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The Power of the SCOTUS IV: Gays, Guns, and Immigrants, OH MY!

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What's a good site for getting recaps of rulings? Of the news sites that I visit, none of them had anything on the ruling released yesterday.

Scotusblog is my goto site. Live blogs on decision days, quick and dirty recaps therafter, and fuller recaps a day or so later. They also aggregate daily news from around the web.

They had something like 1.5 million visitors last year for the live blog of the healthcare rulings. Presuming gay marriage goes the distance, I wouldn't be shocked if they top a million on wed or thurs. next week for those rulings.
 
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Re: The Power of the SCOTUS IV: Gays, Guns, and Immigrants, OH MY!

Scotusblog is my goto site. Live blogs on decision days, quick and dirty recaps therafter, and fuller recaps a day or so later. They also aggregate daily news from around the web.

They had something like 1.5 million visitors last year for the live blog of the healthcare rulings. Presuming gay marriage goes the distance, I wouldn't be shocked if they top a million on wed or thurs. next week for those rulings.

Agreed. Scotusblog is a tremendous site for following the Supremes.
 
Re: The Power of the SCOTUS IV: Gays, Guns, and Immigrants, OH MY!

10 cert grants this morning, including the recess appointment case.
 
Re: The Power of the SCOTUS IV: Gays, Guns, and Immigrants, OH MY!

SCOTUS punts on affirmative action. 7-1 in favor of remand because the lower court used the wrong standard of review.

Nothing yet on gay marriage or the VRA
 
Re: The Power of the SCOTUS IV: Gays, Guns, and Immigrants, OH MY!

No gay marriage or VRA today. Lots of 5-4 wins for employers, though, on the undercard.
 
Re: The Power of the SCOTUS IV: Gays, Guns, and Immigrants, OH MY!

More opinions tomorrow, and likely one more day later this week. 6 to go, including both gay marriage ones and the VRA.
 
Re: The Power of the SCOTUS IV: Gays, Guns, and Immigrants, OH MY!

SCOTUS punts on affirmative action. 7-1 in favor of remand because the lower court used the wrong standard of review.

Nice job by Roberts to get a broad majority together.

According to the WSJ, Kennedy wrote that the lower courts 'misunderstood' the 2003 case.

Monday's opinion reiterated Justice Kennedy's 2003 view that universities should be required to show why giving preferences based on an applicant's race was necessary. He wrote that lower courts had misunderstood the Grutter precedent: While they should generally accept a university's academic judgment that student diversity provides educational benefits, courts shouldn't defer to college administrators regarding the methods used to obtain it.

"The University must prove that the means" it has chosen "to attain diversity are narrowly tailored to that goal," Justice Kennedy wrote.

Before using racial classifications in admissions, UT must demonstrate "that available, workable, race-neutral alternatives do not suffice," he said.

There is now an entrenched "diversity industry" that never will admit that the age of discrimination has ended, no matter how much empirical evidence might be produced to the contrary (Note: I am NOT saying we are there, yet). Nice to see the Justices almost unanimously united in ruling that we do need to stop and assess our progress from time to time, rather than keep it open-ended forever.
 
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Re: The Power of the SCOTUS IV: Gays, Guns, and Immigrants, OH MY!

Adoptive couple wins 5-4 over the biological father. Breyer joins the conservative wing, while scalia dissents with the three women.
 
VRA is out. Court strikes it down 5-4 on ideological lines. Roberts for the majority, Ginsberg dissents.

Edit: Roberts limits it to the formula in section 4. Section 5 is not struck down per se. Congress can create a new formula to apply to Section 5 if it wishes.

Edit 2: that's it for today. No gay marriage. Last 3 opinions to be released later this week.

Edit 3: last opinions will come tomorrow.
 
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VRA is out. Court strikes it down 5-4 on ideological lines. Roberts for the majority, Ginsberg dissents.

Edit: Roberts limits it to the formula in section 4. Section 5 is not struck down per se. Congress can create a new formula to apply to Section 5 if it wishes.

Edit 2: that's it for today. No gay marriage. Last 3 opinions to be released later this week.

Edit 3: last opinions will come tomorrow.

I'm not a lawyer, but I can live with the VRA ruling. From what I can tell it upholds the right of the Justice Department to pre-clear maps in areas that have a historic record of discrimination, but says the areas covered as the act was written 40 years ago need a second look. As a "raging smug liberal" that seem reasonable.

Now some will say "oh but Congress won't do anything". To that I say, then you need to vote those people out and elect people who will.
 
Re: The Power of the SCOTUS IV: Gays, Guns, and Immigrants, OH MY!

I don't even know what adjective to use to describe how wildly divergent the spin is on the SCOTUS ruling:

[IP, Washington, DC]: Great news! The Supreme Court ruled today that the US has made significant progress in eliminating voter discrimination based on race. "The Voting Rights Act of 1965 has done its job," Judge Roberts ruled. "Empirical evidence indicates that the very real and deplorable voter discrimination that existed in 1965 has been nearly eliminated in the ensuing 47 years."

Civil rights leaders were overjoyed: "this ruling vindicates everything we set out to accomplish back in 1965. We are pleased that the Supreme Court agreed that the Voting Rights Act was an essential piece in eliminating voter discrimination."
 
Re: The Power of the SCOTUS IV: Gays, Guns, and Immigrants, OH MY!

