SCOTUS Shuts The Door On Trump, Protests And Unrest Over The Weekend
December 14, 2020
LONG-SHOT SHOT DOWN
|ICYMI, on Friday night the Supreme Court shut the door on the long-shot challenge to JOE BIDEN’S victory, rejecting the lawsuit brought forward by the state of Texas with the support of PRESIDENT TRUMP and over 100 House Republicans. In a one-page order, SCOTUS said the complaint was denied “for lack of standing.” The outcome allows the Electoral College to move forward with formally casting its votes today.
WITH GREAT POWER
|“The Supreme Court repudiation of PRESIDENT TRUMP’S desperate bid for a second term not only shredded his effort to overturn the will of voters: It was also a blunt rebuke to Republican leaders in Congress and the states who were willing to damage American democracy by embracing a partisan power grab over a free and fair election.” Jim Rutenberg and Nick Corasaniti with The New York Times reflect on the Supreme Court’s Friday decision and note, “Much of the Republican leadership now shares responsibility for the quixotic attempt to ignore the nation’s founding principles and engineer a different verdict from the one voters cast in November.”
ED BOARD OVERTURE
|“Trump’s Challenge Is Over” – that’s the headline of a piece from the Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal in which it argues PRESIDENT TRUMP and the Republican Party should acknowledge the result of the election and move on. “The court made the right call, and it would be refreshing if the political left that has relentlessly attacked Mr. Trump’s judicial appointees as partisans admitted how wrong they’ve been. We’ve lost track of the many claims by Democrats and the press that Mr. Trump appointed AMY CONEY BARRETT to steal the election. She and Mr. Trump’s other two court appointees did not dissent in the Texas case.”
NOT OVER NOTHIN
|But PRESIDENT TRUMP and the GOP showed few signs of getting “over it” this weekend. Felicia Sonmez with The Washington Post reports, “PRESIDENT TRUMP signaled that he will continue to challenge the results of the 2020 election even after the electoral college meets Monday in most state capitols to cast votes solidifying Joe Biden’s victory. In a Fox News interview that aired Sunday morning, Trump repeated his false claims of election fraud and said his legal team will continue to pursue challenges, despite the Supreme Court’s recent dismissal of a long-shot bid to overturn the results in four states Biden won.”
THE LANDSLIDE BROUGHT ME DOWN
|Colby Itkowitz with The Washington Post also reviews Republicans’ responses to the Supreme Court decision regarding the election. PRESIDENT TRUMP tweeted over the weekend a series of posts Twitter labeled as disputed, including: ““I WON THE ELECTION IN A LANDSLIDE, but remember, I only think in terms of legal votes, not all of the fake voters and fraud that miraculously floated in from everywhere! What a disgrace!” Itkowitz adds, “Meanwhile Trump’s most ardent supporters took to online messaging boards with ominous vows to fight on and suggestions that Trump states secede. As they have several times since the election, Trump supporters — including members of the Proud Boys, the far-right, male-only, extremist group that Trump struggled to denounce during a presidential debate with Biden — gathered Saturday in Washington, with boldface names from the Trump world like ROGER STONE and retired GEN. MICHAEL FLYNN rallying the crowd.”
UNREST OVER THE WEEKEND
|Thousands of PRESIDENT TRUMP’S supporters gathered in Washington and several state capitals on Saturday to protest the election results. In some places, violence broke out. Four people were stabbed in D.C. and one person was shot in Olympia, WA where a riot broke out. Videos reveal a single gunshot, after which a counterprotester is seen falling to the ground. In one video, a man can be seen with a gun as he runs from the scene and puts on a red hat.
WHOSE LAW IS IT ANYWAY
|Daniel Politi with Slate reviews a statement issued by Texas GOP Chair ALLEN WEST over the weekend in which he said “perhaps” it’s time for “law-abiding states to bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution.” Politi calls the comment a tantrum and reviews how other leaders in Congress reacted to the suggestion of secession.
SEE YOU LATER
|The Supreme Court didn’t take any action on PRESIDENT TRUMP’S plan to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census count. The Trump administration had wanted SCOTUS to fast track the case and issue a decision before the president is required to submit the census report to Congress in early January. But the next scheduled day for the court to issue decisions is in early January — so it seems that ship has sailed. Pete Williams with NBC News reports.
SCOTUS VIEWS
The Supreme Court’s New Majority Threatens 115 Years Of Deference To Public Officials Handling Health Emergencies
Forbes“With Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s appointment, the Supreme Court, now has a solid 6-3 conservative majority. While a lot of attention has been focused on reproductive rights and gun control, the biggest impact of this majority may be a major erosion of public health powers amid an historic pandemic. This can already be seen in the fact that the Supreme Court has already dramatically reversed recent precedent upholding state powers to control Covid-19.”
Liberals Were Right To Fear The Supreme Court’s Election Intervention
The Atlantic“Any time a worst-case scenario doesn’t come to pass, the comforting idea emerges that it wasn’t really in play after all. That pattern is now unfolding, following a week during which the United States Supreme Court dealt a pair of what are almost certainly fatal blows to President Donald Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election results. But concluding that the justices would never have interfered on Trump’s behalf confuses what they suggested a willingness to do before the election with what the circumstances of this blowout election actually allowed them to do. And with conservatives firmly in control of the Court, their decision not to wade into a sloppy coup attempt says far more about their political savvy than their alleged principled independence.”
How the Conservative Legal Movement Stopped Trump’s Attempts to Overturn the Election
The Atlantic“To put this plainly, not one justice was willing to overturn the presidential election. Each of Trump’s three judicial appointees rejected the case. And with this single act, the Supreme Court dramatically exposed a fascinating division within the conservative movement. Time and again, elected officials supported quixotic and frivolous judicial challenges to the outcome (for example, Senator Ted Cruz even offered to argue election challenges at the Supreme Court) or remained silent. At the same time, the conservative legal movement—especially its members of the judicial branch—crushed Trump’s fever dream of an improbable second term.”
The Case For Judicial Restraint On Fannie Mae
The Washington Post“Twelve long years after the federal government assumed control of them amid a financial panic, the ultimate fate of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the housing-finance giants that back half of the $10 trillion U.S. mortgage market, remains undetermined. What everyone should agree on, however, is how not to resolve the issue: through an arcane constitutional lawsuit that would overturn government control at the risk of unintended consequences well beyond the housing. Yet just such a case is now before the Supreme Court, brought by speculators who would make a killing if they win.”
OTHER NEWS
How Grammar Guru Bryan Garner Made His Way to the Supreme Court
The National Law Journal“At times when lexicographer and grammar expert Bryan Garner went before the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 8, some justices behaved like supplicants seeking wisdom from him while others showed off their own knowledge to the master.”
U.S. Supreme Court Takes Up Goldman Securities Class Action Appeal
Reuters“The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear Goldman Sachs Group Inc’s appeal in a securities fraud case that could redefine the ability of shareholders to pursue class actions against public companies whose stock prices fall. Goldman is appealing an April decision from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan allowing a class action accusing the bank of hiding conflicts of interest when creating risky subprime securities before the 2008 financial crisis.”