Can you spell r-a-c-i-s-t?

“Damsky’s paper argued that courts should challenge the constitutionality of the 14th Amendment—which protects due process, equal protection and birthright citizenship—as well as the 15th Amendment—which says the right to vote cannot be denied based on race or status as a former slave.”

In other words, the courts should challenge the constitutionality of a constitutional provision?!

Updated: A Florida law student won an award after arguing in a paper that the United States was conceived as a white country, and federal courts ?have the power to arrest the dispossession of white America.?

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C-A-N Y-O-U S-P-E-L-L H-Y-PO-C-R-I-S-Y?

By Edward Chermerinsky in the ABA Journal concerning the current’s regime’s attempt to get the Supreme Court to curtail nationwide injunctions: “The context of this case is a challenge to a controversial executive order by a conservative president. But conservative state governments and organizations repeatedly sought nationwide injunctions during the Biden and Obama presidencies.

“The context is important in another sense as well. At the same time Trump is repeatedly asserting broad executive powers, he is attempting to limit the ability of courts to check them by having the Supreme Court end nationwide injunctions.”

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The lawlessness is a feature, not a bug

“Let us gently suggest that these facts don’t matter to Vance in the least. This is not meant glibly: For Vance, that is the case as a matter of principle. He is nakedly asserting the power to decree Abrego Garcia a criminal subject to expulsion, even if—or especially if—the facts show the contrary. The administration is doing this on many fronts, from this case to the efforts to remove foreign students to the deportations of Venezuelans to a Salvadoran prison.”

The Trump administration just admitted that a Salvadoran man was deported in error. Shockingly, Trump and JD Vance don?t seem to want to fix their mistake?and the implications of that are dark.

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It won’t be pretty

Predictions for the coming year are always tempting, but in hindsight often seem foolhardy. No one in December 2019 could have anticipated the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. And in December 2023, no one could have envisioned the political roller coaster of 2024. Although there is much that cannot be anticipated, the following seem realistic questions as we anticipate the new year.

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The demise of Chevron bodes ill for many things

The Chevron doctrine, which states that courts should defer to the administrative agencies that administer particular statutes in interpreting those statutes, is a fundamentally conservative doctrine that limits the power of the courts. After all, the administrative agencies have more expertise in the subject matter of particular statutes than the courts. Chevron is a recognition of the Dunning-Kruger effect before Dunning and Kruger. Its abrogation is a power grab by the courts that will lead to much judicial activism and legislating from the bench.

With Loper v. Raimondo, the conservative justices overturned the Chevron Doctrine and paved the way for an erosion of civil rights.

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Here’s a suggestion

I have a slightly different idea for a simple Supreme Court that could be done by statute without amending the Constitution. Congress could create the position of Senior Justice, analogous to Senior Judges in the lower courts, who continue to sit by designation with a much reduced caseload and who get to decide which types of cases they will take. Retired Supreme Court Judges generally become Senior Judges. Justice Souter continues (as far as I know) to hear cases on the First Circuit. Here’s how it would work. Senior Justices would no longer vote on writs of certiorari (i.e., on which cases the Court will take) but, once the Court has granted certiorari, they could choose to take part in that case, e.g., by so informing the Chief Justice within 30 days. The result would be to draw Justices Breyer, Kennedy, and Souter out of retirement for any cases they deeply care about. If Justice Sotomayor were to retire and be replaced with another liberal, that could undermine the current 6-3 conservative majority (if you ever had tie, e.g., at 6-6, that would merely affirm the lower court ruling in that case without creating binding Supreme Court precedent).

I have no idea how feasible this would be in practice but I throw it out as something that might be possible, if only because Congress can do it by statute (or they could simply enlarge the Court but that might be a bridge too far for some, even on the Democratic side).

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