I'm not a lawyer, but I can live with the VRA ruling. From what I can tell it upholds the right of the Justice Department to pre-clear maps in areas that have a historic record of discrimination, but says the areas covered as the act was written 40 years ago need a second look. As a "raging smug liberal" that seem reasonable.

Now some will say "oh but Congress won't do anything". To that I say, then you need to vote those people out and elect people who will.

I'm not sure. Just read one piece on this...The Voting Rights Act has recently been used to block a voter ID law in Texas and delay the implementation of another in South Carolina. Both states are no longer subject to the preclearance requirement because of the court’s ruling on Tuesday.

It does put the pressure on congress to get their act together...or it appears VRA is toothless.
 
I'm not sure. Just read one piece on this...The Voting Rights Act has recently been used to block a voter ID law in Texas and delay the implementation of another in South Carolina. Both states are no longer subject to the preclearance requirement because of the court’s ruling on Tuesday.

It does put the pressure on congress to get their act together...or it appears VRA is toothless.

I'm not as worried for this reason. The courts, even the SCOTUS, have repeatedly ruled against restricting voting purely for political ends. Voter ID is fine, but not if its passed two months before election day for example. What does need to happen however is voting rights advocates need to start bringing their cases to court. So, if one precinct is forced to wait hours to vote over multiple elections while another runs smooth as clockwork, I'd bring that to court if I had standing (as in a voter in that district). Or if you've done some tortured gerrymander do the same every time you think its happened.

I fear people rely too much on the courts to do their dirty work for them sometimes, particularly when it comes to elections. Lets say early voting matters to you. Or you feel redistricting was unfair. In most states you can remedy that with a citizens initiative on the ballot. This solves a lot of problems that a partisan legislature or unpredictable court will not.
 
Re: The Power of the SCOTUS IV: Gays, Guns, and Immigrants, OH MY!

I'm not as worried for this reason. The courts, even the SCOTUS, have repeatedly ruled against restricting voting purely for political ends. Voter ID is fine, but not if its passed two months before election day for example. What does need to happen however is voting rights advocates need to start bringing their cases to court. So, if one precinct is forced to wait hours to vote over multiple elections while another runs smooth as clockwork, I'd bring that to court if I had standing (as in a voter in that district). Or if you've done some tortured gerrymander do the same every time you think its happened.

I fear people rely too much on the courts to do their dirty work for them sometimes, particularly when it comes to elections. Lets say early voting matters to you. Or you feel redistricting was unfair. In most states you can remedy that with a citizens initiative on the ballot. This solves a lot of problems that a partisan legislature or unpredictable court will not.

While I largely agree...I don't know enough about if TX voter id laws. It would be interesting to see if demographics change significantly after implementation.

As a related note. I find it interesting that the act itself is not seen to be unconstitutional...but rather the extent to which its implemented. Unless its blatantly discriminatory, it would seem to me that its either a Constitutional act or not...with the details a legislative matter and implementation an executive matter.
 
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While I largely agree...I don't know enough about if TX voter id laws. It would be interesting to see if demographics change significantly after implementation.

As a related note. I find it interesting that the act itself is not seen to be unconstitutional...but rather the extent to which its implemented. Unless its blatantly discriminatory, it would seem to me that its either a Constitutional act or not...with the details a legislative matter and implementation an executive matter.

I have no idea what Congress will look like in 2020 which is the next time this will come to the forefront, but for the pending cases out there (TX for example) I wonder if we'll get another review before the SCOTUS. If Justice thinks there's a violation and blocks it, wouldn't it take another court decision to decide whether or not their reasons were valid?
 
Re: The Power of the SCOTUS IV: Gays, Guns, and Immigrants, OH MY!

As much as I would like to think this decision is not a big deal, I can't help but think that it will only be a matter of time before the South and other parts of the country starts to have some very "creative" changes to their voting laws.

Also, I find it very interesting that elapsed time is an apparent factor now on the constitutionality of a law.
 
As much as I would like to think this decision is not a big deal, I can't help but think that it will only be a matter of time before the South and other parts of the country starts to have some very "creative" changes to their voting laws.

That's a road to nowhere though. 40 years ago the threat of violence plus a poll tax was a pretty strong deterent to voting. Not to mention it was a much different age in terms of access to instantaneous information. Much of these practices could take place in relative anonymity.

All that's gone now. If a political party decided that surpressing the vote was the way to win elections, that party would be on its way to extinction. It just doesn't work that way anymore. You can't charge people to vote and you can't threaten them. You also can't change the law at the last minute to confuse them. The big mischief that I can see is kinda what we're already dealing with which is hyper-partisan redistricting. The solution to that is already available (citizens passed initiative for independent commission to draw lines). Otherwise as the last election proved, efforts to keep people from voting just turn indifferent voters into highly motivated ones, and they're all motivated to pay you back at the ballot box. Remember when these laws were going to throw PA and FL into Romney's column? I think it fell a few million votes short.
 
Re: The Power of the SCOTUS IV: Gays, Guns, and Immigrants, OH MY!

...
Now some will say "oh but Congress won't do anything". To that I say, then you need to vote those people out and elect people who will.
HA!!

BTW, I think you're in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Has anyone made noise that Rep. Markey (Senator presumptive) lives more in Maryland than in Massachusetts??
 
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