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Comment by matt_kantor | Hacker News Reader

I was responding to the specific question you asked:

> What’s the difference between a court opining that a law is unconstitutional and a court interpreting a law as unconstitutional?

That question was a reply to this comment:

> Citizens United was based on the law being unconstitutional, not the court’s interpretation of the law.

That comment is referring to two different things SCOTUS can do:

1. Throw out a law because it is unconstitutional.

2. Interpret the law by deciding how it applies in a particular case.

They're saying the Citizens United ruling was of the first type, not the second.

You seemed to miss that, so I was trying to clarify it. That's all.

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> They're saying the Citizens United ruling was of the first type, not the second. You seemed to miss that, so I was trying to clarify it.

I did not miss that. I was responding to it. Perhaps you are not understanding what I am saying.

How did they determine CU was of the first type? Did they interpret it to be of the first type, or is there an objective view of it that simply makes it so? And if the latter, where is this objective view located that all can see? And why did 4 of the 5 justices not have access to see the objective view?

In other words: deciding something is unconstitutional and interpreting something as unconstitutional are exactly the same thing. There is no such thing as unconstitutional outside of interpretation.

We read dcolkitt's comment differently.

You read:

> Citizens United was based on the law being [objectively] unconstitutional, not the court’s interpretation of the law [being that it is an unconstitutional one].

I read:

> Citizens United was based on the law being unconstitutional [in the opinion of the court], not the court’s interpretation of [how] the [constitutionally-compatible and therefore still on the books] law [should be applied to Citizens United].

OK. My interpretation seems to be much closer to the words as written. I'd give myself credit for being a textualist, if I didn't think that label was just a scam.

In any case, your read is that the court had an opinion about the constitutionality of CU (which is exactly what it had). And my read is exactly the same: opinion = interpretation.

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