[lowbuck]

Here's a take on what the replacement of Kennedy on the court may portend.

Enjoy the read.

[comebacknewt]

I’m still extremely ticked off that the NR gang did their best to make sure the Dems picked Scalia and Kennedy’s replacements.

[Secret Agent Man]

Thing is abortion law would most likely become a states issue again. Gah rights need to revert back to states as well, it was unconstituional to override the will of the people in so many states.

[Billthedrill]

I suspect the entire concept of “protected classes” will at some point come up against an originalist interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment. That is likely to be a fairly fundamental change in the directions that law has been bent around the conflicting demands of “Social” Justice. The Left would not be pleased. And it’s long overdue.

[originalbuckeye]

So, from the outset, Leftist judges lie when they take their oath to follow the Constitution. Oh, and that includes Roberts too, as he found he could ‘reword’ ‘penalty’ into the word ‘tax’ even though the Government lawyers argued IT WAS NOT TO BE CALLED A TAX.

[Equine1952]

Good read. Things to ponder and speculate on. We need another Scalia. Hope DJT can get very close.

[Forgotten Amendments]

Waiting to hear the excuses when Trump picks a girl or a RINO. He’s not gonna’ battle for the Constitution. He doesn’t care.

I hope I’m wrong.

[cpdiii]

What Should America Expect from a More Originalist Supreme Court?

Constitutional Law and Justice based on original intent and devoid of political and social desires of the Supreme Court Justices.

If you do not like The Constitution change it via Constitutional amendment. We have many times in the past.

[Rurudyne]

I would like to point out that though the Left is screaming about tyranny and fascism with more origionalism we would actually see the ability of the federal to engage in these erode (well, keeping in mind I’m talking actual fascism, the Left apparently holds that getting in the way of their sex and partying is fascism, as well as doing anything that erodes the power of the federal to do good as the Left defines doing good).

[Cowboy Bob]

The case for affirmative action has rested for a long time on magnifying the state interest in creating “diverse” communities through policies that explicitly use race as a factor to punish or privilege specific demographics.

Can someone please explain to me what the state interest is in "diversity?"

I see no public interest in a policy of forced diversity.

I can't find the passage in the Constitution that demands it.

[mrsmel]

“ to dramatically limit free speech (or even compel speech, as California attempted to do to pro-life crisis-pregnancy centers in NIFLA)”

This is also more or less what the left has tried to do in the cases of the Christian bakers-not only suppress their right to oppose sodomite mirage in principle, but to then also force them to express a view abhorrent to their consciences. This is utterly abhorrent to ME and to other Christians, not to mention galling, infuriating, and totalitarian.

[OrioleFan]

I think this will make Chief Justice Roberts the swing vote. For example, no one ever understood his reasoning on Obama Care.

[trebb]

“There’s the law, and then there’s what’s right. My job is to do what’s right.”

There have been a few here who also think that the Constitution has a "noble Cause" clause when it suits their sensibilities - the problem is that this type thought is exactly why we have drifted so far from being in line with the Constitution - there's about 360 million opinions about what is "right" for any situation......

[Lurker]

“Enjoy the read.”

Nope. French would rather Hillary be picking the next few Justices. He came right out and said so.

Screw him.

L

[AndyJackson]

David French makes a number of telling points here and it is worth reading.

For instance: There was a time when a “conservative” judge was essentially a judge who was traditionalist, statist, and institutionalist. Indeed, one of the quickest ways to determine the difference between a liberal and conservative jurist was to examine their record in criminal cases. The conservative judges sided with the state in close case

This is why the tarnish has worn off the "conservative" halo, and French is careful to distinguish between "conservatives" and "originalists."

Too often conservatives have been worshipers of state power, just like liberals, but they want that power used against a different set of people. It is why the power of the federal government has grown to it's Frankensteinian proportions - both sides wanted it. It was only the people who don't like it much.

[rlmorel]

Here is what I see going down, as outlined by Dan Bongino:

The Left is in a tight place.

Here is a problem for them: The election does not look like it will be a “Blue Wave”. It may not be a “Red Wave”, but it likely won’t be a “Blue Wave”.

So here is the thought process for the Left:

Their only chance is to take back the Senate. But that doesn’t look likely. They have (IIRC) at least six senators up for re-election in states that went for Donald Trump in 2016, so their states supported Donald Trump.

If there is vote for a new justice prior to the election and they vote down that selection in a state that went for Donald Trump, that may not go over well, and they could lose their seat due to the political fallout.

So, here is what Trump should do: Get two candidates on deck, one who is very conservative and reliable, and one who is over the top conservative, a “Leftist Nightmare of a Supreme Court Justice”.

Trump will put up the very conservative and reliable one for nomination prior to the 2018 election, with the very public knowledge (unsaid of course) that if that “reliable” candidate is rejected, after the election, the wildly radically conservative candidate will be nominated.

The Leftists then have a gamble to consider: Do they accept the less radical candidate and vote them in before the election, or do they wait until after the election, when some Leftist senators from states that Trump won may go down due to the backlash to the rejection, and now they don’t have a chance to pick off enough Republican Senators (such as Collins from Maine and Murkowski from Alaska, both of who are raging RINOs and can likely be counted on by the Left) to counter the Democrat Senators who lost.

So, either they accept a conservative nominee we like and can live with, or they gamble, hoping against hope to regain power in the election to thwart any nominee. If they lose, they will get a radical conservative nominee who will be shoved down their throats, and they are going to just have to take it with no recourse.

That is how I see it going down.

[buffaloguy]

I expect less interference in our lives. Which is a good thing for the country.

[sergeantdave]

The founders designed the court to act in an advisory role, not as the final arbiter of what is or is not constitutional. Congress needs to swat down the courts via impeachment and removal until these unelected black-robes understand their proper constitutional role.

We need an orginalist congress more than an orginalist court.

[libstripper]

French is another NeverTrumper who just totally disgraced himself with a totally accurate piece of writing. After all, if his heroine, the Witch, had won, none of the wonderful things he lists in this great article would have even been conceivably possible.

[publius911]

Or, to put the philosophy in the words of one of my leftist law professors, “You determine the outcome first, then you do your reasoning.” Time after time, that’s exactly what Justice Anthony Kennedy appeared to do.

In other words, Kennedy's legacy was saved by the fact that, being a pervert himself, the last case he saved for the American people did not involve favoring the small, loud and uncompromising sicko segment of the American populace.