Using septimus’ numbers, and considering the 113 5-4 cases he looked at, that’s still only 83 where the 5-4 split had the “four liberals” in lockstep. While it’;s a majority of those 5-4 cases, I’m a bit surprised that you’d consider only 73% “almost certainly.”
And I’m a bit surprised you considered my comment an endorsement of his argument.
Gotta wonder about the relative weight of those decisions, how many were “game changing”, and how many were about regulation tweaking. A decision turning over veto power to the Federalist Society might be the only 5-4 decision all year, but it would be a doozy.
That’s why I said plan instead of post. I was saying that, while he came up with his plan for the wrong reasons, it does sound like it would work.
The problem I would have is that, while it might work for this one guy, how are we guaranteed to find another guy like him? The reason we know he’s right in the first place is that he’s in a group of other people.
I also did not consider that you get things out of the cases besides the decision itself. From what I understand, the majority opinion holds a lot of sway in legal matters, so I admit that that would be a major loss.
This sort of thing is why I don’t usually weigh in on actual legal matters. I just thought it interesting that his plan (nor reasoning) would still work just as well even with the information in your rebuttal. Even if “just as well” means with significant downsides.
I now have visions of crouching, flailing cartoon judges in my head. I wish I had the programming skills to make it happen. Sadly, I do not.
Perhaps the ending should be ‘quake’ with all persons with no standing falling down in the Supreme Court Building stairs, leaving only those with standing behind.
Here’s what I don’t understand, so if someone could help me out? If say I direct a portion of my taxes to a STO, that money is unavailable for the state general fund. So, because of these STOs the state is collecting less revenue. Does that mean the rest of the taxpayers may be potentially be tapped to make up this shortfall at some point?
I know I am not asking this well, but as an Arizona taxpayer I am very interested in this case and am trying to understand it.
Yup. And your argument is pretty much what the court rejected.
My suggestion is that you start a STO to support madrassas and bilingual schools for undocumented children, and watch how fast the law gets changed. The law is all about feeding money to schools that indoctornate kids into the cult of Jeebus, and the supporters will freak when it gets used to support “illeagles” and Muslums
Well, a madrassa is just a private, Muslim religious school, so it would be covered under this judgment. They wouldn’t be able to exclude Muslim schools (or Jewish ones, either), so your argument falls short. Assuming you were making an argument and not just taking a cheap shot at the justices in the majority.
As for schools for illegal aliens, well that’s another topic entirely. But if it were for a school to teach bilingual education, then it would be covered under this ruling, too. STOs needn’t be religiously based.
To develop on my OP (which I should’ve mentioned to begin with): the blogger does realize that the case was mainly about standing. However, if I understand the post right, he seems to argue that the majority snuck in a ruling on the Constitutional issue through the back door, effectively ruling on something that wasn’t before the court:
As I understand Kevbo’s argument, he’s suggesting that while you’re correct – the law does cover those options – if it were actually used for those purposes, the law would be changed.
In other words, he acknowledges the law is written as facially neutral to religions, but in actual practice it will benefit only Christian religions.
OK, given what I said in my last post, IS it possible for the Court to “sneak in” opinions about questions not asked in the way that the blogger seems to think it is? Does it have any weight of law? I ask because supposedly, corporate personhood was something slipped in by a clerk that was never written in by the Justices, so it seems to be something similar alleged here.
Can someone explain to me how this is that much different from charter schools sucking out government cash in Colorado? School choice is a joke here. Charters have crappy SPED programs, (usually) ignore the need for ESL and (most) get to pick and choose students. Yeah, some charters are high to majority minority populations, but that doesn’t mean that they are effective or even serving those who need it most.
The way charters are run here takes away from traditional public schools in Colorado who already have tough problems to tackle.
I understand that charters are a smidge more accountable, but that doesn’t mean education is by any stretch of the imagination equal around here.
We have a history of segregation in Denver (Keyes) that is now largely protected by our bloated charters.
So I fail to see how the Az case overturns Brown if this type of subtle segregation happens everywhere. The idea that SCOTUS overturned Brown suggests that Brown was fully recognized (or perhaps I should say achieved?) in the first place.
also - because I don’t want to double post -
Aren’t my contributions to the Allied Jewish Federation already tax-deductible? It’s a secular organization, yes, but still a Jewish one that is centered around Jewish life and values.
Yes. The parties frame the issues being tried, but SCOTUS can pretend they’re arguing about more or less anything it feels like addressing.
Generally, they don’t stretch that very far, and it’s usually dicta (ie., “we need not address whether blah blah blah, but…”). The quoted portion of the opinion is still talking about standing, anyway, so the blogger is wrong.