Thank you so much Medhi. I respect you and your question greatly. Here’s my perspective on the Texas decision and btw Gorsuch also wrote the Bostock decision so let’s try to be better than creating simple click-bait “gotcha” narratives around incredibly complex legal issues:
https://twitter.com/mehdirhasan/status/1433493354537435151
1. I've been warning in every forum I can that since Justice Barrett's confirmation, Roe would be overruled, and that's why I've been imploring Congress to act. Conservatives have made overruling Roe a project for 48 years
2.When I wrote that re Gorsuch, Trump had won the presidency and Republicans had the Senate. Republicans were going to confirm someone, and among the folks on Trump's list, my point was that he was better than the others on that list.
(And we've seen that, like Justice Gorsuch's LGBT ruling in Bostock, protection of Native Americans, etc.)
3. I was very clear that Gorsuch wasn't going to issue decisions I liked, but we didn't win the Presidency or control the Senate. I said if I were President, I wouldn't nominate him. I wasn't a Susan Collins "oh Roe is fine" type person. I was the opposite.
4.Gorsuch replaced Justice Scalia, a deep opponent of Roe. Gorsuch didn't change the balance. It remained exactly the same (the same majority of the Court in favor of Roe). The latter appointments of Kavanaugh and Barrett did, which is why ...
I said those appointments were transformative, and should be thought of very differently from Gorsuch's. But Gorsuch was a trade-up from Scalia for Dems (and certainly compared to the alternatives on the list). That's what I was saying.
5.Please remember I lived through Elena Kagan's confirmation battles, where R's said she shouldn't be confirmed. I thought that deeply wrong given her qualifications. My point about Gorsuch was the same, R's had won the presidency and Senate, and the same yardstick should be used
6. Republicans in the Senate have monkeyed around with SCOTUS, especially Garland/Ginsburg issues. I've said from the time Justice Ginsburg passed away that their playing ducks and drakes with the Court will lead to court packing, etc.
7. I respect you, and all the criticism. But it should engage with my argument, and the reality that we had lost the Presidency and Senate in 2017, and that every one of the people on Trump's list was going to vote to overrule Roe; that...
was Trump's campaign promise, and the replacement was for Scalia, someone already against Roe. Today, the Republican project on Roe is becoming a reality. All of this is why elections are so impt. I won't have time for an extended back&forth but hope this gives you my perspective
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