Under that theory, a publicly held corporation shouldn’t be donating to charitable causes because of that same duty. I’m with Richard Parker, here. I don’t see how the logic of the opinion doesn’t also apply to publicly traded corporations.
That’s interesting, especially since I don’t know any setting to control this. When I post from Tapatalk, every post gets the signature; when I post from a browser, none do.
Although the link says ‘recommended’ I certainly wouldn’t want to be part of any pushing of boundaries, so stpauler, let’s agree that the terms of the bet are fulfilled when you post one signature per thread between now and December 30th, 2014. Suits?
She should immediately resign from the Court and run for Congress, so that she would be in the proper governmental role to implement her vision of what the law should be.
In the 1780s a lot of things that we do today in a corporate form were basically only done by individuals; when it becomes almost necessary to incorporate in order to do things that were previously individual endeavors I can’t see why we’d allow the government to trample on rights that individuals could previously exercise solely because our society has changed such that such individual actions are now often undertaken within a corporate legal entity. It’s liberals who are usually the biggest advocates of a “living constitution” that is supposed to recognize realities like this.
I think it’s been well argued already, but all the “what if” stuff would be subject to further cases/litigation. Most likely there is not a five justice majority on such a sweeping interpretation or this ruling itself would have been more sweeping.
Judges interpret the law. Clearly judges can disagree on what the proper interpretation should be. How is she any different from any other justice on the Supreme Court in this regard?
In the past this logic has not held true. Quite frequently dissents will paint majorities as being sweeping because of the logic or reasoning, and the majority will disagree citing their statement of the holding, and then a few years later the dissent is proven right when the majority adopts the more sweeping view as compelled by the earlier “narrow” decision.
I don’t wish ill-health (or worse) on anyone. But I cannot say I’d be too perturbed if a Republican wins in 2016 and sometime in the next four years Ginsburg finds that she needs to retire.
With a GOP-controlled Senate coming this fall, it may be too late now for her anyway.
No one on the SCOTUS is “compelled” to do anything in how they rule on cases.
Yeah but that’s Scalia, whose mind indeed might lead him (in fact it has many times) to respect previous rulings even when he might personally disagree with them. But Scalia wouldn’t be the swing vote in say, a case about whether a Jehova’s Witness owned company could deny blood transfusion coverage in its insurance plans, it’d be Kennedy/Roberts–who are a lot less likely to rule based on legal precedent and a lot more likely to rule based on their personal opinions on the matter.
No one is holding a gun to their head and muttering “stare decisis motherfucker!” But Justices generally want to be seen as consistent, and to treat like cases alike. That’s the whole point of the rule of law. So when there is little factual basis for distinguishing an earlier case, it will tends to be followed. Of course, Justices can invent factual bases or just outright overturn prior precedent. But that happens less often than you seem to imply.
I disagree with your opinion that Roberts and Kennedy don’t know how to be judges but that Scalia does. I don’t think there’s any factual basis for it.
Justices that believe the written law is what they should be following are, in my view, to be highly preferred to justices that seek to use the law to shape social policy to their preferred ends without much concern for the text of the law.
Back in the nineteenth century, Congress passed a law:
The Holy Trinity Church hired one E. Walpole Warren, of London, England, to enter into its service as rector and pastor; they paid his way across the sea, an act that they conceded violated the express words of Congress’ law.
BUT, said the church, hold on. This wasn’t meant to keep out pastors. Granted, the text does so, but that’s just not right.
And the Supreme Court agreed:
See what they did there?
They simply decided that the text of the law didn’t matter. They substituted their idea of what was right --a Christian nation – for the secularly-neutral language Congress actually passed.
That’s not what I want our judges to do.
I want our judges to understand that the written text of the law is what they must use. If there’s a flaw, it’s for Congress to correct.
Scalia knows how to be the kind of judge I think we should have, more so than Roberts or Ginsburg.
There is no “kind of judge” mandated by law, of course. But I want judges that understand that they are not legislators. I want judges that don’t want to make new social policy.
Martin Hyde was suggesting that Scalia makes more of an effort to abide by the logic and holdings of earlier decisions than Roberts and Kennedy. I don’t think that’s true.
That is, of course, the fundamental conflict between our views. I don’t believe a Supreme Court (or any) judge should see his or her role as that of shaping social policy. They should decide the law based on the law, not guided by how they want things to turn out. They should be the umpires of the game, applying the rules that Congress writes for them without caring which side wins.
If we learned that an umpire had a strong interest in seeing one team win, we’d lose confidence in that umpire’s calls against (and for) that team, wouldn’t we?
The existence of that “conflict of views” you have with others comes from others’ recognizing and respecting the existence and purpose of the Constitution. :rolleyes:
(posting this here because it’s a sincere question that I don’t think deserves its own thread).
How does this ruling affect a business to exclude coverage for any sort of medical care that goes against its “sincerely held religious beliefs”? Is any aspect of health care fair game?
