1/ I often write: The only thing I know *for certain* about the future is that it has not happened yet.
Yesterday’s SCOTUS ruling is a perfect example of how much I need to heed my own mantra.
For years, I heard Donald Trump was saying that he was certain that “his Supreme Court justices” . . .
2/ . . . would ride to his rescue. I scoffed at his “stupidity” and “naïveté”, confident that he did not understand how Supreme Court justices worked. I felt comfortable that “conservative” Justices would care more about their jurisprudence and institution than protecting one man. I thought SCOTUS
3/ . . . would deny cert. and leave the DC Circuit’s opinion in place. I was wrong.
I thought that SCOTUS would quickly dispatch of Trump’s appeal, perhaps in tandem with deciding the Insurrection Clause challenge to Trump’s candidacy. I was wrong.
I thought that even if though there . . .
4/ . . . was delay, that only meant that one or two Justices (likely Alito and/or Thomas) were doing Trump’s dirty work by withholding their dissents to the last possible minute, in order to make it impossible for Judge Chutkan to conduct the trial before Election Day. I was wrong.
When I heard the hearing, my immediate reaction was that Roberts was on board with it. Then a lot of analysis convinced me I was wrong.
Should have trusted that instinct.
Blackmun, Stevens, O’Connor and Souter were four GOP nominees that were nothing like what the GOP expected them to be.
O’Connor was a true swing vote (who sometimes voted GOP interests (Bush v. Gore)). The other three became liberal stalwarts. Rehnquist would have loved to be in Roberts’ position.
You could argue FedSoc exists in part because of jurists like Stephens but they were more than fine just promoting justices until Casey. Once O'Connor and Souter didn't act on Roe, they took the process over. Never again would they not know exactly how a judge was going to rule. 1992.
Yeah, I saw people panicking as I was listening to Dreeben’s presentation and thought maybe Roberts is just aggressively questioning both sides and Barrett seemed in play.
I would suspect that the fear of Trump's violent mobs that Romney says drives a lot of actions by Senators, is no less a factor for the Court, even after their ideological predilections.
