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Posted on 06/06/2025 11:44:27 AM PDT by george76
The Supreme Court handed down three blockbuster rulings Thursday focused on hot-button cultural issues, and all three of them went in the conservative direction.
That’s not exactly a surprise—the court has a conservative majority, after all. The first real surprise was that the rulings were unanimous. The second real surprise? Each of the court’s three liberal justices wrote one of the opinions.
Justice Elena Kagan, a Barack Obama appointee, wrote the opinion in Smith & Wesson v. Mexico, upholding the rights of U.S. gun manufacturers from Mexico’s attempt to sue them, blaming them for abetting cartel violence.
...
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, another Obama appointee, wrote the opinion in Catholic Charities v. Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission, defending a Catholic nonprofit from Wisconsin’s attempt to tax it.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the Joe Biden appointee, wrote the opinion in Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services, upholding the rights of a straight woman (Marlene Ames) who claimed her employer discriminated against her because she wasn’t gay.
The Supreme Court’s decision to release this trifecta of heartening rulings, each one unanimous and each one written by a different liberal justice, seems an intentional statement of solidarity, but I fear something else might be happening behind the scenes.
The justices don’t always see eye-to-eye, but in these cases, at least, they all agreed to uphold the plain text of the law, following the tenets of judicial originalism—or so it seems.
According to originalism, judges should interpret the law based on the original public meaning of the law’s text at the time it was passed. This theory conflicts with the “living Constitution” framework, where judges interpret the law based on their modern interpretation of the intentions of the original law. That looser framework led to court rulings such as Roe v. Wade, the now-overturned 1973 case in which the court claimed the Constitution protected abortion.
For instance, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled against the straight woman in the Ames case, applying a “background circumstances” rule that required a higher threshold for members of “majority groups” (versus minority groups) to prove that they had faced discrimination. This “background circumstances” rule wasn’t part of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Justice Clarence Thomas, in his concurrence, noted that judges had created the rule, and Jackson’s opinion Thursday rightly struck it down.
Judges applying the “living Constitution” model would say that so-called reverse discrimination—where someone discriminates against a straight person for being straight at a time when most people in the society identify as straight—is a wrongful application of laws initially meant to grant more rights to minorities.
The court’s three liberal justices have routinely twisted the law to favor leftist causes, straining to find any excuse to uphold the claims of women, racial minorities, LGBTQ+ people, or whichever leftist group is most relevant at the time.
Heritage Foundation Senior Legal Fellow Giancarlo Canaparo recently highlighted Jackson’s double standard when it came to participation in the political process.
In the case Allen v. Milligan, Jackson vociferously defended people’s right to participate in the political process. During oral arguments, she slammed the state of Alabama for failing to create an additional majority-black congressional district.
Yet in Libby v. Fecteau, Jackson voted against granting relief to Laurel Libby, a conservative member of the Maine House of Representatives. The Democrat majority had barred Libby from voting on any bills because she condemned a transgender policy allowing a boy to compete on a girls’ sports team. Jackson voted against granting Libby relief because she had “not asserted that there are any significant votes scheduled in the coming weeks [or] that there are any upcoming votes in which Libby’s participation would impact the outcome.”
In other words, Jackson seems to consider participation in the political process a fundamental right for a black group of voters but not a fundamental right for someone concerned about women’s sports. After all, this is the justice who strained to support racial preferences and refused to answer the question, “What is a woman?” during her Senate confirmation hearing.
While the Supreme Court issues many unanimous rulings, it is rare to see unanimous rulings on hot-button issues like guns and “reverse” discrimination.
Perhaps the Democrat-appointed justices truly believe that the gun companies, Catholic Charities, and Marlene Ames were in the right. Perhaps these rulings suggest those justices are finally willing to consider the law rather than use it to force their leftist preferences on us. Color me skeptical on that point.
I consider it far more likely that Kagan, the craftiest of the three, orchestrated this trifecta of rulings as a strategy. The next time conservatives fault Sotomayor, Jackson, or her for an ideologically skewed ruling, Kagan can point to these opinions as evidence of their “fairmindedness.”
Either that, or the liberal justices traded their votes in these cases in order to derail one or more of the remaining hot-button case decisions coming down the pike.
I celebrate these cases, but they also make me nervous. What’s really going on behind the scenes?
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Not, it absolutely does not.
I was going to ask that yesterday.
Excellent question.
Why would they act nice for a little while?
I am not sure I would call the rulings, “conservative.” Tending toward conservative or “conservativish” makes more sense. Anyhow, no crazy dissents, which is welcome.
Is there a dirty deal that 2 of the “conservatives” will vote left in some big case or cases involving Trump?
An effort to recover their reputation.
Also, a quid pro quo for the liberal justices that we will soon discover...
the senior justice on the winning side assigns the opinion to someone to write.
Roberts is always the senior justice in unanimous decisions if he participates at all
So the answer is Roberts picked the liberal justices to write the opinions.
I would like to find they are responding to the many online opinion essays including “The activist judges are causing the American people to increasingly turn against the judicial system.”
My train left the station on that one around the time John Travolta was dancing in Saturday Night Fever.
with a conservative court ruling, liberal judges will seldom get the chance to write a decision, so throw them a bone.
That one is easy, they were protecting Obama and Holder from proof of committing treason in discovery (Crossfire Hurricane).
John Roberts chooses liberal judges so the implications of the conservative finding will be as narrow as possible and not provide broad legal relief.
What made these rulings “conservative”?
Because the round is going to be completely the opposite, and they want to be able to say that the are not partisan.
I’d like to speculate with zero evidence:
In the justices closed door conferences, they have every week, they decided they will lose their jobs if the country dismantles because of the current judicial tyranny having become a downhill freight train with no brakes approaching a hairpin turn.
Never happy. Take the win for goodness sake.
Hopefully because these will be their only opportunities to write for the majority for the rest of the session. Which would mean no future decisions will go the way of their left-wing unconstitutional beliefs.
One can hope...
Love,
O2
“That one is easy, they were protecting Obama and Holder from proof of committing treason in discovery (Crossfire Hurricane).”
Ruling for Mexico would have shut down the firearms industry. Not hurt it a little bit. Shut it down. And, federal statute forbade the lawsuit pretty clearly. They didn’t have to reach for the correct decision with conspiracy stuff about Holder. The correct decision was staring all of them in the face.
“ John Roberts chooses liberal judges so the implications of the conservative finding will be as narrow as possible and not provide broad legal relief.”
Or, maybe Roberts put them on the spot to come up a reasoned legal opinion, which is quite alien to those three, particularly Brown. Sort of like when the teacher gives the class clown a serious assignment.
Ketanji Brown Jackson may wind up being ejected from the court.
As a Biden autopen appointment she would be on shaky ground if Trump pursues the decisions made by someone other than the president. (autopen/ extreme mental incapacity)
Phony, token conservative votes on the court when her vote is not capable of changing the outcome could be a way to put some conservative credit in her bank.
If/when this scandal comes to a head Trump might simply state that the judgments of a court with an illegitimately nominated justice will be ignored until she is removed and Trump names and confirms a replacement, a replacement he was supposed to make and not the illegitimately elected Biden.
The only recourse possible for the other two branches of government would be impeachment but the trove of dirt on several members of congress that is almost certainly contained in not only the Epstein files but other sources would give Trump enormous leverage, and he’s a man who exercises leverage instinctively. The blackmail that was used against these miscreants may well be in Trump’s hands now.
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