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from the elections-have-long-term-consequences dept.
Covered pretty much everywhere (front page of CNN/FOX/younameit).
With the main swing vote in the U.S. Supreme Court leaving, and a replacement nominated by President Trump, the right wing of the court should become clearly dominant, allowing Roe v. Wade opponents, and other right-wing causes, a new chance at victory.
takyon: SCOTUSblog has a round-up of coverage:
Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement today, effective July 31, 2018. Amy Howe covered the news for this blog; her coverage first appeared at Howe on the Court. Other early coverage comes from Richard Wolf of USA Today, Michael D. Shear of The New York Times; Bill Mears of Fox News; Robert Barnes of The Washington Post; Jessica Mason Pieklo of Rewire.News; Nina Totenberg of NPR; Lawrence Hurley of Reuters; Greg Stohr of Bloomberg; and Pete Williams of NBC News. Analysis of Justice Kennedy's legacy comes from Noah Feldman of Bloomberg; Wolf of USA Today; Mears of Fox News; and Reuters staff. Coverage of the reaction from Congress and the President comes from Carl Hulse of The New York Times; Alex Pappas and Mears of Fox News; Seung Min Kim and Josh Dawsey of The Washington Post; and Alex Seitz-Wald and Rebecca Shabad of NBC News. Patrick Gregory of Bloomberg has a piece looking at potential replacements for Kennedy.
Early commentary comes from Jill Lawrence for USA Today; Bill Blum in The Progressive; Emily Bazelon for The New York Times; Elizabeth Slattery for The Daily Signal; Garrett Epps for The Atlantic; Richard Hasen for Slate; Ian Millhiser of Think Progress; and Joshua Matz for The Washington Post. Another piece in the Post comes from Philip Bump, who focuses on control of the Senate. More commentary comes from Scott Lemieux for NBC News and Matt Ford for The New Republic. Andrew Cohen writes for TNR, and he also has a piece in Rolling Stone. Commentary from Vox comes from Dylan Matthews, Andrew Prokop and Matt Yglesias. Pieklo and Imani Gandy released an emergency podcast reacting to the news. Various law professors give their analysis for Stanford Law School Blog.
Anthony Kennedy was sworn in on February 18, 1988.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jelizondo on Thursday June 28 2018, @01:34AM
Every law, everywhere is interpreted by judges. No law is ever crystal clear. Take the above snippet from the 5th, which you claim is very clear.
What constitutes public use? Suppose some property will be used for a secret US base and is taken from its rightful owner, can the government claim is not for public use and therefore the amendment doesn’t apply? Is it public use only if the general public can actually use it?
Or it applies to anything the government takes, whatever use it will be? If yes, when the government takes a drug dealer’s van and turns it into a police car, should the drug dealer be compensated?
What about just compensation? Exactly what constitutes just compensation?
See how hard is interpret “crystal clear” laws?
That is why precedent is very important. It guides current judges on interpreting the law is a manner consistent with previous judgments, giving certainty to the people.
As some else pointed out, the SCOTUS comes into play when different judges rule differently on similar cases, to settle what should be the proper interpretation going forward. And that is why the SCOTUS will never be, and has never been, unimportant.