I had a feeling some state was going to try some version of this, I just wasn’t sure who was going to be first. It’s clearly not a law that’s meant to be sound policy, but CA looks to be trying to force the Supreme Court’s hand on the issue of whether states can just strip people of constitutional rights by giving a third party standing to sue.
Definitely going to be one to watch.
Popcorn…
Boy, I wonder how those partisan hacks on the big court are going to deal with this?
If you extend this to its logical conclusion, they can all just retire when they have nothing else to do.
Roberts has gone on record saying he doesn’t like it when states enact laws that try to bypass Supreme Court decisions. If he didn’t like it when Texas did it over abortion, I’m sure he won’t like it when California does it over guns.
Of course even if Roberts votes to overturn the Texas law and is joined by Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor, the law will stand. If Roberts votes to overturn the California law and is joined by Alito, Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Thomas, that law will be overturned.
In b4 the Supreme Court jumps through half a dozen hoops to declare the Texas law A-OK while California’s is clearly the most unconstitutional thing evah.
“‘Twas brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.”
Miscellaneous nonsense inserted to keep Discourse happy
I always like to ask people if they’re sure they want to do something tricky. After all, what’s to stop their political opponents from using a similar tactic? I don’t think anyone is surprised to see another state passing a Texas-style law in California regarding guns. What’s good for the goose I guess.
As several people have noted, the Supreme Court can stop liberals from using this tactic while allowing conservatives to use it.
Which just leaves things in a state of chaos where some rights can be taken away by a third party while others can’t, and kicks the can further down the road until a consistent constitutional principle can be established. Meanwhile, Alabama is letting people sue anyone who gets gay-married, Vermont is letting people sue anyone who sells GMO foods, and Illinois is letting people sue anyone who puts ketchup on a hot dog.
Theoretically they could if they stopped caring about the integrity of the court. A few years ago I would have said that was extremely unlikely, but we live in interesting times.
That horse left the barn ages ago; is it any wonder they’re in no rush to close the doors?
This is going to be a non-issue for the Supreme Court – they will bypass the Texas law’s implications by getting rid of the right to an abortion. That way, Texas can just ban it rather than using these legal shenanigans. Then, they can be consistent and throw out this ridiculous California law.
If this happens the exodus from California will only accelerate.
I gotta give Newsome a zero for creative thinking on this one. If he’s serious, modelling a law on shit is shitty. If this is just a stunt, I’m sure California could use his genuine efforts to maybe try and figure out things that should be addressed like, oh I don’t know, a water supply/source.
“If states can shield their laws from review by federal courts,…”
Not noble or honorable, Governor.
Republicans rule, Democrats drool.
We’re far along the path of seeing the Supreme Court becoming a third house of Congress rather than an actual court of law. Republicans see the role of the court as maintaining the conservative agenda over those periods when they lose control of the House and/or Senate.
I think both TX and CA are fully in the wrong here but at least the pro-gun lobby would have a slightly stronger legal argument against California. There is a Constitutional amendment that (superficially) guarantees the right to bear arms. Whereas the right to abortion exists on nothing but a very shaky Supreme Court ruling made in 1973.
I doubt the Republicans will ever overturn Roe. They have no real motive to. Opposition to abortion keeps a large group of people voting Republican. So the Republicans have no incentive to eliminate abortions and risk losing that voting bloc. Republicans can string along pro-life voters forever by keep promising to eliminate abortions but never actually do so.
The ‘exodus’ doesn’t actually exist, but even if it did, to anyone who wants to leave California over gun rights, I say good riddance.
This argument has been made many times but it is flawed on three counts:
Overturning Roe by no means ends the abortion war. If anything, it intensifies it - abortion would then be decided individually by the 50 states - some of which would ban, some of which would uphold it even stronger. Congressional Democrats would also float the idea of a federal law codifying abortion rights nationwide.
Even if abortion were fully banned nationwide, it still remains a powerful weapon for pro-lifers because pro-choicers will always keep trying to bring abortion back, and so pro-lifers will say, “Vote Republican because the Democrats are trying to bring back legal baby murder.”
Even if abortion completely vanished as an issue, there are still 100 other reasons for pissed-off right-wingers to vote Republican. Critical race theory, Black Lives Matter, guns, LGBT, affirmative action, etc.
That being said though, since this is a gun thread and not abortion thread, I’ll avoid hijacking/sidetracking further.
The only reason California has been gaining population at all over the last several years is because the number of people moving to California from other countries has balanced out the number of Americans leaving California.
Just because the exodus from California is not readily visible in the raw numbers is no reason to declare that it does not exist.
And here’s a visualization from the Census showing how internal migration to and from California has changed over time.