Supreme Court Pulls Biden Into Abortion Debate | Why Kagan Has Had Enough With Kavanaugh
May 19, 2021
SAY SOMETHING I'M GIVING UP ON YOU
|Alice Miranda Ollstein with POLITICO reports the Supreme Court’s decision to dive headfirst into the deep end of the debate over abortion also drags PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN into the fight just before the midterms. She notes that while he was fairly quiet on the issue of abortion during the campaign, he’s now going to be forced to reconsider that measured strategy. “Progressive members of Congress and outside groups say they have been struck by Biden’s own silence on the issue: Since taking office, he hasn’t mentioned abortion in any speeches, videos or social media posts. Now, they’re calling on Biden to speak up — and lay out how he will safeguard abortion access when it’s facing challenges before the Supreme Court and red states that are pushing a new wave of restrictions.”
BECAUSE I SAID SO
|Not only did SCOTUS announce yesterday that it’s taking up a major abortion case out of Mississippi, but it also handed down a decision that held its prior ruling on jury unanimity is not retroactive. Ian Millhiser with Vox suggests, “On the surface, the court’s decision to hear a major abortion case, and its decision not to apply one of its criminal justice precedents retroactively, may appear to have little in common. But taken together, they foreshadow a world where the court’s new majority is willing to overturn longstanding precedents, potentially with little justification for doing so other than that the court’s Republican majority would prefer to overrule liberal decisions such as Roe.”
LOSING PATIENCE
|Mark Joseph Stern with Slate explains, “Last year, the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in Ramos v. Louisiana, prohibiting nonunanimous convictions of criminal defendants. Under the Constitution, the court declared, a split jury verdict is ‘no verdict at all.’ On Monday, however, the court walked back this declaration. In Edwards v. Vannoy, the conservative majority held that Ramos does not apply retroactively—that is, to defendants who have already been convicted by split juries. The court then took the extraordinary step of overturning precedent that had allowed retroactive application of new decisions. No party asked the Supreme Court to reverse this precedent; the question was not briefed or argued. But JUSTICE BRETT KAVANAUGH’S majority opinion reached out and grabbed it anyway.” Stern notes JUSTICE ELENA KAGAN penned a sharp dissent that suggested she’s “losing patience with Kavanaugh’s efforts to ‘insulate’ himself from criticism with rhetoric that obfuscates the cruel consequences of his decisions.”
DO LESS, DO LESS
|As progressive groups stare down and even call on JUSTICE STEPHEN BREYER to retire while a Democrat is in the White House, Adam Liptak with The New York Times explains why that might be a losing strategy. He points out that scholars who have studied justices’ decisions to leave the court say they aren’t so sure prodding is all that wise or effective in getting a justice to walk away.
SCOTUS VIEWS
Does The Supreme Court Rule, Or Do Its Members? We’re About To Find Out.
The Washington Post“The Supreme Court’s most important ruling is also its first important ruling. It dates to a time when justices did not argue over the intent of the Founders, because they were the Founders. The question in that case, Marbury v. Madison, was whether Congress had the power to determine whether a law was constitutional. Nope. Claiming that job for itself, the court announced: ‘It is emphatically the duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is.’ More than 200 years later, the court will decide whether the Mississippi legislature has more power than Congress. In its explosive decision on Monday to consider a case involving a Mississippi abortion law — which bans most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, and was passed in open defiance of existing precedents — the court is going back to the heart of that most important ruling.”
The Supreme Court Can Finally Overturn ‘Roe v. Wade.’ It Should Do It.
The Washington Post“The Supreme Court’s decision to review the constitutionality of Mississippi’s ban on almost all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy will likely be a watershed in the nearly 50-year battle over Roe v. Wade. The court should ignore the inevitable whirlwind of elite opinion and do its constitutional duty: uphold the law and overturn Roe.”