US Politics: Guns, Germs, and Gas

[ThinkerX]

I suppose it's a victory of sorts for those on the left:

Georgia legislators gut controversial elections bill (nbcnews.com)

 

Legislators in Georgia on Tuesday night stripped down an elections bill that would have given the state's bureau of investigations jurisdiction over voter fraud cases, among other measures, following pushback from state workers.

In a 10-0 vote, members of the state Senate Ethics Committee opted to substitute a significantly narrower, two-page election reform bill for the original 39-page measure. The bill that was advanced features only one element of the original proposal: expanding how long voters can take off from their jobs to vote during the state’s early-voting period.

[DMC]

26 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

The R's that put in for the position are mostly nonentities, but a couple of the D's - Begich and Gross - do have name recognition and a track record of sorts

Looks like this generation's Begich - Nick the third - has decided to run as a republican.  Hard to blame him.

[Week]

More sanity from the judiciary.

 

I hope this will start to kick off some changes and accountability for the GOP's unconstitutional bonanza of voter suppression, bigotry, and anti-abortion bills.

[Ormond]

4 minutes ago, Week said:

More sanity from the judiciary.

 

I hope this will start to kick off some changes and accountability for the GOP's unconstitutional bonanza of voter suppression, bigotry, and anti-abortion bills.

I am happy he ruled that way, but I don't see your hope as being very likely to be fulfilled. The blocking may be quite temporary, as this ruling is sure to be appealed, and since this judge is an Obama appointee the Right will just attribute his ruling to that. And I'm not sure that "calling out the Supreme Court" is a particularly good strategy to convince higher courts to uphold one's ruling. 

[JGP]

13 minutes ago, Ormond said:

I am happy he ruled that way, but I don't see your hope as being very likely to be fulfilled. The blocking may be quite temporary, as this ruling is sure to be appealed, and since this judge is an Obama appointee the Right will just attribute his ruling to that. And I'm not sure that "calling out the Supreme Court" is a particularly good strategy to convince higher courts to uphold one's ruling. 

Maybe. SCOTUS has a perceptual legitimacy problem. Doubt there'd be a more opportune time to call them out, tantamount to a dare in a sense.

[DMC]

The House Map’s Republican Bias Will Plummet In 2022 — Because Of Gerrymandering:

Quote

Note on the chart how the tipping-point seat’s partisan lean lurched rightward in both 2002 and 2012, reflecting Republicans’ gains in redistricting after the 2000 and 2010 censuses. Not only did Democrats break this mini-streak of good redistricting cycles for Republicans, but they also reversed the effects of two pro-GOP redistricting cycles in one fell swoop.

Even in Democrats’ worst-case scenario at this point, the House’s long-standing (we’re talking over 50 years) bias toward Republicans would drastically diminish. That would certainly be historic — but it wouldn’t mean everything is finally hunky-dory with our congressional maps. Some of this increase in balance is thanks to courts striking down Republican gerrymanders in states such as North Carolina, but Democrats achieved this near-parity mostly through gerrymanders of their own in states such as New York and Illinois. The result is an overall national map that looks fair but individual state maps that are anything but.

 

[Kalbear]

2 hours ago, JEORDHl said:

Maybe. SCOTUS has a perceptual legitimacy problem. Doubt there'd be a more opportune time to call them out, tantamount to a dare in a sense.

I'm sure they care deeply about that

[JGP]

I’m not quite as sure as you, but suspect a few of them do :p

[DMC]

12 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

I’m not quite as sure as you, but suspect a few of them do :p

Well, Roberts obviously cares about legitimacy in a general sense, but at the same time he's hardly a reliable ally when it comes to protecting voting rights.  There's some evidence Kavanaugh, too, cares about legitimacy/public perception, and even maybe Barrett and Gorsuch a little.  However, there's no evidence any of them are gonna try to stop any of the voter suppression bills GOP legislatures are passing, which is the point here.  I mean, these are the people that are primed to strike down Roe even though only 27% of the country wants that to happen.

