SCOTUS Happenings

I thought it would be good to have a thread to discuss US Supreme Court decisions, issues, etc.

11 Likes

Politics still sometimes makes for strange bedfellows. I haven’t dug into this issue too much, but the Biden Administration and Mitch McConnell are on the same side in this case. And the decision of the court was 8-1 in their favor, with KBJ as the lone dissent. Odd.

8 Likes

Of more concern, the GOP is already starting to try to prevent ballots from being counted. Four years ago, they waited until after the election to file lawsuits like this, and SCOTUS told them it was too late to do anything about it, even if they had a valid complaint (which they didn’t…and still don’t, imo).

Regardless, if you are voting by mail, double and triple check your ballot before mailing it, and make absolutely sure you have followed all instructions to the letter. And then follow up and verify that the state received your ballot. I’m pretty sure every state that has voting by mail has a way to verify if your ballot was received.

12 Likes

just the most cursory glance of states that allow tracking mail-in ballots, i get NJ, AZ, FL, MA, CA, MI, OH, TX.
trackmyballot [state abbreviation] .org to see yours.

9 Likes

Interestingly, the local branch of the Dems let me know my ballot had been received. I’m puzzled how they were informed.

But they were right, I checked through the official channel and it had been counted.

7 Likes

Yep, I live in NJ, and I was able to verify mine was received.

8 Likes

Voted early and in person. Because Texas

11 Likes

Yeah, my mom emailed me today that she and my dad just voted. They’re in Texas. And they’re both lifelong Democrats and they hate Trump.

10 Likes

I’ve been flooded with texts over the last week telling me that I haven’t voted and need to (got it taken care of now, but there’s still some messages trickling in). Also had a text the other day suggesting I look up friends at votehistory.org to see if they have voted, which feels just a little bit like stalker behavior, but it does look like it has up-to-date info.

9 Likes

VT as well. I mailed my ballot on the holiday weekend, and by Wednesday morning it was showing as “RECEIVED”. The website might’ve been built in the 1990s, but they keep the important data up to date.

8 Likes

In Oregon, anyone can look up anyone else’s ballot status if they know their first name, last name, and DOB.

The whole West Coast does.

6 Likes
17 Likes
14 Likes

What really pisses me off about this decision, and it’s not just this decision but this is a great example of it, is how fucking inconsistent this court is.

In several decisions, like Dobbs, they cited lack of a federal law outlining Congress’ intent as why they ruled in that way. But here, there is a federal law that very clearly makes this purge illegal, and SCOTUS ignores it. Not only that, but regardless of how they feel about voter purges in general, the federal law in question clearly makes tremendous sense regardless of one’s opinions about the impact/odds/barriers to noncitizens voting. The purpose of the law is to allow prospective voters enough time before an election to challenge their removal from the rolls.

This court just doesn’t care anymore about appearing to be in T****’s pocket. The conservative justices are bought and paid for, and can’t be removed quickly enough, in my book.

15 Likes

This isn’t a title of nobility as such, this is like universities handing out honorary doctorates.

Still, given who those guys
https://www.smocsg.org/
are, no, you don’t want a supreme court judge accepting anything from them before he is safely in retirement or six feet under.

8 Likes
7 Likes

SCOTUS may be persuaded by tech companies still stuck coping with the aftermath of scandals. A former SEC lawyer, Andrew Feller, told Reuters that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority may continue its “recent track record of handing down business-friendly decisions that narrowed the authority of federal regulators” in these cases. Both cases give justices opportunities to “rein in the power of private plaintiffs to enforce federal rules aimed at punishing corporate misconduct,” Reuters reported.

I don’t know if this is the slam dunk pro business people think it is. This part of the article is suggesting that recent cases where SCOTUS has weakened federal regulations means they will rule in favor of Nvidia and Facebook here, but as the same paragraph points out later, this isn’t a case involving federal regulations. This is a private lawsuit between investors and the companies they’ve invested in. And these lawsuits weren’t fishing expeditions. They were based on SEC decisions and settlements between the companies and the SEC. And SCOTUS doesn’t love Facebook. We’ll see.

9 Likes

Exactly. This ruling is in direct contravention of federal law, and cannot be appealed, being that there is no higher court. Purge close enough to the election that the affected cannot protest. I suspect lots of red states are taking notes on this, and now have established precedent. @danimagoo, please tell me I am misreading this?

10 Likes

It’s actually hard to know for sure what the implications of this are because the Court used the shadow docket and issued this ruling without opinion. It’s really frustrating. Not only don’t we know what their reasoning is, we don’t know what, if any, limitations there are to this. This is really a gross misuse of the shadow docket, which, frankly, I don’t think should exist period.

17 Likes

Unsurprising to me though. I can easily imagine 6 justices poised today on the edge of their finely carved, ancient wooden chairs, ready to help Tromp in any devious way they can muster.

10 Likes