Because there were not enough justices for a quorum—the court needs at least six and only Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson remained—the court affirmed the judgment of a lower court to dismiss the lawsuit.
Clever. Appearing to do the right thing at face value coincides nicely with getting the case against you dropped. It’s likely impossible to sue a majority of the Supreme Court if they don’t care to be sued.
Also sounds like a good justification for Biden to increase the number of Justices.
Statement could go like this:
“There are not enough sitting justices to adjudicate important issues before the court as demonstrated by the recent actions of honorable recusals. Therefore I calling for the addition of new seats on the court to supplement the body so it can carry out its important work as a check on Legislative and Executive branches of our government, just as the framers intended. We will begin confirmation hearings for new justices next week”
Nothing will fundamentally change.
Joe Biden to donors during the election campaign
It’s one of the few promises Biden will make that he actually intends to follow through with if he wins, but he won’t, not with how much people are struggling economically.
To be fair it was my main reason for voting for him. I wanted government to go back to boring and the clown show to be over. I assume a lot of people felt the same way I did. Was kinda hoping he could fix at least one major problem as well, still waiting for that to happen
I voted for him too, in full knowledge he wouldn’t do anything he promised.
I thought that, maybe, a cultural win against fascism might stem the tide, but I was wrong. Biden is just as useless as every other Democrat we’ve elected since LBJ.
Also sounds like a good justification for Biden to increase the number of Justices.
Biden has had ample reason to seat additional justices, particularly in the wake of the ACB nomination. But he’s far too friendly with the US Senate to try such a thing.
If you want someone willing to break ranks on this question, you’re ultimately going to need to wait for a governor. If DeSantis had a shot in hell of being president and taking a Senate majority in the process, I could see him trying to pack the court out of spite after losing a few court cases. If a guy like Sanders was a governor and not a Senate buddy-buddy with Schumer and Graham, maybe he would have tried it (but even then I wouldn’t bet on it). I could absolutely see Trump pulling this shit if someone whispered it into his ear at the right moment, but he’d fumble the bag without McConnell sheepdogging the candidate through.
If a lower court ruled against them, they wouldn’t excuse themselves and rule in their own favor.
And claim nothing hypocritical about it.
If a lower court ruled against them, they wouldn’t excuse themselves and rule in their own favor.
Or they would and they’d let the other three justices do the dirty work for them.
Either way, you’d need a particularly career-advancement-adverse lower court judge to even consider advancing this to the SCOTUS on favorable terms.
This is a tactic Oregon representatives use quite often. So we voted on a bill stating that if you miss 10 or more sessions you’re in eligible to run for office again.
They’re already trying to weasel out of it by claiming that the language of the law means they still get to serve one more term.
It’s a frivolous troll lawsuit and this is a clickbait article
https://casetext.com/case/mactruong-v-abbott
In his Complaint, Plaintiff alleges that he is an inventor of “Tele-Sex or Tele-Mining on Jupiter and other planets of the Solar System,” and appears to assert a claim for copyright infringement and constitutional violations.
In his brief, Plaintiff makes fantastical allegations, stating, for example, that “Defendants are dangerous liars, criminals, traitors and co-conspirators.” Dkt. 18 at 31. He further states that Supreme Court Justices Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett “deserve the death penalty or at least to be disbenched from the U.S. Supreme Court.” Dkt. 18 at 40.
Thank you. The plaintiff is mentally ill and was never going to have this case heard in any courtroom, much less the Supreme Court.
It’s likely impossible to sue a majority of the Supreme Court if they don’t care to be sued.
Only as long as you have the majority. If this had been a case against the liberal minority, they would not have been able to do the same.
Not even a majority.
They need six for quorum. And there’s 9 total.
So any four justices can do this. And it’s not a coincidence they didn’t pull this out of their sleeves until there was only 3 non conservative justices.
Conservatives can make their own quorum, and they don’t expect to lose that majority for a very long time even worst case scenario.
The whole system is broken. One party exploits it and one tries to ignore it’s broken.
One party exploits it and one tries to ignore it’s broken.
Why are you “both sides”-ing this? One party is exploiting the flaws of the system…full stop. The system is flawed, one side doesn’t want it to work, and the other doesn’t have the numbers to change the system.
Why did you reply twice immediately to my comments? Do you want to have this conversation twice?
