What do you know, SCOTUS sides with religion regarding large gatherings during a pandemic. Founders sure did a great job separating church and state! https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/26/politics/supreme-court-religious-restrictions-ruling-covid/index.html
Gorsuch being obtuse re: how important liquor stores are is such a cunt move. People will fucking die if you close those down.
Does Roberts really believe some of his opinions or is he desperate to make the court seem closer to a 5-4 court rather than what it really is, a 6-3 nut job right court?
Roberts absolutely believes this case should have been dismissed as moot, in deference to executive/legislative branches generally, and that the three liberal justices are operating in good faith.
How on earth is that a violation of separation of church and state? I disagree with the main opinion, but surely the only argument is that it’s a violation of free exercise. Has nothing to do with establishment.
I am below a novice on this but I'm trying learn better understand. Is the ruling here that churches aren't held to state statues on pandemic assembly because of the separation of church and state? It's always been weird to me that churches live in this pocket outside of the rules of the rest of the country, but get to use our rules when they feeln aggrieved.
I haven’t even read the decision, so I’m probably not the best to even answer, but it would seem pretty clear to me that this is an argument based on their constitutional right to free exercise of their religion free from state interference, which is just as protected as the prohibition against state establishment of religion. Churches have more constitutional protections than many other businesses/organizations. Its not really weird. It’s spelled out pretty clear in the constitution.
The idea was that NY discriminated against religion by allowing some businesses to continue without occupancy limits, while limiting churches (and other establishments) to 10-25 people. An ordinance that barred occupancy above a certain level at all establishments would be okay, as would an ordinance that looped houses of worship into the “essential” category instead of the “place of gathering” category. Possibly also okay would be an ordinance that was much tighter on what was considered “essential.” And to be clear on @Z’s point, this ordinance would have been okay until the day after ACB was confirmed.
Not arguing anything about the actual constitutionality, just saying trying to make some weird point about establishment/separation of church and state is fatuous. Has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Christianity in America fucking blows, there are more bad people in Christian groups using it to justify their bullshit, than good people
I wrote a paper in college about the role churches played in actively promoting segregation and Jim Crow laws, like 35% outward on the open support
Sounds like Thomas spoke more in a couple minutes than the rest of his career on the that bench in aggregate
i saw that tweet and was like what the actual fuck. then read more and yeah, it still sounds like nestle is a gigantic piece of shit company, but they're not like owning human beings
The Trump administration pushing through a flurry of executions on their way out might be the most gross thing they've done. 3x as many executions in 6 months than the last 6 decades is insane. Pro life and pro execution takes some high level mental gymnastics.
Their handling of the coronavirus is obviously far far worse. 300K vs a few dozen. A proper handling of the pandemic would’ve saved at least 150K lives, shitty death penalty decisions reversed would’ve saved a few dozen.
Given that they knew the science on covid I think both are evil. Every decision was based on not scaring the stonk market. Which was dumb at the time and in hindsight as every reputable economist said that the best response to covid was to take it seriously.
Actively and aggressively utilizing the state to kill people even when the law is iffy vs caring about money more than people's lives but not like actively killing them Not sure which is shittier but both suck and both describe our government so no need to choose!
Glad we’ve set this precedent, it definitely won’t result in 400k people dying at some point....again
fwiw I don’t think that’s a fair restatement of the “radical proposition.” The justices all agree that the PA State Constitution permits override of the state statute. The question is whether the PA Constitutional provision as imposed by the PA courts violates the Elections Clause of the US Constitution, which I think is a legitimate question and inquiry for the Supreme Court.
Rehnquist is rolling in his grave. The constitution gives state legislatures the express power to dictate the time, place and manner of elections and these justices would intervene to review a state Supreme Court decision that a state legislature violated state law. What’s left of federalism for these justices after this?
That’s not the posture of this case. The extended deadline was imposed by the PA Supreme Court as required by the state constitution, not by the state legislature.
The issue remains whether the state Supreme Court or a federal court is the arbiter of state law on a power expressly delegated to the states by federal law. Without hyperbole, I’m struggling to think of a more egregious slap at Renquist notions of federalism.
That’s not accurate, you’re handwaving away the nuance and treating states as a solitary body. The PA Supreme Court explicitly held that the state legislature had unambiguously set a deadline for receipt of ballots, and extended that deadline on its own under the authority of the state constitution. The Constitution expressly reserves the authority to set the terms of federal elections to state legislatures - not states generally - unless Congress directs otherwise. Federalism has never meant that state constitutions may violate the federal constitution. The Court has held that the Elections Clause does not immunize a legislature from acting in accordance with its own Constitution. But the legislature did not act here, and that’s the issue.
When the Pennsylvania legislature enacted the current version of the Pennsylvania constitution and it was ratified by the electorate, the Pennsylvania constitution became Pennsylvania law. The US Constitution elections clause does vest the time, place and manner of elections “in each State by the Legislature thereof” but the Pennsylvania legislature proscribed that grant of power by adopting a constitution which places limits upon it. The Pennsylvania legislature acted when it adopted the Pennsylvania constitution. The Pennsylvania court held that the deadline violated Pennsylvania law. This is quintessential federalism.
That is an absolutely tortured interpretation of the governing process that argues that there is no distinction between the process for promulgating a law and for remedying a Constitutional violation, and misstates the role of the legislature with respect to enactment of the state’s constitution.