There is no doubt that Mark Meadows or Georgia will appeal the removal decision and it will likely reach #SCOTUS on the shadow docket. Guess who will review it first--Justice Thomas. As we know--he won't recuse himself nor is he required to do so. He could stall the proceedings pending full Court review.
Stephen Vladeck explains the shadow docket on an episode of SideBar.
But SCOTUS isn't all powerful in the US system, and certainly a single justice isn't either.
For the Court to act requires more consensus, meanwhile lower courts will have their say.
We really need to avoid these sensationalized stories that focus on personalities instead of process.
@volkris It isn't a sensationalized story. I have no doubt that the lower court and appeals courts will act quickly on the motions and appeals. The parties may even seek to skip the appeals court as the Trump administration did multiple times. Justice Thomas can issue a stay (or not). "The Circuit Justice may act on an application alone
or refer it to the full Court for consideration." I encourage you to read Stephen Vladeck's book The Shadow Docket. https://www.supremecourt.gov/publicinfo/reportersguide.pdf
If you read the link that you provided, it goes into detail about the protections built into the system to provide checks on justices acting alone inappropriately.
For example, "If a Justice acts alone to deny an application, a petitioner may renew the application to any other Justice of his or her choice"
Meanwhile lower court decisions remain significant even as the process works out.
@volkris True but I again encourage you to read the book to understand how it plays out. The Court allowed TX SB8 to go into affect even though it was clearly unconstitutional at the time the stay was sought. It allowed the AL congressional maps to go into effect for the 2022 midterms even though they violated s. 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The decision to allow the Alabama maps to go into effect influenced maps in at least 3 other states. The shadow docket is powerful tool. Don't dismiss it.
Your examples prove my point, though!
That the Court declined to intervene is not an exercise of power; it's literally a Court NOT acting, with lower courts having their say.
AND the procedures outlined in the document you linked show how the inaction reflected the mood of the entire Court, not any particular member.
The shadow document is a powerful tool, yes, but you're misunderstanding what the tool does: it doesn't undermine the process but rather allows the Court to focus on more compelling and important cases.
The shadow docket is a powerful took for allowing the Court to operate more efficiently and effectively. It's an internal tool, not this external one as it's being portrayed.
@volkris You and I will have to disagree. Allowing the SB8 to stay in effect was not maintaining the status quo and it overturned the lower courts decision--who relaying on SCOTUS precedent had declared the law unconstitutional. The law was in effect for MONTHS before Dobbs was decided--effectively ending abortion in TX and allowing a "bounty" system to be in place. That isn't inaction - that's very specific action.
What specifically are you referring to?
As I recall and read, the Fifth Circuit refused to enjoin enforcement of the law.
@volkris The Supreme Court allowed the ban to go forward on an emergency petition even though it was clear at the time that the law was unconstitutional.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/us/politics/supreme-court-shadow-docket-texas-abortion.html
But that was a decision of the Fifth Circuit, not of the Supreme Court.
(Again, as my memory and quick reading from the docket serve)
You're also begging the question here as to constitutionality as that was exactly the question before the Court.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/21-463.html
@volkris As I said in an earlier post we may need to agree to disagree. A state makes a law that is clearly unconstitutional at the time it is passed. There is no question it was. Roe was in effect. The Supreme Court decides to allow the law to go into effect instead of maintaining the status quo—which would be to stay the implementation of the law until a decision on the merits was made. It did the opposite, contrary to its standard for granting emergency petitions.
You're factually wrong though.
OF COURSE there was a question that it was constitutional at the time it was passed since the whole point was asking that question!
And no, the Supreme Court didn't decide to allow the law to go into effect. It made no such decision.
Again, these are flat out matters of fact, matters of the record that we can see right there in the docket. There is no room for disagreeing about what happened any more than there is room for disagreeing about whether the sun rose this morning.
There's no equivocation on this. You are simply wrong as to what happened as per the official documentation, and it's worth pointing that out I think.
@volkris We will have to agree to disagree on the characterization of the Clurt’s action.
This is a disagreement on fact, though.
I pull up the actual docket directly from the Supreme Court showing that what you're saying is wrong, factually wrong, so I don't really know why you would agree to disagree.
We have the authority in front of us showing that what you're saying is wrong on the facts.
I guess you can continue to disagree with that if you want but I don't know why you would.
The Supreme Court says that your position is incorrect. I don't know why you maintain it given such repudiation.
@volkris Here is a timeline.
May 19, 2021, Texas Heartbeat Bill signed into law. At the time it was signed into law, it clearly contradicted both Roe and Casey.
September 1, 2021, the law went into effect *after* the Supreme Court denied an emergency petition from abortion providers in TX.
For 9 months SB8 was in effect when Roe was still good law and there was a constitutional right to access an abortion.
June 24, 2022, Court handed down Dobbs which overturned Roe v. Wade.
You're leaving out the lower court rulings which are pivotal to this timeline though.
@volkris Because we were discussing #SCOTUS. The Court had 2 options: deny the petition and allow the law to go into effect even though it had yet to decide Dobbs or approve the petition and stay the 5th Cir. decisions pending the Dobbs decision.
It denied the petition w/out explanation. The denial meant tha law was allowed to go into effect nine months BEFORE the Supreme Court issued its decision overturning Roe.
You and I will have to agree to disagree on how we characterize that decision.
But that's not factually correct.
When the Supreme Court denies a petition like this it doesn't *allow* anything. It merely declines to take a position either way on what a lower court has done.
The Court factually maintains neutrality, neither allowing nor disallowing.
The denial did not mean the law was allowed to go into effect; that is a misstatement of the factual record here.
The Supreme Court didn't overrule a lower court, and it takes a logical leap to frame that inaction as action, the declining to act as action.
That's where what you're saying is departing from the facts and going off into left field.
@volkris You and I view it differently. The *decision* not to stay the 5th Cir order is an action. By not staying the order, it allowed the TX Heartbeat Law to go into effect because there was no court order staying it.
“The court also ruled that the law, which effectively bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, will remain in place as these legal challenges play out.”
After this ruling, abortions dropped by 60% in TX while there was still a constitutional right to abortion.
Right, because I'm viewing this based on the factual record, that's public record in courts' dockets, regardless of my personal preferences or outcomes.
When there's a problem to fix it's critical to correctly identify the problem, and when courts like SCOTUS are involved, the facts of the process are especially crucial.
So you're glossing over critical facts in what you're saying, getting the facts wrong, and that's no minor detail.
Let's say, for example, that you think a judge here was so in error that they need to be removed from office. Yes, that would be one way of addressing the problem BUT the it's critical to know which judge to target.
It is no minor detail that you're getting the facts of the case wrong even as you're focusing on eventual outcomes.
Well anyway, here's the docket for the case directly from the Supreme Court, that you can read through with your own eyes to see where you're getting the facts a bit wrong.
I think it's important to fact check stuff like this especially to find out that you can't trust whomever seems to have been telling the misleading stories about the case.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/21-463.html
@volkris We are looking at different dockets. You are looking at the timeline for the petition for cert on September 28. 2022. I am looking at the emergency docket. The petition for emergency relief was filed on August 30 and denied on September 1, 2022 in a 5-4 decision with Chief Justice Roberts, Kagan, Sotomayor and Breyer dissenting. https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/whole-womans-health-v-austin-reeve-jackson/
@volkris Clearly we will not convince each other that our position is right and other’s position is wrong. I am happy to respond to other posts you may have but I am done responding to posts about this issue. Have a good night!