the point where it was even presented to the Supreme Court.
- cagenut 2y agomessed up? you billed hours the whole time!
- complaintdept 2y ago25 a day.
- shmatt 2y agoOn the other hand, how is Sotomayor ever going to write another majority opinion without a case like this
- vlovich123 2y agoProbably, but it's hard to predict what kind of negotiations the judges do to come to specific outcomes. SCOTUS isn't an apolitical body despite how it would like to be viewed, both in terms of the idealogical bent of the court AND the horse trading that naturally happens because these are colleagues who have to work repeatedly over a long period of time.
- avmich 2y agoBoth reasons are not what's supposed to happen in the institution.
- vlovich123 2y agoWhy do you say that? They battled FDR over the New Deal for example which was more political than any kind of principled analysis of the law. Here's an article from 2023 alluding to negotiations within the court [1] > decisions issued this month have shown several cross-ideological alliances and likely reflected negotiations among small factions. Not sure where you get that this isn't supposed to happen. Indeed, negotiation is expected largely because you'd think that judges would sacrifice their personal politics to enact decisions or communicate them in a way to strengthen the overall institution. [1] https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/15/politics/supreme-court-backchannel-affirmative-action-namby-pambies/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/15/politics/supreme-court-backch...
- daveguy 2y agoNegotiation, "I'll give you this for that", is very different from legal argument, "This is my interpretation of the law, and I will explain why it is correct." Some may call that negotiation of opinion, but I think there is an important distinction. I seriously doubt they are doing the former.
- dylan604 2y agoThat's effectively the judges arguing merits amongst themselves. I would actually think this a good thing. "I'll give you a paid vacation in a posh RV and flights on a private jet" is absolutely a totally different animal.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- daveguy 2y ago
- JohnMakin 2y ago> If you lose 9-0 in the Supreme Court, and your expected side (in this case, progressives) This is a pretty clear first amendment issue that shouldn’t divide among party lines. Party lines shouldn’t even be a thing in the SC, but unfortunately that ship has sailed. The law is clear about this so the “progressive” judges wrote their opinion about what the law says. That is more than can be said about some of the more conservative justices, who don’t really seem to care as much about what the law says rather than pushing personal/political/financial agendas.
- jimbob45 2y agoThis is a pretty clear first amendment issue That's what OP is saying - someone wasted a ton of time and money on lawyers to receive a verdict that they should have known was coming.
- JohnMakin 2y agoRight, my main point being though that the expectation that a judge should rule for your "side" of the aisle is faulty and corrupt and not really a "progressive" thing. At least not from my recent recollection and I have a weird OCD habit of reading a lot of the denser text of these opinions. I will say that Kavanaugh has been a surprising force on the court, tending to vote by what he thinks the law says, so I'm not trying to blame any specific party here, just individuals that I probably do not need to name because it has been so prominent in the news cycle the last few years.
- whoiscroberts 2y agoWhat decisions would you recommend I read that demonstrate the conservative justices don’t care as much about the law rather than their political agenda? I make this claim all the time based on my instinct but always fall short when trying to demonstrate, what ruling led you to your conclusion?
- pjob 2y agoThis is a recurring theme on the 5-4 podcast. You may want to reference their episode list as a starting point for relevant cases to research.
- bsder 2y agoMaybe. But it can also be a good tactical case to set precendent against your opponents. Having the NRA as one of the parties puts the conservative wing of the court in a bind. They don't really want to limit this (Republicans like to be authoritarian), but they don't want it used as a cudgel against the NRA, either. So, the progressives get the first amendment issues reaffirmed, and the conservatives have to protect the NRA.
- Hock88sdx 2y ago[dead]
- zbrozek 2y agoWe also had Sheetz vs County of El Dorado as a 9-0 against Takings, which probably surprised the left.
- Aloha 2y agoFor those who would like to read - https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-1074_bqmd.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-1074_bqmd.pdf
- hn_throwaway_99 2y agoI agree the outcome was correct, but I think you may misunderstand how this got to the Supreme Court: 1. The NRA sued this official for First Amendment rights violations. 2. It went up through the courts, but importantly, the NRA lost in the Second Circuit. 3. The NRA then appealed that loss to the Supreme Court.
