Common law, or law based on judicial precedent, was part of English law long before this country was founded. IOW, judges have been “stepping in the place of the legislature” when the Founders were itches in their daddies’ pants. I guess Tony Scalia was asleep the day they taught that in law school. :dubious:
I mean, that ship has kinda sailed. The Roberts court oversaw a massive number of 5/4 partisan splits, on numerous incredibly important issues. The recent decision from Roberts to uphold SCOTUS precedent on TRAP laws is kind of interesting, but “unwilling to uphold a lower court decision that directly contradicts a very recent SCOTUS decision” is hardly a huge stretch - far more interesting is Kavanaugh’s dissent, which is just… What the fuck, dude?
I do think we will see more of this dynamic, because Roberts recognizes that SCOTUS has already lost a great deal of clout over the past few years. But his court has already been pretty clear in their actions. So showing a bit less of a partisan lean now is welcome, but ultimately relatively unhelpful.
Exactly- they can’t just overturn the case willy-nilly, but they can rule (or refuse to) on the various states’ laws aimed at restricting availability.
So in other words, they’re unlikely to drastically overturn anything, but they’re probably really likely to let things get nibbled at by the states and/or refuse to make any momentous rulings on anything they don’t like.
Remember, the Supreme Court isn’t any old appellate court- they can just decide to refuse to hear a case and let the lower court’s ruling stand, like they did here:
There have been a couple of cases similar, but I am not aware if this particular one was proven or disproven. It is kind of a weird story, though. Writing that, out of the blue, supposedly without any discussion with the server? Denver ain’t exactly MAGA country.
The article makes clear that this is a fairly limited trend.
Hey, as a leftish person, it’s better than nothing. I also am grateful to have some Republicans who occasionally act, however half-heartedly, to protect our institutions from the barbarians at the gates.