Ronald Reagan said:

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pagerman @ work said:

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Ronald Reagan said:

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Bankeraggie said:

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YokelRidesAgain said:

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titan said:

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They should have ignored any overly technical legal detail like standing.

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"Overly technical legal detail??"

This is just sad, man.


Whether or not you have the right to bring a case is not a "detail"; it's fundamental to the process.

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Many posters here don't care about the details of the case, how the court works. They just wanted their guy to be named the winner.

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Some of us know the details and actually have the legal acumen to understand why the Supreme Court was wrong here. They're wrong a lot. Those of you acting like their decisions are infallible are proving your ignorance.

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Obviously SCOTUS makes mistakes.

I would argue that the chances of that are much greater at 5-4 than at 9-0. Certainly a 9-0 decision does not confer infallibility, but it does improve the chances greatly.

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It wasn't 9-0.

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That depends on how you look at it. On the issue granting some kind of emergency relief, it was 9-0. Justices Alito and Thomas say that there should be no discretion about whether or not to hear a case in which the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction, and Thomas stated that they were not in favor of granting relief.

Quote:

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The State of Texas's motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution. Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot. Statement of Justice Alito, with whom Justice Thomas joins: In my view, we do not have discretion to deny the filing of a bill of complaint in a case that falls within our original jurisdiction. See Arizona v. California, 589 U. S. ___ (Feb. 24, 2020) (Thomas, J., dissenting). I would therefore grant the motion to file the bill of complaint but would not grant other relief, and I express no view on any other issue.

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Our forefathers came from a history of Tyrrany before they wrote the Constitution. They knew the score and what the words of it meant. The spoiled bratts of today come from a history of Liberty and have no ideal what they are asking for when they want to tear up that old piece of paper or just ignore it.

titan said:

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Since two (and maybe more) of the judges thought it should be considered

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Again, wrong.

Alito and Thomas were simply asserting their (minority) viewpoint that the Supreme Court is required to rule on all cases brought by one state against another state. Per Thomas' earlier dissent in an unrelated case, the point of view is that the Constitution requires SCOTUS to issue rulings in legal disputes amongst the states.

In actual practice, it is not unusual for the Court to simply refuse to hear such cases (for example, South Dakota filed suit against Colorado a few years ago claiming that the legalization of marijuana in Colorado would lead to increased crime in South Dakota, in essence). The Court declined to hear the case and issued no ruling.

Apart from high profile publicity stunts like this one, most of the Court's "original jurisdiction" cases involve water rights or border disputes. The justices tend to hate these cases because they require appointing a special master to investigate facts (which SCOTUS never does in any other cases, because establishing facts is the job of the trial court), and usually the resolution of the case is of no interest to anyone other than the involved parties. They have no interest in signing on to a legal doctrine that would oblige more of their workload to be devoted to such disputes, which is what Alito and Thomas are advocating.

It is nothing more than the view that if state A sues state B, the Constitution obliges the Supreme Court to respond. Although the minority viewpoint expressed by Alito and Thomas is sincere, it has nothing to do with the particulars of this case at all. It is just that as strict textualists, they believe that this is what the Constitution requires and stand by that belief in all cases.