And your last comment before that was half a week ago, also to me? About the same topic?
Is that just a coincidence? Because it’s a weird look, and seems pretty unlikely to be a coincidence.
Did you just sign back on, see my last reply from then, and you clicked my name and started replying to my most recent comments?
That’s the only way this makes sense to me. I’m just curious what’s going on here.
Edit:
Guess it’s like trying to find out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop…
I’ll never know
Why do you redirect the conversation rather than answering the question directly and specifically both here and in their other reply to you?
Do you have an agenda to both sides every comment critical of conservatives?
That’s the only way this makes sense to me. I’m just curious what’s going on here.
Edit: I don’t have a stake in this but you don’t actually answer the question, instead you attack the other user. You both need to actually read and understand what’s going on in this case, the whole thing is frivolous and clickbait you both swallowed.
Why do you redirect the conversation rather than answering the question directly and specifically both here and in their other reply to you?
Because 4 days ago I replied and they didn’t answer…
And their other reply in this thread (saying the same thing) I already answered.
Just getting really weird vibes from that account and giving them a chance to explain before I block them
I don’t want this conversation twice. Just asking a follow up question to your comment. Since this response has no substance, I’ll assume your other response is better and engage there.
The lower court’s decision was upheld. A lower court that didn’t have the issue of defendants being asked to preside over their own case.
Sure, but do you think if the lower court decided that the case could move forward, the justices would’ve sat out? I doubt it.
This case was not ever going to move forward. It’s was always a frivolous case brought by a mentally ill plaintiff that just hasn’t hit bottom yet.
Do you have an example of them doing that? Or are you simply lampooning them despite them making the best decision available.
Thomas providing cover for his wife.
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If the best decision available was to sit out on the ruling, then why’d they agree to hear the case in the first place? Now it’s been ruled on and can’t be revisited.
Not a fan of them, but I am inclined to agree with you on this one. Appearance of corruption for sitting out and letting the decision default, or much stronger appearance of corruption by sitting for it.
Unless sitting for arguments and abstaining from submitting or signing on to an opinion is an option… but even then, sitting for the arguments of a case you’re a defendant of is a bad, bad look, comes with no guarantee that you actually will abstain from opinion, and might not even be a valid way around quorum rules.
The six justices were named as defendants in the case.
Makes sense they sat out then. Presiding over your own trial doesn’t make much sense.
Nope that’s not it.
They have the majority, so if they all sit out the SC can’t hear the case.
So it’s more of a pocket veto than anything else.
Especially since the lower courts decision was to dismiss the case against the Justices who vetoed the SC case
If you read the article, it says that the justices are following the code of ethics that they agreed to, which precludes a justice from judging a case against them.
The decision of the lower court also was sound as the plaintiff did not have standing to sue, being a NJ resident suing over TX law.
These are simple facts, easy to understand, and hatred of the justices won’t change that. It’s important to take an objective look at facts to be fair to your own mind.
They deserve the scrutiny and criticism regardless of their legal status. Anything they do at this point is suspect. If it was reversed and it was a court of all democrats, you better believe that a bunch of redneck fucktard assholes would be using their second amendment rights in an attempt to “fix” the court. With lifetime appointments, it doesn’t leave much room for options.
I mean, they could have just as easily voted to just not accept the case.
Recusal is literally the only ethical option available, and they had other perfectly routine ways of getting the same result.Like, what would you have had them do instead? Vote to hear it and then decide their own guilt? Vote to hear a case and then recuse themselves from hearing it? Or just say “no, we believe the lower court ruled correctly/the case doesn’t meet our criteria”?
I think this was a message. “Don’t sue the Supreme Court Justices for their official work, because we won’t even dignifiy it with a response.”
Supreme Court Justices are absolutely immune from suit for their official acts and decisions. All judges are. The remedy to a bad call by a judge is an appeal, not a collateral lawsuit.
Yeah, but this way they can pretend theyre taking the high road and also flex that they control the SC…
My point is when 6 members of the SC are all defendants in a case the Supreme Court has been asked to rule on, we’ve got some serious fucking problems with our system.
We’ve tried ignoring it for a decade now. And shit is clearly just getting worse
So it’s more of a pocket veto than anything else.
