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Posted on 06/28/2014 6:03:42 PM PDT by BuckeyeTexan
In today’s New York Times, former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal discusses the almost-unprecedented degree of consensus on the Supreme Court this term. As I noted here and previewed here), this is the first term in a decade in which the Court will have been unanimous in the judgment in a majority of argued cases. Indeed, no matter how divided the Court’s last two decisions are, the Court will have been unanimous in the judgment in approximately two-thirds of its decisions. As Katyal notes, this has not happened since 1940.
The justices’ ability to cross partisan divides and find common ground in their bottom-line judgment in roughly two-thirds of their cases — including the two decisions handed down Thursday, restricting the president’s ability to issue recess appointments during brief breaks in the Senate’s work, and striking down a Massachusetts ban on protests near abortion clinics — should remind us that even in this hyperpartisan age, there is a difference between law and politics.
Unanimity is important because it signals that the justices can rise above their differences and interpret the law without partisanship. The best illustration of this in the modern era is Brown v. Board of Education, in which the court unanimously declared racial segregation in education to be unconstitutional. When the justices forge common ground, it signals to the nation the deep-seated roots of what the court has said and contributes to stability in the fabric of the law. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
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“When the justices forge common ground, it signals to the nation the deep-seated roots of what the court has said and contributes to stability in the fabric of the law.”
Or maybe it signals that the wackadoo left have shot out so far into looney-land that even their catamites on the SC are loath to follow them.
Bush’s ringers.. seem to be Trojan Horses.. i.e. Roberts, Alito..
Bush have always been for the New World Order..
WHICH.... we are beginning to find out what... “It IS”..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhlXqYiTz2Q
Hmmm...Washington Compost lauds SCOTUS. Why? Could this be the quid pro quo stroking of Roberts in return for his commie conversion?
Those consensuses come at a cost. The Supreme Court reached a consensus on the vacancy ruling by misreading the Constitution and ignoring the lower courts ruling that the constitution allowed for the recess appointments only for vacancies occurring during the recess and that recesses only truly occurred at the end of the 2 year sessions.
The US Supreme Court has SLAPPED DOWN Obama an unprecedented TWELVE TIMES so far. Obama has united the Supreme Court against his unconstitutional actions!
BTTT!
“Unanimity is important because it signals that the justices can rise above their differences and interpret the law without partisanship.”
hahaha now that’s just funny, actually it means the federal employees see eye to eye on some issues. Partisanship imply two or more parties when they are all members of but a single party, Washington’s power party.
I will not say that ever edit they issued this year is wrong, But I will say it is wrong to say that they have ever acted without partisanship.
I think the unprecedented unanimity is a result of CJ Roberts pulling the liberals close. He seems to be a good lobbyist. He’s been able to get them to vote with him several times on what LL calls narrowly conservative decisions.
There have been some truly unanimous, or near unanimous, opinions (e.g., the cell-phone search case and the IRS summons case), but many of the cases the article is counting as "unanimous" are only unanimous decisions without unanimous opinions, and the Court actually deeply divided as to the rationale for the decision (the recess-appointment case, the abortion clinic protest case, many others). In each of those cases, Roberts wrote or joined a majority opinion which reached a conservative result on a narrow (sometimes very narrow) ground (although that is still nothing like the Obamacare case, where Roberts joined a majority decision reaching a liberal result). So yes, I attribute this to Roberts' diplomacy. Not that that is a bad thing; it is, IMHO, good for the rule of law that the Court not be perceived as a purely political institution.
“I think the unprecedented unanimity is a result of CJ Roberts pulling the liberals close. He seems to be a good lobbyist.”
Interesting, and not 180 degrees out from what I said.
But should a justice lobby, or should he persuade on legal and philosophical grounds?
“He’s been able to get them to vote with him several times on what LL calls narrowly conservative decisions.”
I wonder how he did that, and also what is meant by “narrowly conservative.”
The decision on recess appointments is one example of narrowly conservative, but is not an example of the liberals voting with Roberts.
While the decision was unanimous, the justices joined in two separate opinions. Kennedy, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan joined Breyer's opinion. (a.k.a. the opinion of the court) Roberts, Thomas, and Alito joined Scalia's opinion.
Thank you very much. My ignorance is severely dented on this point.
“The justices’ ability to cross partisan divides and find common ground in their bottom-line judgment...”
What that’s saying is that it is now so accepted that judges have no intention of honoring their oaths that it’s surprising when they seem to do so.
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