1. The NRA sued this official for First Amendment rights violations.
2. It went up through the courts, but importantly, the NRA lost in the Second Circuit.
3. The NRA then appealed that loss to the Supreme Court.
This is a pretty clear first amendment issue that shouldn’t divide among party lines. Party lines shouldn’t even be a thing in the SC, but unfortunately that ship has sailed. The law is clear about this so the “progressive” judges wrote their opinion about what the law says. That is more than can be said about some of the more conservative justices, who don’t really seem to care as much about what the law says rather than pushing personal/political/financial agendas.
That's what OP is saying - someone wasted a ton of time and money on lawyers to receive a verdict that they should have known was coming.
I will say that Kavanaugh has been a surprising force on the court, tending to vote by what he thinks the law says, so I'm not trying to blame any specific party here, just individuals that I probably do not need to name because it has been so prominent in the news cycle the last few years.
I understand "tradition" can play a role in jurisprudence, but this is clearly a bit much.
Really to find super-obvious examples look at almost any judgement by Thomas, or Alito.
The others (Roberts,Kavanaugh, Coney-Barrett & Gorsuch have all been able to partly go against perceived partisanship now and then.
This doesn't mean that there isn't left-wing jurisprudence operated by the "progressive" side of the aisle, but generally (I feel) it's more rare. Maybe if the court were 6-3 in the other direction it would be similar, where a couple extremist outliers would consistently vote with a strong Partisan bias.
The weakening/overturning of the of federal oversight of the south's voting processes, which was originally mandated by the Voting Rights Act, is another one I would call pretty partisan. But that's just my view. YMMV.
https://adamunikowsky.substack.com/p/does-standing-follow-th...
Unfortunately I don't have exact cases, but there are many claims that conservative justices are very much "states rights" when it comes to things like abortion, but very much not "states rights" when it comes to things like gun control.
That is because of the incorporation of the bill of rights. The current interpretation of the 14th amendment is that some of the Amendments in Bill of Rights apply to both the federal and state governments.
The second amendment is one of those amendments (at least according to the conservative justices) and as such they should be protected at the federal level.
Abortion is not listed in the constitution and as such the 10th amendment takes precedence and the states can decide.
The more liberal justices do the same thing with amendments and come up with their own justification for which amendments are fully and partially incorporated.
That can be said about justices on all parts of the political spectrum. For just a couple of examples of egregious decisions by liberal justices pushing their own agendas, see: Kelo v. New London, Wickard v. Filburn.
When was it ever not corrupted with parties? Marbury v. Madison happened in 1803 so at most 15 years.
He enshrined judicial review, which was very much up to debate, as a power the Supreme Court had. This power was then extended past federal laws into state laws. This is the exact thing that the Federalists wanted and the Democratic-Republicans opposed. Madison himself thought the congress should be able to veto state laws saying that it was "absolutely necessary to a perfect system".
The current crop of Supreme Court justices are no where near as talented so their decisions are more blatant and immediate. Marshall was able to look long term and got his party what they wanted.
https://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/freque...
But it's expected that they wrote the easier opinions first and the remaining 30+ cases will be more contentious.
https://reason.com/volokh/2024/05/30/supreme-court-ot2022-at...
Even in a country like India with weaker rule of law, the courts and judges never take sides with political parties.
It may be rose colored glasses, but I don't remember it always being this way. Maybe it was right about the time Bork got nominated, but as I recall confirmation hearings used to be more of a rubber stamp. The president picked someone halfway decent, the Senate said sure that looks good, and there we go. But now it's completely ideological and the actual qualifications and judicial attitude of the nominee have practically no impact.
Doesn't help that some of the current justices believe strongly in originalism, which gives wide latitude towards interpreting what the founders must have been thinking.
And it really doesn't help that some of the justices are engaging in overtly partisan behavior in their off time. Used to be that the mere appearance of impropriety could sink your career, but that ship sailed a while ago.
Just because it's not explicitly stated doesn't mean it's not forced.
The perception that the court is partisan comes from a lot of press attention on a very small number of 5-4 cases on controversial issues where the majority has clearly used motivated reasoning. That was the case in both Roe v. Wade and the case that overturned it, Dobbs, for example. On the current court some justices are particularly notable for doing this (in my opinion Alito on the right and Sotomayor on the left).
But even in 5-4 cases the justices don't always split the way you'd think. The Bostock County decision that made gays and transgender people a federally protected class against job discrimination was written by a conservative justice. That same justice, Gorsuch, as known as an advocate of Native American treaty rights. The late Justice Scalia was an advocate of defendants' rights under the Fourth Amendment. The judges aren't predictable voters in the way senators are.
Having the NRA as one of the parties puts the conservative wing of the court in a bind. They don't really want to limit this (Republicans like to be authoritarian), but they don't want it used as a cudgel against the NRA, either.
So, the progressives get the first amendment issues reaffirmed, and the conservatives have to protect the NRA.
You should read some of the ruling, because that's absolutely not what happened. The civil servant can say anything she wants under her power as a private citizen. What she can't do is use the power of her office to impose her will on the industries she regulates, and that is what the Supreme Court said she did.
This is a preliminary-stage ruling. The Supreme Court said that the case can't be dismissed because if all the facts are as the NRA alleges, which they are required to assume at this stage, that would be what she did.
The case isn't over. It now goes back to the lower courts to determine if that is, in fact, what she did.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2024/05/27/soni...
> decisions issued this month have shown several cross-ideological alliances and likely reflected negotiations among small factions.
Not sure where you get that this isn't supposed to happen. Indeed, negotiation is expected largely because you'd think that judges would sacrifice their personal politics to enact decisions or communicate them in a way to strengthen the overall institution.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/15/politics/supreme-court-backch...