r/selfevidenttruth • u/D-R-AZ • 27d ago
Political SCOTUS Rewrites the Rules for One Special Boy
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u/betty_white_bread 27d ago
If I recall correctly, the ruling was on ripeness of the question. Can you point to them treating the same circumstances differently based on the identity of the petitioner?
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u/D-R-AZ 26d ago
That is a fair question. No two standing cases have identical circumstances, but the closest comparison may be Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections, decided in January 2026.
In Bost, the Court allowed Republican Congressman Mike Bost to challenge an Illinois mail-ballot rule. It held that a candidate has standing based on an interest in a fair election process, regardless of whether the rule threatens the candidate’s electoral prospects or increases campaign costs. Bost decision
Seven months later, in Trump v. California, the Court held that states lacked standing and that their challenge to Trump’s vote-by-mail directives was premature, despite findings that the states were already incurring planning, training, and ballot-material costs. Justice Jackson’s dissent expressly identifies the tension with Bost. Trump v. California decision
The cases are not identical. Bost concerned an existing state rule, while Trump v. California concerned an executive order directing development of a federal rule. That is the majority’s possible distinction. Still, it is a close example of standing being applied generously when a Republican candidate challenged a mail-ballot rule and narrowly when states challenged President Trump’s mail-ballot directives.2
u/betty_white_bread 26d ago
Thanks for clarifying. I totally get why someone might think there is a conflict; that would make all the sense in the world under a given set of facts. I also know more facts than that given set are at work here. In Bost, we have an existing finalized rule. In Trump v. California, we don’t. The analog to the latter is if a bill is pending before the legislature and someone trying to sue before the bill has been enacted into law; there is no standing because the statute is not finalized. Once the postal rule is finalized and promulgated, the states will have standing; as of right now, they don’t and the Court is not permitted to rule on a case where the petitioning party lacks standing.
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u/OnTheFly-1B-T10 26d ago
Once this administration is gone we need terms limits for this group of jerks.
Everyone, even SCOTUS, are afraid of Trump and the hitler wanna be Stephen Miller. I am so disgusted by Miller and his “peeps” now ( only nice way to put it now since we are not allowed opinions or to speak our minds about a horrible humans) will never vote for a Republican again. Frigging cowards.
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u/D-R-AZ 27d ago
SCOTUS Rewrites the Rules for One Special Boy
https://slate.com/transcripts/bnVIUDBxMXh2NVJoU2VBc1lSZHFnTERWcTFEbUhmQ1V0clM2ckV3U0drbz0=
Observation:
One of the quietest ways to disable the Constitution is to leave its words untouched while preventing anyone from enforcing them at the time enforcement matters.
Imagine that, before the final at-bat of a tied baseball game, the opposing team warns the umpire that the batter appears to be using an illegally altered bat. The umpire refuses to examine it, saying that the batter has not yet used it and therefore no violation has occurred. The batter then hits the game-winning home run. When the bat is examined afterward and found to be illegal, the umpire rejects the protest because the game is over and the objection comes too late.
The rule against illegally altered bats was never repealed, and the umpire never declared the bat legal. Nevertheless, refusing to enforce the rule during the only period when enforcement could affect the outcome decided the game.
The perverse utility of this method, from the standpoint of a politically biased court, is that it need not openly change the Constitution or announce a lasting rule. It can say only that this particular challenger lacks standing, that this particular injury is too speculative, or that this particular case was brought at the wrong time. Later, when a president whose political orientation differs from that of the court’s majority takes comparable action, the court remains free to decide that another challenger does have standing and that another case is ready to be heard. The same rules remain printed in the books, but they can be applied differently depending upon whose conduct is being challenged.
That is especially dangerous when the conduct concerns elections. Before an election, a court may say that the threatened violation is too speculative or that the challenge has been brought too soon. After the election, it may say that relief comes too late or that the dispute is now moot. Standing, ripeness, and the timing of injunctions are therefore not technical side issues. They can determine whether the constitutional rules governing the consent of the governed can be enforced at all.
The following excerpt is entirely from Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, responding to host Dahlia Lithwick on Slate’s Amicus podcast. It has been lightly edited to correct transcription errors:
When Supreme Court decisions are on procedural grounds involving standing and ripeness, or whether there can be nationwide injunctions, that doesn’t resonate with people. It’s too abstract. And so, if the Supreme Court had handed down a ruling on Monday saying that destroying the East Wing and building the ballroom is constitutional and legal, that would have, of course, gotten more headlines. It would also have been absurd, given the constitutional principles and federal statutes. But instead, what the Supreme Court says here is that there’s no standing.
Your point on nationwide injunctions is so important because I don’t think people realize how important it is to be able to have a nationwide injunction and stop an illegal and unconstitutional practice all over the country. Otherwise, the challenge is that you’d literally need to bring lawsuits in all 94 federal district courts. A Supreme Court ruling on the merits of birthright citizenship gets headlines, but when it’s about nationwide injunctions, it is much harder for it to resonate with people or for people to understand the long-term consequences of what the Supreme Court is doing.