“the court affirmed the judgment of a lower court to dismiss the lawsuit”
They upheld the judgment from the lower court. Should they instead preside over their own case? That hardly seems like a better choice than upholding the lower court’s judgement.
They could have provided enough SC justices to have a quorom but not provided any input into the quorom. Essentially, be present and go along with whatever the other justices decide.
There’s nothing in the Constitution about how many justices there has to be. I would argue that if the Supreme Court can’t get quorum we need to nominate Justices until they get it.
There does appear to be some law on the books stipulating the rules around a quorum and such a law is considered valid unless struck down by said court, I suppose.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1
The Supreme Court of the United States shall consist of a Chief Justice of the United States and eight associate justices, any six of whom shall constitute a quorum.
Same way the court technically is not limited in headcout by the constitution, either. In that case, it’s set by congress.
This statute and earlier versions were upheld by the Supreme Court. Congress may change the size of the court and set its non-original jurisdiction.
Just my opinion, but that sounds janky af.
Because it’s vastly different if the four to maintain quorum were Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett versus Roberts, Gorsuch, Thomas, and Barrett.
Basically you can stack justices to fit an outcome and that’s kind of what we don’t want.
They got the outcome they wanted though.
In a vacuum, sure. But with the context they were able to get the result they wanted by doing sitting out.
Seriously, this isn’t the NYPD for cripes’ sake.
I think this was a clear message: “Don’t sue the Supreme Court Justices for their official work, because we won’t even dignifiy it with a response.” Otherwise, they could have just voted not to hear it.
Supreme Court Justices are absolutely immune from suit for their official acts and decisions. All judges are. The remedy to a bad call by a judge is an appeal, not a collateral lawsuit.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_immunity
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/collateral_attack
The underlying case was dismissed on the papers by a district judge. It had no chance at trial and even less chance on appeal.
Crank lawyers will file this shit anyway, because they’ve got no real dog in the fight. It isn’t as though they expect to win, much less to collect, and their sucker clients are footing the bill so what do they care?
Other plaintiffs named in the suit include the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker and Bernie Sanders, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, President Joe Biden, California Governor Gavin Newsom, actors George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Tesla Founder Elon Musk, singer Britney Spears and media expert Norah O’Donnell.
A pure shotgun blast of nonsense. It was a desperate grab for attention and, hey, I guess you got your article in Newsweek, so it succeeded. Hope it was worth whatever you paid.
You’re right except I don’t think this dude was looking for attention. I’ve seen these people around the courts. People with hundreds of civil lawsuits. People filing lawsuits with a straight face for trillions of dollars. I don’t think this dude has a lawyer, these types are usually pro se.
When you sit there reading the law over and over it’s like when you read a word over and over, and you might start to think it means something other than what it does. I think this dude is detached from reality to begin with when he reads these statutes and constitutions and whatnot, and then just strings a bunch of nonsense together. It’s like one of those people who think a group of people is following them and controlling their lives, and this dude just latched onto filing legal papers as an outlet for his crazy.
I agree though, where there’s a will, there’s lawyer who will draft the papers. I will argue that the other lawyer’s socks clash with his tie if that’s what you want and you pay my hourly rate.
I don’t think this dude has a lawyer, these types are usually pro se.
In that case, I’m impressed he figured out how to manage a filing that made it all the way to the top court. Pro se cases get tossed in droves, simply because of the bureaucratic hurdles.
This dude is a semi pro. All he does is file lawsuits. Once you do it a couple of times it’s like an assembly line of document titles, magic words, and standards of proof.
So. Ultimately a woman has no autonomy over her own body with deviant growths still? Is that what I’m reading?
It’s pretty much that any 4 SC justices can do this now, to preserve a lower courts opinion they agree with.
Right now there’s 6 conservative appointed justices, and three appointed by Dems.
So I don’t think it’s a coincidence they didn’t pull this out of their hat till they had enough so it only works for them.
They can do this with any lower court decision, and I don’t think the Dems will try to do anything about it, because then they’d have to admit they stood by and let the system get this corrupted.
I don’t think the Dems will try to do anything about it, because then they’d have to admit they stood by and let the system get this corrupted.
As opposed to doing what? Roadmap it for me, what should the Dems have done?
This is like standing there watching an arsonist yell about how they’re gonna burn a house down for decades, watching them set everything up, burning your house down…
And then saying there was nothing to do.
