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Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
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28 Oct, 4 tweets, 2 min read
I am still stuck on Brett Kavanaugh claiming states “want to be able to definitively announce the results of the election on election night.” No state definitively announces the results on election night. None. How can it be that Kavanaugh doesn’t understand basic election law?
In 2018, putative liberals like Lisa Blatt and Akhil Amar assured us that Kavanaugh was brilliant, a genius, one of the finest legal minds of the nation. But these claims are impossible to square with Kavanaugh’s work on the court. It’s bizarre! slate.com/news-and-polit…
Roberts? Super smart guy. Alito? Basically an evil genius. Gorsuch? He can drive me nuts but the brainpower is obvious. Thomas? His fans overstate his intellect but his detractors underestimate it; he is often a very original thinker.

But Kavanaugh is just thoroughly mediocre!
Ah! All credit to @abbydphillip who had this thought a day before me!

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More from @mjs_DC

Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
29 Oct
This decision is INSANE. By a 2–1 vote, the 8th Circuit rules the Minnesota Secretary of State and the Minnesota state courts unconstitutionally usurped power from the state legislature by extending the ballot deadline. That theory was too extreme for the Bush v. Gore majority!
THIS IS THE DECISION I HAVE BEEN WARNING ABOUT FOR WEEKS. There is NO Supreme Court precedent to back up the 8th Circuit. This is a radical made-up theory Republicans are using to prevent states from counting ballots! THIS IS DANGEROUS FUCKING TERRITORY! slate.com/news-and-polit…
You need to pay attention to what's going on right now. The federal judiciary is dramatically expanding its power to police state election laws, to stop state courts and governors and election boards from protecting voting rights and counting ballots. slate.com/news-and-polit…
Read 10 tweets
Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
29 Oct
By a 5–1 vote, the Florida Supreme Court overturns a whole line of precedent that limited the death penalty to "the most aggravated and the least mitigated of first-degree murders."

The decision sets back Florida's death penalty jurisprudence by decades. floridasupremecourt.org/content/downlo…
This decision is a HUGE deal. The Florida Supreme Court has long reviewed death sentences for proportionality. But five conservative justices just decided they didn't like that rule, so they tossed it out the window. An earthquake in Florida's criminal justice system.
To see the future of our federal judiciary, just take a look at the Florida Supreme Court. Republicans have now stacked it with a 6–1 conservative majority ... which promptly gave itself the power to overturn decades of precedent. A massive power-grab. slate.com/news-and-polit…
Read 4 tweets
Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
28 Oct
By a 5–3 vote, the Supreme Court has refused to stop Pennsylvania from counting ballots that are mailed by Election Day but arrive up to three days later. Alito dissents, joined by Thomas and Gorsuch. Read it: supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf…
Note: Amy Coney Barrett did not participate in this decision, but she did NOT recuse herself. She simply decided that she joined too late to participate.
This statement is a clear indication that, while Amy Coney Barrett didn't participate this time, she will NOT recuse herself from future election litigation.
Read 5 tweets
Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
26 Oct
Holy shit—Brett Kavanaugh just endorsed Rehnquist's concurrence in Bush v. Gore, which was too extreme for Kennedy or O'Connor.

This is a red alert. I can't believe he put it in a footnote. This is terrifying. assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7276…
The headline news here is that, by a 5–3 vote, SCOTUS made it harder for Wisconsin residents to cast a ballot and make sure it's counted.

But arguably the bigger news is that Brett Kavanaugh endorsed a theory so radical that the court refused to adopt it in Bush v. Gore. My God.
This is VERY BAD NEWS for voting rights. Appallingly bad. Brett Kavanaugh used a footnote to throw his support behind an extreme theory that would severely limit state courts' ability to protect voting rights. It's the revenge of Bush. v. Gore. Actually, it's much worse.
Read 8 tweets
Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
23 Oct
A former National Review fellow wrote an NYT article claiming there are a bunch of secret Trump voters in Atlanta. For evidence, she cited "an attorney"—who turns out to be the president of Atlanta's Young Republicans chapter.

NYT deletes that entire section with no correction.
More on this mess:
Those of you questioning the relevance of the author being a former National Review fellow are probably right. The NYT's handling of the error is the real story here, not the reporter's background. I did not mean to imply that she intended to conceal Evans' affiliations.
Read 4 tweets
Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
22 Oct
By a 5–3 vote, the Supreme Court BLOCKS a lower court order that had allowed Alabama counties to implement curbside voting. So curbside voting will remain banned.

Sotomayor dissents, joined by Kagan and Breyer. Ginsburg would’ve dissented, as well. supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf…
Sotomayor’s dissent closes with the poignant story of Howard Porter, Jr., which is the kind of thing only Sotomayor would think to pluck out of the record and deploy in an opinion. supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf…
Just to be clear, the district court merely *allowed* Alabama counties to offer curbside voting. The court didn’t require anybody to do anything. It’s remarkable that the five conservatives (soon to be joined by a sixth) would reach out and slap down such a modest accommodation.
Read 4 tweets

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