The decision of 5 conservatives—Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett—to functionally overturn Roe draws 4 dissents, including from Roberts. This is why conservatives pushed for the 6-3 supermajority: They can afford to lose one and still win. supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf…
Here's the entire majority opinion, which is basically an extended legalese congratulations to Texas Republicans for passing a bill that runs an end-around existing abortion precedent. Just five justices pleading powerlessness while greenlighting the result they've always wanted.
The Roberts dissent TLDR: Hey uh guys this law is batshit crazy and maybe we should think about the consequences for the conservative legal movement of allowing it to stand? Also, though, I reserve the right to happily vote to uphold this law when the time comes.
The Breyer dissent TLDR: "I do declare, the conservatives are breaking the rules here! How dare they! This doesn't seem very principled at all!" On the night the Court hollowed out Roe, never forget that Stephen Breyer was there at the gunfight clutching a #2 pencil.
The Kagan dissent TLDR: This is total bullshit, the shadow docket is bullshit, are you guys fucking kidding me with this embarrassing coward gibberish? I respectfully dissent.
The Sotomayor dissent TLDR: This thing is about as close as a Supreme Court justice will ever get to openly calling her colleagues what they are, which is a gaggle of FedSoc acolytes intent on establishing a new legal doctrine of Christian supremacy.
The fucking gall of these people to decline to apply 50 years of well-established precedent in an unsigned opinion that more or less boils down to "Help, the law is complicated therefore we cannot do anything." Bottomless bad faith.

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More from @jaywillis

12 Sep
You guys think I should do a little book review, or what 😉
I kid you not, Stephen Breyer’s “the law isn’t political” book is 100 pages long and its list price is $19.95. I am in awe.
12 pages in and he just finished his summary of the undergrad Intro to Constitutional Law lecture on Marbury v. Madison and I want to die
Read 9 tweets
12 Sep
I’m gonna write more about this soon, but there is basically no limit to how loudly you can and should be trying to bully Stephen Breyer into retiring. He quite obviously doesn’t grasp the stakes here. Public pressure needs to get him there.
I’m not kidding when I say there thousands of somewhere-left-of-center lawyers who are younger than 83 years old and could accomplish exactly what Stephen Breyer is substantively achieving on this Court. That he thinks he’s special and different is delusional and infuriating.
I mean, maybe. But my view is the millions of people who have to deal with the consequences of his bullshit shouldn’t be held collectively responsible for managing that hubris. He’s the one with power, not us. The only thing being asked of him is that he exercise it responsibly.
Read 4 tweets
3 Sep
A Texas SB8-style vigilante enforcement bill, but that lets me collect a $10,000 bounty and attorney's fees every time a law professor writes a "No, Technically, Roe Is Still Good Law" op-ed that is just a repurposed except from their 20-year-old fed courts outline
EXCEPTION: Columns by Josh Blackman will carry a $20,000 bounty
Read 4 tweets
2 Sep
Come on, you have to be fucking kidding me dude bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
"Sure, the conservative justices have spent their entire careers working to one day overrule Roe, but have you considered that they EXPLICITLY SAY they didn't overrule Roe??" -Noah Feldman, an honest-to-God Harvard Law School professor, I'm going to lose my fucking mind hahahaha
Sorry, "we know Roberts will eventually vote to strike down the Texas law"? Is there a different Roberts who didn't once write that a funeral for aborted fetuses was “an entirely appropriate means of calling attention to the abortion tragedy," or...? nbcnews.com/id/wbna8976576
Read 4 tweets
2 Sep
Now that the Supreme Court has blessed Texas’s amateur bounty hunter scheme, there is nothing to stop every GOP legislature from passing an identically-structured law to squeeze abortion providers out of their states. It’s an open invitation, from 5 right-wingers to all of them.
Even if this Court *were* to strike down SB8 after briefing and oral argument, which I wouldn’t bet on, it’s what happens in the interim that matters: In the years it takes to decide the case, the law stays on the books, and abortion in the state disappears and can’t come back.
If a copycat bill isn’t already pending in some other state, I’ll be surprised if multiple versions aren’t introduced elsewhere by the end of the week. The sooner anti-choice lawmakers act on this signal, the harder it will be for providers to survive the litigation wars to come.
Read 4 tweets
1 Sep
The way Texas's anti-choice law actually works in practice is so diabolical and dystopian that it almost sounds fake. A Rube Goldberg machine of state-sanctioned misogyny. A quick thread on what the Supreme Court allowed to take effect last night: capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/87R/bi… Image
Under SB8, any random person can sue anyone who "aids and abets" abortion. This includes *paying for* abortion, and *using insurance*. So, if you give a friend money, or file an insurance claim, or are an insurance company who pays a claim, you might be a target. Image
If an anti-choice vigilante wins, they get to collect a statutory $10,000 bounty AND their attorney's fees. If a doctor or clinic or anyone accused of "aiding or abetting" somehow wins, they get...nothing, and DON'T get attorney's fees reimbursed. Their legal costs are their own. ImageImage
Read 11 tweets

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