Kennedy is a hardcore conservative, though. He is happy to let Trump pick his replacement! He clearly wants an extreme right-wing SCOTUS.

Ric Flair and his puny little pythons haven’t been relevant since the 80s, brother.

One overlooked area that this new justice will likely affect is Chevron deference. With a Justice in a similar vein as Gorsuch replacing Kennedy, it is all but certain Chevron deference is gone. As a reminder, that is the legal doctrine that gives executive agencies wide latitude in the interpretation of the particular statutes they administer. The basic reasoning behind it is that the agency is in the best position to determine how to apply these statues irl because they, theoretically, have all the expetiee and practical experience way more so than Congress or the judiciary. So when an agency makes a rule or regulation, it gets deference from the court as to, essentially, the breadth of the agency’s authority under the law, so long as Congress hadn’t spoken directly on the precise issue being addressed.

A good example of this comes from the EPA’s administration of the Clean Water Act. The Act charges the EPA with eliminating the pollution of navigable waters and ground waters. It further defines “navigable waters” as “the waters of the United States, including the territorial seas.” Given that that definition is vague, the EPA has promulgated rules that expand on what it means based on their understanding of the Act’s goals and particular expertise with respect to pollution. Generally, EPA has determined that waters of the US encompases much more than strictly navigable waters, things such as intermittent streams, small trubutaries to navigable waters, and wetlands that aren’t necessaily attached to a navigable water are considered within the CWA’s jurisdictional ambit. This definition has been tested and largely upheld in part because the Court was unwilling under Chevron analysis to substitute its judgment for the scientific expertise of the EPA. Without Chevron all that goes away potentially, and you are left with cretins like Scalia kneecapping the EPA’s ability to prevent the destruction of large swaths of wetlands, for instance, because there may not be evidence that you could float a boat in them whenever the area in which they are located became a state and Congress didn’t explicitly say the Act included wetelands that affect the waters of the US. It’s ****ed.

A wildly controversial idea, but why not just pass a revised law in this instance?

ugh it's so hard tho. I had a multi-quote all tee'd up but you are correct.

This guy gets it.

Don’t you worry, we will do that and ALOT more once we get rid off the filibuster. You’ll be wishing you had Hillary Clinton.

Yeah, about that...

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...president.html

I really really hope Trump nominates Jared Kushner.

He does have a J.D. from NYU Law.

That the Republic of Ireland is more backwards than the US on 'moral' issues might nave been true 20 or more years ago but most certainly is not true now and we were always more progressive on issues such as healthcare and social welfare than the US.

And is also openly gay which, as it should be, does not rate a mention in political converse. Trolly, do you think that could ever happen in the US?

I wasn’t being entirely serious there.

No surprise, Schumer/Pelosi made crystal clear they are out-of-touch elitists with their Red Hen and Maxine Waters comments. They are skating by right now but when the Ds take power they are either going to have to step out of the way or face much, much worse.

Dominic,

At the risk of getting flamed, I'll risk an actual substantive response.

I'll start with Roe and Obergefell. If RBG and Breyer last long enough to be replaced by a Democratic president, then I think those decisions are less than <50% to be squarely overturned in the next 5-10 years. I'm reasonably confident that four justices (Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kennedy's replacement) would vote to overturn. But I'm not sure about Roberts. He's conservative, of course, but he's more tactical and less dogmatic than someone like Scalia.

Regardless of what Roberts personally thinks about gay marriage and abortion, I suspect that he believes that opponents of those rights are swimming against the cultural tide over the long run, especially on gay marriage. I suspect also that he is reluctant to hand Democrats the electoral gift of squarely overturning these decisions. (As a political issue, abortion has always been more valuable for Republican politicians as a fugitive than as a captured prisoner.) Lastly, he probably thinks it would be a bad look for the court to overturn Obergefell so soon after it was decided.

Four justices are all that is required to grant a cert petition, but Roberts can exert a lot of influence over the process by signaling to the other four that he may not be in the tent. And even if a cert petition were granted, I suspect that Roberts would strain to find some narrow ground on which to decide the case one way or the other without squarely affirming or overturning the underlying cases. Everything changes if RBG leaves the court and is replaced by someone like Gorsuch. At that point, I think Obergefell, and especially Roe, would be very vulnerable to being overturned because the majority wouldn't need Roberts.

Incremental erosion of abortion rights is very possible even if RBG stays on the court. I don't think Roberts cares so much about preserving the substantive right. He would be happy enough to chip away at it as long as he can avoid the "Roe Overturned!" headline.

I'm not suggesting that Roberts is a swing vote by any means. On issues that are less visceral and tougher to understand than abortion rights and gay marriage (e.g., Citizens United), he will continue to be a reliable member of the conservative bloc. And much damage will be done.

Also, all of this could be dead wrong. I'm reading tea leaves like everyone else.

You forgot Brown v. Board of Education.

Obviously.

Which wasn't the point of my post. Having some sort of handle on the actual consequences of a particular change in the law used to be thought of as helpful. I'm fully aware that this for the most part is no longer the case.

Also - the numbers I put up were eyeballed at 2am after a couple of beers - so they could be off by an order of magnitude (I doubt it, though)

MM MD

"Jared Kushner, smart guy. Helluva law school."

always wondered about roe vs wade. so a woman can decide to get an abortion of her child. what about the father of that child. does he get a vote? and if the woman decides not to get an abortion the father is on the hook for 18 years of a child. he can get sent to jail if he does not pay up. seems the father should have a little say in these things,perhaps. they should make a law that says the father wants to give up his parental rights before birth so that he does not have to pay. in retrospect i think this might cut down on unneeded pregancies. some woman do get pregnant to snag a man. this way guys would have an out as well as women. and before you all start flaming the 88 has nothing to do with hitler.

Man, Clarence Thomas is only 70.

Why are you asking me? Conservatives could have changed the law to make its scope narrower at any time in the last 40 years, instead they have gone on a crusade against a cornerstone of administrative law that is the most sensible way for technical laws to be administered.

That’s actually a good thing. We’re drawing to runner runner at this point but the only scenario now where America doesn’t get ****ed for a generation is:

1. RBG hangs on for another 2.5 years;
2. Clarence Thomas hangs on for another 2.5 years and doesn’t retire;
3. President Trump loses in 2020;
4. Clarence Thomas dies sometime during the next 4 or 8 years and there is a democratic president with democratic control over the senate.

That’s it. Everything has the fall perfectly in that sequence.

https://money.usnews.com/money/blogs...ife-expectancy

Thomas is likely going to hold onto his seat for another 15+ years. Unlikely he decides to retire at any time.

RBG on that calculator: 7 years
Breyer: 9 years

HOOOOOOOOOLD

Some of us are old enough to remember that when Thomas taking Thurgood Marshall's seat it was just some months after Brennean left the court. This has been in a downward spiral for some time, things aren't going to turn around in 4 years.

Black males have significantly lower life expectancy, though.

There is also like a 1 in 4 chance of him going to prison.

I assume it refers to your IQ, then.