I can't imagine SCOTUS upholding this. Not only are there clear First Amendment implications, it seems like a clear-cut encroachment by a state government into Federal commerce-clause jurisdiction.
Supreme Court members (the formal title "Justice" seems laughable) have increasingly been chosen for their compliance with the ideology of the party in power. Since that coincides with the party who wrote this law, I think they'll have no trouble upholding it if they wish.
I have no idea what grounds they'll use for that, but I don't believe it's relevant. Only the actual decision matters.
Citation needed. Judges have differing judicial philosophies and those philosophies may run contrary to a political parties aims but it does not mean they are servants of political parties.
It is likely that the people who think their decisions are purely politically biased are the ones whose politics are not aligned with whatever the court decided. Rarely do they dig into the justifications and expert analysis for a given decision.
Both liberal and conservative leaning justices have ruled against things that the parties which helped appoint them wanted.
Not reading there justifications for why they made a decision just because the judge does not align with ones political view is ignorance, plain and simple.
Only reading the critical analysis of any viewpoint or decision without reviewing their legal justifications will lead to massive derangement in ones perspective.
Law and high level court decisions will have some form of logic to them which is worth examining before dismissing them as partisan.
And that's actually much more reliable than paying them. People who can be bought can be out-bid. True believers will do it for nothing except the right to make their ideology the law of the land.
In addition to this being widely thought, do you happen to have any evidence that indicates whether or not it is true? My initial inclination is to suspect that it is not.
My personal experience with arguments deriding the constitutional coherence of SCOTUS jurisprudence usually involves people who are bringing their own political/ideological bias into their evaluation of court rulings -- often without even reading the rulings themselves -- and/or applying their own idiosyncratic interpretations of the constitution. See, for example, discussions surrounding the Citizens United ruling, where almost all of the controversy involves incorrect assumptions of both what was at issue in the case and what the ruling concluded.
While there have been breaks with stare decisis in some important cases over the years, by and large, these seem to be exceptions rather than the rule. The idea of the court abandoning the increasingly expansive interpretation of the commerce clause that's been at the basis of a huge amount of federal law for the past century, just to enable Texas to regulate the internet for the entire globe, seems incredibly far-fetched.
If they were really "applying their own idiosyncratic interpretations of the constitution", we would see a wider variety of votes. Instead, we see the same lines come up over and over. Even if you don't read the counter-arguments, you know where to find them -- in the dissents from the Court members nominated by the opposite party.
I do not doubt that the vast majority of Citizens United discussions are of no merit -- that applies to practically every discussion. But you can find a scholarly disagreement in the decision of four Supreme Court members -- all of whom were nominated by the opposite political party.
Even if this case fails to "enable Texas to regulate the internet for the entire globe", I suspect that it will only do so via a 5-4 ruling with only 1 or 2 members failing to align ideologically. They are not absolutely unified in their partisan leanings. But when partisanship is the issue, they will vote along their partisan lines much more often than not.
So it does not strike me as at all unlikely that they will choose to allow Texas' law. I am not certain of it, but I believe that "incredibly far-fetched" is not a correct characterization.
I don't think that's a valid argument -- there are obviously differences in judicial philosophy that incline judges toward better apparent with one political faction or another, and non-unanimous rulings usually reflect different judicial philosophies.
> If they were really "applying their own idiosyncratic interpretations of the constitution", we would see a wider variety of votes.
No, you misunderstood. I was accusing those arguing that jurisprudence is politically motivated of looking at things through the lens of their own idiosyncratic interpretations of the constitution. We don't want the justices on the court doing this.
> I do not doubt that the vast majority of Citizens United discussions are of no merit -- that applies to practically every discussion. But you can find a scholarly disagreement in the decision of four Supreme Court members -- all of whom were nominated by the opposite political party.
No, I'm not claiming that discussions themselves have no merit, but rather that critiques of the ruling in public discourse are often based on factually incorrect assumptions about what the ruling involved.
There are even openly different ways that people approach "interpreting" the constitution.
Anyone who works with documents that "define" a contract or API should understand just how vague and useless the constitution is as a literal reference document. That's why the same words have been used to "justify" countless contrary opinions over just 250 years
I don't think that is the case and in fact I think you are getting it a bit backwards.
The justices have an ideology which forms their view on how to interpret the Constitution and there are some serious questions to be had on the Constitution. Enumerated vs implied powers, incorporation of the bill of rights, etc. Their ideology forms their views on these issues. Once they formed their view on these issues they believe that is the real meaning of the Constitution.
Their interpretation of the Constitution is then used to justify their rulings. It may look like they are doing the opposite, but that is because you don't understand their interpretation of the Constitution. They do tend to be decently consistent when you understand their positions on the Constitution.
It is clear that they are chosen for their positions based on the expected outcomes. Regardless of what's going on behind the closed doors, the outcomes seem entirely pre-determined based on the political affiliation of the President who nominated them and the Senate who confirmed them.
I personally don't think that the legal reasoning is as consistent as you believe it is, but I think that's a matter of opinion. I also don't think it matters, since the outcomes are the only thing that matters and are so highly correlated with partisanship -- as they were designed to be. The effect on the individual is the same.
Presumably we'll find out in this instance. The OP was claiming that the Court would certainly vote not to uphold a state law from their political allies. I've explained why I disagree. Next June we'll find out.
I'd say that this is true for the three liberal justices and the four most conservative justices. Roberts has demonstrated otherwise, and Kavanaugh to a lesser degree has joined him in disagreeing with the other conservatives on some cases
I think your view of the court is grounded in a sort of cynicism that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. If we convince enough people to see the court as a political institution it will normalize packing the court, which will permanently turn it into a political institution
the merit of the court lies in its ability to operate independently of partisan influence. While this doesn't happen often, normalizing the court as a political institution will prevent it from happening entirely
Nothing required them to say anything of the sort when overthrowing Roe v. Wade. All they had to do was say "Come on, it was poorly justified back then and should be thrown out for just that reason." but they spent pages and pages trying to talk about there being a moral reason for denying women the right to abort something growing inside them. But they could not keep their personal biases out of the ruling. There's no reason to think any supreme court justice has ever kept personal bias out of their rulings. Each justice has a history of cases and outcomes they've overseen in their time, and usually they are chosen precisely because of that.
For instance, are you aware many of the justices appointed by Trump were the justices who oversaw the stopping of counting votes in florida for the 2000 election? It doesn't matter whether their personal opinion comes from a bible verse or a supposed interpretation of the constitution. They are still obvious, previously known biases towards or away from certain opinions, and these justices are appointed by politicized bodies. These justices are part of politics no matter what they may personally believe.
(source: many, many former extreme conservative acquaintances and friends, also a lot of time in my youth spent in the armed services listening to the most vocally angry people.)
they feel their opinions are being unfairly targeted because "snowflakes and princesses" (implying weak-minded people) view those talking points as hate speech, and hate speech is not covered by the first amendment of the US constitution.
they view the "hate speech" label as a loophole around free speech guarantees, and they feel it is wielded solely by liberals, and solely to silence their perfectly valid conservative views.
so, instead of understanding that reality might differ from their collective view of reality, two things which they view as being exactly equal, they instead attack what they view as the problem: unfair censorship. this ruling seems very likely to be based on this perspective, and if so, is intended to make the first amendment unenforceable in situations where moderation does not outright favor conservative viewpoints.
conservatives of this extremity can't compete for mindshare based on their viewpoint, so they compete by changing the rules.
this ruling goes against both the letter of the first amendment and the spirit of the first amendment.