- JamesBarney 2y agoI still can't believe the 2nd circuit looked at this case and decided it was acceptable behavior.
- throwaway425933 2y agoIt baffles me that US supreme court justices can be given "progressive" vs "conservatives" labels. Aren't they expected to be impartial? Even in a country like India with weaker rule of law, the courts and judges never take sides with political parties.
- rossdavidh 2y agoWell, they should be impartial (and really compared to Congress or the White House they most definitely are), but they are appointed by the President (partisan) and approved (or not) by the Senate (partisan), so everyone knows which side they stand on. Not good, but it is how it is.
- 0xBDB 2y agoThis probably won't be popular, but the U.S. Supreme Court isn't really partisan either. A lot of its cases don't involve partisan issues in any case, but a majority of all the cases are decided 9-0, like this one. The perception that the court is partisan comes from a lot of press attention on a very small number of 5-4 cases on controversial issues where the majority has clearly used motivated reasoning. That was the case in both Roe v. Wade and the case that overturned it, Dobbs, for example. On the current court some justices are particularly notable for doing this (in my opinion Alito on the right and Sotomayor on the left). But even in 5-4 cases the justices don't always split the way you'd think. The Bostock County decision that made gays and transgender people a federally protected class against job discrimination was written by a conservative justice. That same justice, Gorsuch, as known as an advocate of Native American treaty rights. The late Justice Scalia was an advocate of defendants' rights under the Fourth Amendment. The judges aren't predictable voters in the way senators are.
- verdverm 2y agoExpectations vs reality w.r.t. US SCOTUS being overly political is a hotly debated topic of late.
- chx 2y ago[flagged]
- 2y ago
- arp242 2y ago[Edit: US politics is too toxic, fuck it]
- hn_throwaway_99 2y ago> and wanted to prevent civil servants saying negative things about the NRA You should read some of the ruling, because that's absolutely not what happened. The civil servant can say anything she wants under her power as a private citizen. What she can't do is use the power of her office to impose her will on the industries she regulates, and that is what the Supreme Court said she did.
- 0xBDB 2y agoThat's not what the Supreme Court said she did. This is a preliminary-stage ruling. The Supreme Court said that the case can't be dismissed because if all the facts are as the NRA alleges, which they are required to assume at this stage, that would be what she did. The case isn't over. It now goes back to the lower courts to determine if that is, in fact, what she did.
- Hock88sdx 2y ago[dead]
- rootusrootus 2y agoI'm under the impression that lopsided decisions are actually the more common outcome in cases before the supreme court. That it's the ideologically divided ones that are outliers, even if they garner most of the media attention. Is that incorrect?
- hn_throwaway_99 2y agoThat's basically correct, but the percentage of unanimous decisions has been on a downward trend: https://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/frequency-in-majority-2.png https://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/freque...
- rootusrootus 2y agoThank you for sharing that graph; it seems quite descriptive, knowing what we do about the ideological makeup of the court. That jump in 6-3 rulings stands out.
- delichon 2y ago> The justices have been unanimous in the judgment in 20 of the 29 cases decided thus far But it's expected that they wrote the easier opinions first and the remaining 30+ cases will be more contentious. https://reason.com/volokh/2024/05/30/supreme-court-ot2022-at-the-end-of-may/ https://reason.com/volokh/2024/05/30/supreme-court-ot2022-at...
- chatmasta 2y agoSometimes it’s a political win to lose in court. For example, if your party is arguing for reform of the Supreme Court, it helps when the court fails to rule in your favor. Your base can interpret that as evidence that the court is broken and needs fixing.
- delichon 2y agoDobbs was probably such a case, but I doubt there was ever a 9-0 case that was a net win for the zero.
- alistairSH 2y agoRead the decision. All the court decided is the NRA has a basis to bring their suit (lower court dismissed the case). This now goes back to the lower court to be re-argued.