Bare minimum we should have taken action when they stole Obama’s pick.
Instead the party let it happen thinking it would hurt Hillary if a SC seat wasn’t openly on the line.
I’m complaining about decades of inaction
Yes but you’re still not specifying which actions were not taken, which is the hard part.
Biden could have supported the end of the filibuster and then packed the court.
This silly take needs to stop. If Biden started packing the court it would only set an unwanted precedent for future presidents.
This silly take needs to stop.
It wasn’t as silly as thinking Republicans are holding anything back…
They told Obama he couldn’t pick a justice in his last year. Then four years later let trump pick a justice in his last year.
Republicans are going to keep cheating at every opportunity, I doubt there’s a single Republican politician that has an idea they think will work, but aren’t currently doing it because they think it’s morally wrong.
Hell, they do stuff constantly that they don’t think will work, just because they know there’s a significant period of time before anyone stops them, and it’s entirely possible no one even tries.
If there’s absolutely nothing to be done about the SC becoming more and more corrupt over decades…
At bare minimum Id like Dem politicians to openly admit it rather than continually denying reality.
One side only does what is explicitly allowed and has been done before, and one side will do anything even if it’s explicitly not allowed and has settled case law…
Which side do you expect to win?
Conservatives are willing to cheat to win, and Dems won’t even acknowledge conservatives are cheating.
How is sticking your head in the sand and hoping it goes away the best solution our party can come up with?
Edit:
Just to stop this conversation, they should have legally challenged Obama’s pick being stolen.
If they lost (which they wouldn’t have) because Obama only had one year left, then it would have been settled, and they could challenge when Trump did it in his last year.
We didn’t fight for Obama’s pick. So we couldn’t fight trumps pick.
Instead of any action, Dems picked to do nothing and let Republicans win both times.
Most people realize this is a bad strategy, at least by now. But most saw it coming long ago
And then saying there was nothing to do.
Bare minimum we should have taken action when they stole Obama’s pick.
I’m complaining about decades of inaction
None of this addresses the question, do what? If the Republicans hold the White House or either branch of Congress there is nothing that can be done; at least no proactively, which leaves obstruction.
But that wouldn’t change anything, so what actions could they have taken and how? It’s really easy to say “do something” as long as it’s not on you to say what should be done and how it should be accomplished.
The Senate refused to confirm Garland, how do you seat a Supreme Court justice without the advice and consent of the Senate? Congress even refused to take a recess to block Obama’s ability to make recess appointments. The Republicans would leave a member behind to open and then adjourn.
So the question remains, do what? If you don’t have an answer then stop repeating that they should have done the thing that you can’t even think of.
Not deny Obama his appointment at the end of the term while allowing Trump to do that exact thing at the end of his term which is how they got a SCOTUS majority in the first place.
Not deny Obama his appointment at the end of the term while allowing Trump to do that exact thing at the end of his term which is how they got a SCOTUS majority in the first place.
Except the Dems didn’t do any of that. Do you have a method they could have employed to stop it? How is really the important part of the question.
Sure they did. They didn’t want to pick a fight with Republicans in 2016 when Obama nominated Garland because they figured Clinton would just do it after winning in 2016. In 2020 they once again sat idly by and allowed Trump to nominate ACB just 3 weeks before the election because they didn’t want to make waves.
I don’t get how people keep trying to claim Dems don’t have the power to do anything due to Republican opposition, while ignoring the fact that Republicans manage to pass their draconian bullshit in spite of Democratic opposition nearly every time. How come it only seems to work in one direction?
They didn’t want to pick a fight with Republicans in 2016 when Obama nominated Garland because they figured Clinton would just do it after winning in 2016.
What would that fight have looked like? Many prominent Dems spoke out against it. So what actions should have been taken. Could they have seated Garland somehow? Please stop with ambiguous statements like “fight”.
In 2020 they once again sat idly by and allowed Trump to nominate ACB just 3 weeks before the election because they didn’t want to make waves.
Many Dems again spoke out, pointing out the hypocrisy of not following their own “rule”. So again, what actions should they have taken? Could they have done something to stop ACB?
I don’t get how people keep trying to claim Dems don’t have the power to do anything…
Well, rather than being incredulous, maybe you could explain what Dems could have done, specifically of course.