[DMC]

So today's chapter in the Cawthorn Orgy Saga is Cawthorn striking back!  He put out an ad vowing his resilience to these attacks....from the radical left:

Also, Senator Thom Tillis endorsed his primary challenger.

[Kalbear]

I think what Roberts wants is pretty much immaterial at this point, and he is a chief Justice only in name. 

And I think the only legitimacy scotus cares about is that they are obeyed, which so far democrats have not bothered to challenge to any degree.

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Kalibuster said:

I think what Roberts wants is pretty much immaterial at this point, and he is a chief Justice only in name.

That's a really reductive view.  First, I think Roberts still does have the capacity to influence at least Kavanaugh and Barrett, and probably Gorsuch as well, on certain cases -- particularly in how precisely they are decided.  More importantly, it's always pretty rare for the Chief Justice to also be the swing vote, if simply due to laws of probability.  Just because Roberts isn't the swing vote anymore doesn't mean he still can't have an impact on the trajectory of the court similar to previous CJs.  Which, of course, is part and parcel of why he cares much more than the other conservatives about legitimacy - whether he likes it or not he knows history will still be calling this the Roberts court.

[Kalbear]

The disproportionate use of the shadow docket to decide cases without any actual accountability makes me thing roberts has very little actual power.

[DMC]

5 minutes ago, Kalibuster said:

The disproportionate use of the shadow docket to decide cases without any actual accountability makes me thing roberts has very little actual power.

While the use of the shadow docket has markedly increased (albeit some of this is due to external factors), this is quite literally blowing things out of proportion.

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, DMC said:

While the use of the shadow docket has markedly increased (albeit some of this is due to external factors), this is quite literally blowing things out of proportion.

I'm pretty sure it is not quite literal. 

I'll say it another way - if roberts has a major concern about how legitimate his court looks he is either incredibly incompetent at getting that or he is very bad at getting anyone else to care. Neither speak well to his power to influence the court in any way. 

Or, he doesn't care about that at all. 

Ultimately it doesn't matter. Only the outcome does.

[DMC]

20 minutes ago, Kalibuster said:

I'm pretty sure it is not quite literal. 

The amount of cases decided via shadow docket is incredibly small.  It is quite literal.

20 minutes ago, Kalibuster said:

Ultimately it doesn't matter. Only the outcome does.

Again, this is a reductive view of how Chief Justices can influence the court.  Obviously, any time they are not the swing vote, the 5 or more on one of his sides are going to be the primary influencers.  But this isn't a new phenomenon in any way, and Chief Justices still retain more influence in directing the court than all the other justices, ceteris paribus.  In Roberts' case, particularly because he's actually mostly aligned with the dominant bloc, as opposed to, say, Burger.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

15 hours ago, DMC said:

So today's chapter in the Cawthorn Orgy Saga is Cawthorn striking back!  He put out an ad vowing his resilience to these attacks....from the radical left:

Also, Senator Thom Tillis endorsed his primary challenger.

The rising star of the QAnon caucus.

:|

[Ormond]

17 hours ago, DMC said:

So today's chapter in the Cawthorn Orgy Saga is Cawthorn striking back!  He put out an ad vowing his resilience to these attacks....from the radical left:

Also, Senator Thom Tillis endorsed his primary challenger.

I am sure this ad was created before the "orgy" controversy. None of the article headlines it uses have anything to do with that issue. And there is no surprise at all in him putting out ads before the Republican primary trying to convince his own base that he is being their champion against the "liberals" and the "swamp."

[Ormond]

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Quote

 

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Notice how the word "Republican" is never mentioned in this email? When one of the Trump ads I get talks about Congress, it's always about restoring Trump's Majority, never the Republican majority. This is truly an authoritarian cult.

[DMC]

15 minutes ago, Ormond said:

I am sure this ad was created before the "orgy" controversy.

I suppose it's possible it's just a coincidence Cawthorn put out an ad about being attacked by the "DC swamp" a day after his own leader publicly called him untrustworthy (not to mention both his sitting Senators of the same party essentially calling him unfit to serve), but it's very very unlikely.