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Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
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Feb 10 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
This is nuts. Anti-vaxxers shopped their case to TWELVE different district courts before they found one corrupt enough to stop the president from issuing a mandate for *his own workforce.* Now the 5th Circuit rewards them again. Depraved and lawless stuff. slate.com/news-and-polit…
It was, of course, a Trump judge who looked at the previous 12 court orders refusing to block Biden’s vaccine mandate for his own workforce and said, “actually, they were all wrong, and I’m right.” And of course he issued a nationwide injunction. It’s just unbelievably corrupt.
If this Trump judge is right (he isn’t) then a huge number of regulations governing employees of the executive branch are illegal—including a ban on heroin use outside of the office and ethics rules barring former employees from lobbying their old bosses. slate.com/news-and-polit…
There is no law in the Fifth Circuit any more. This is not how real courts operate.

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Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
Feb 8
Two important pieces further explaining the danger and dishonesty of Brett Kavanaugh's opinion last night.

First, from @steve_vladeck, explaining how Kavanaugh's defense of the shadow docket "gives up the game": slate.com/news-and-polit…
Second, from @imillhiser, explaining how Kavanaugh's novel theory of the Purcell principle "would strip the federal judiciary of much of its power to protect voting rights" by creating new burdens on plaintiffs "that may be impossible to overcome."
vox.com/2022/2/8/22922…
Reading these two excellent pieces together really drives home how insincere, duplicitous, and illogical Kavanaugh's opinion was—it's seven straight pages of bad faith dressed up in rhetoric that screams "I'm so reasonable! I'm so principled!" Don't buy it. He's lying.
Read 5 tweets
Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
Feb 8
The NC State Board of Elections declared in a motion that it has the "authority to police which candidates should or should not be disqualified per Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment."

The board says it can disqualify Madison Cawthorn if he "engaged in insurrection."
This filing confirms that the North Carolina State Board of Elections is prepared to investigate Madison Cawthorn and remove him from the 2022 ballot if it concludes that he facilitated the Jan. 6 attack. It's a big deal.

Read it here: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Predictably, the North Carolina State Board of Elections also disagrees with Cawthorn that an 1872 law granting amnesty to former Confederates somehow exonerates him, too.

Background here: slate.com/news-and-polit…
Read 4 tweets
Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
Feb 7
BREAKING: By a 5–4 vote, with Roberts joining the liberals in dissent, the Supreme Court halts a lower court order that required Alabama to redraw its congressional map, which diluted Black votes in violation of the Voting Rights Act.
The Supreme Court's order and dissents can be found here. supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf…

This is another major blow to the Voting Rights Act that will likely preserve Alabama's current racist gerrymander.
The Supreme Court also granted cert in this case and will issue a decision later this term—teeing up the opportunity to eviscerate the Voting Rights Act's remaining protections for racial minorities against gerrymanders that dilute their voting strength.
Read 9 tweets
Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
Feb 2
THREAD: You may already know that the 5th Circuit—the most conservative appeals court in the country—downplays or rejects basic facts about the health risks of COVID in its decisions.

Here's one alarming example of how this attitude imperils lawyers before the court. (1/5)
In December, Justice Department lawyer Joshua Koppel asked the 5th Circuit if he could participate in oral arguments remotely. He did not want to travel to the courthouse in New Orleans because he has two young children who have not been vaccinated. (2/5) documentcloud.org/documents/2119…
The 5th Circuit panel—Jones, Elrod, and Oldham, all Republican—denied his request, making him travel to New Orleans.

Fast forward to arguments in January. Koppel wore a mask and kept it on when he approached the lectern.

Then the trouble started. (3/5)
documentcloud.org/documents/2119…
Read 7 tweets
Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
Feb 1
THREAD: Thousands of gay elders who were unlawfully denied the right to marry are suddenly eligible for millions of dollars (cumulatively) in @SocialSecurity survivor's benefits. This is excellent news.

The problem? Most of them have no idea. (1/8) slate.com/news-and-polit…
Biden's Justice Department recently settled two class action lawsuits brought by surviving partners of same-sex couples who could not marry because of an unconstitutional ban.

The government will now pay out benefits to survivors who would have married but for these bans. (2/8)
As the @nytimes reported, these payouts are substantial. One gay man whose partner died in 2014 received a $90,000 retroactive payment upfront, plus $1,800 monthly checks moving forward. Other gay elders are eligible for more, but do not know it. (3/8)
nytimes.com/2022/01/23/hea…
Read 8 tweets
Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
Jan 31
Firing Ilya Shapiro is the coward's way out. @GeorgetownLaw knew exactly who he was when it hired him. His racist tweets were part of a longstanding pattern of bigoted trolling. The school is only backtracking because its own bad decision has blown up in its face.
These comments from @AdamSerwer, @JillFilipovic, and @HeerJeet capture my thoughts. I'll add one more: If GULC was willing to ignore Ilya's pattern of racist trolling before, it cannot credibly pretend to suddenly care now. The school knows exactly what it signed up for.
As a frenzied mob of grievance conservatives redirects attention to me, I'd like to reiterate (1) Ilya is responsible for his own words, (2) I do not make GULC's employment decisions, and (3) criticizing a public figure's behavior does not constitute an attempt to get them fired.
Read 5 tweets

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