…while ignoring the fact that Republicans manage to pass their draconian bullshit in spite of Democratic opposition nearly every time. How come it only seems to work in one direction?
Again, specifics would be helpful. But the Dems have stopped many Republican bills. But there are several differences. There’s a lot more Republican gerrymandering, so it’s easier for them to take the House. The Senate is inherently undemocratic, with representation being based on land and not people. California has as much representation in the Senate as Wyoming.
Additionally, Republicans don’t care if government functions. Their narrative is improved if government doesn’t work. They also govern for the fabulously wealthy and corporations, both of which will survive fine if the government doesn’t function.
Lastly, most of the Republicans most draconian legislation is passed at the state level or the result of SCOTUS decisions.
SYAC:
“In a rare move, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett all sat out deciding whether to hear MacTruong v. Abbott, a case arguing that the Texas Heartbeat Act (THA) is constitutional and that the state law violates federal law. The six justices were named as defendants in the case. They did not give a detailed justification as to why they chose not to weigh in, and are not required to do so.”The six justices were named as defendants in the case. They did not give a detailed justification as to why they chose not to weigh in, and are not required to do so.
As Hunter Thompson said: “To ask the question is to answer the question.”
And that’s the original meaning of “begs the question”
I guess I don’t understand. Can you elaborate how that fits the meaning? wikipedia: “Historically, begging the question refers to a fault in a dialectical argument in which the speaker assumes some premise that has not been demonstrated to be true. In modern usage, it has come to refer to an argument in which the premises assume the conclusion without supporting it.”
So there’s a bunch of different things going on.
Real historically, it meant to assert something without proving it, and base your logic on the unproved assertion and go on from there. “I couldn’t have been driving drunk, because I wasn’t driving.” You can keep saying that any number of times, and insist that your logic is flawless (because in terms of the pure logic, it is), but if someone saw you driving, it’s kind of a moot point.
Saying “begging the question” to mean that is weird. The phrase is a word-for-word translation of a Greek phrase into pretty much nonsensical English. Wikipedia talks about it more but that’s the short summary.
So after that meaning came what Wikipedia calls “modern usage,” which is where “begging the question” means not just something you haven’t proved, but the central premise under debate. You assume it’s true out of the gate and it’s obviously true, and then go on from there. “We know God exists, because God made the world, and we can see the world all around us, and the world is wonderful, so God exists. QED.”
In actual modern usage, no one cares about any of that, and just uses “begs the question” to mean “invites the question.” Like you’re saying something and anyone with a brain in their head is obviously going to ask you some particular question. It has nothing to do with the original meaning, but the original meaning never actually meant that in English, so pedants like myself that prefer the original meaning are engaged in a pure exercise in futility.
Thank you for your explanation! My head hurts but I think it’s worth it.
I really wish I could “sit out” of my job and not get fired.
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The dude that brought this case is absolutely insane and in need of mental treatment.
This is a nothing story. It’s notable as a quirk.
This guy tried to sue Supreme Court justices to change a ruling. Every judge on the way up to the Supreme Court said, “no, that’s not how law works.”
He appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, as is his right. The non-named justices affirmed that “no, that’s not how law works.”
Badas noted that MacTruong has other pending cases involving the same issue, but it is likely that they will end like this case, “with him losing and the courts issuing decisions arguing that he lacks standing.”
I thought standing didn’t mean anything anymore.
only if you’re a student loan apparently
6 of the worst human beings in the world. Dead women’s and dead girls, for that matter, blood is on their hands. I do not understand how it has been one and a half years since they literally made women unequal in law and nothing has been done about the monopoly they have on the entire country.
They are not enacting the will of the people. They do not represent the common voice. Why should they be allowed to force disease death and suffering onto millions of women? Why should they be allowed to do that? What kind of democracy allows such a thing?
go to en evangelical church sometime you will see and hear some things
If you look at the US objectively, it doesn’t hold up because we’re actually, right now? Not. Not really. Not anymore. Maybe again one day and hopefully soon. But not now.
Because there are Democrats that agree with them.
who do these trolls work for
I wanna be a judge too!
Sounds like we need to resize the court and add enough justices to get this decided.
Cough drone strike cough
Ugh dry air… Did that sound like words?
