2005: Then-GOP Sen. Specter at then-Judge Roberts' confirmation hearing described Roe as a "superduper precedent." As proof, he made a chart of 38 times Roe was reaffirmed.
2020: Judge Barrett & Senate Rs say all those challenges mean it's not even a "super precedent."
1) Don't call precedents "superduper" or "super." It's dumb.
2) Roberts totally dodged the question.
3) In 2010, Roberts laid out his formula for overturning precedent in his Citizens United concurrence to the majority's doing just that.
4) It's the Roe reversal blueprint.
Alito cited Roberts' Citizens United concurrence 4 times when the Court's conservative majority overturned a 40-year-old precedent they themselves spent 6 years pretty much sua sponte weakening it
Everyone who follows the Court - AND I MEAN EVERYONE - knows what Justice Scalia meant by "perpetuation of racial entitlement" in Shelby County...BECAUSE HE EXPLAINED IT DURING THE ORAL ARGUMENT AT LENGTH supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments…
In this regard, those who've tried to paint Scalia as racist with this particular brush are wrong, but to defend him would be admitting something unattractive about the political allies and movement he spoke for
Scalia made the same argument in Biblical rather than racial terms when the Voting Rights Act's preclearance provision first came before the Court in 2009: supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments…
Barrett has refused to directly answer straightforward questions over whether (1) a President can unilaterally delay an election, (2) voter intimidation is illegal, and (3) a President should commit to the peaceful transition of power upon losing.
She knows these questions all have easy, yes-or-no answers.
She knows the answers.
But she doesn't want to upset the man who nominated her, because he could just as easily un-nominate her if he doesn't like her answers.
Sasse says, "what I want is to have a judge that doesn't want to take away the job of a legislature that's accountable to the people."
It's a talking point that once meant something. Now it's just empty caloric content.
Judicial Restraint, a history:
Lochner Court: stop striking down progressive state laws and the New Deal
Warren Court: stop banning segregation and school prayer
Burger Court: stop striking down abortion bans
Rehnquist/Roberts Courts: do what we want, don't do what we don't want
Can't be calling for a conservative originalist to restrain herself when today's conservative originalism backed Parents Involved, Heller, Citizens United, Shelby County, etc however hard they insist those decisions were compelled by the constitution's original public meaning
Barrett saying she was just drawing on Heller's distinction between civic and individual rights when she distinguished voting and gun rights in that case, but I just CTRL-F'd my way through Heller and the word "civic" doesn't once come up
Barrett: "Law is hard and it is complicated and people who approach it from different jurisprudential perspectives will sometimes reach different results. I think that's hard to deny."
Originalism: "Different approaches may be undeniable, but they are also illegitimate."
And while I’d love to take Judge Thapar’s Scalia v. Thomas course ACB earlier referenced, let’s not forget they never differed on matters of clear *political* salience.
For that, see Gorsuch’s Bostock opinion. And look how his fellow counterrevolutionaries treated him.
Gorsuch decided to go full St. Scalia to prove textualism can, does, and should lead to results its proponents personally oppose.
That didn't go over well for him within his community, which correctly believed the real Scalia woulda never let his methodology benefit LGBTQ rights