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Comment by quitit | Hacker News Reader

Reasonably the supreme court shouldn't green light laws which trivially trample preexisting rights, prior test cases or the constitution.

This will be a poison pill: should a stacked supreme court effectively reverse abortion rights by allowing the Texan abortion law to stand - then all states can effortlessly clog the system with similar laws for anything they please. It becomes whack-a-mole because the stacked court is certain to find the CA law unconstitutional but the TX abortion law fine - which will just lead to a similar indirect laws being brought on loop.

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The Supreme Court should not do anything based on any ideology or desired results.

The Court should interpret the law and the constitution as it is written. If that enables an undesirable result, then the legislative branch can take corrective action.

Either the Texas law is legal or it's not. It's not the Supreme Court's job to fix the legality of an undesirable result just as it's not their job to decide what an undesirable result is.

The Supreme Court sets its own agenda and relationship with the rest of the branches of government, more than all other institutions. The Supreme Court is traditionally expected to bring clarity to lower courts and follow its own precedence. Sometimes that has meant creating a new legal framework of judgment.

To what degree does the Supreme Court fix existing legislation and to what degree do they pass work back to Congress? Also up to the Supreme Court to decide.

What textual strategy should the Supreme Court choose to interpret laws? Also up to the Supreme Court to decide.

They do this all of the time. They are only human and have their inherent biases.

“Interpret” and “As it is written” - pick one, you can’t have both.

> It becomes whack-a-mole because the stacked court is certain to find the CA law unconstitutional but the TX abortion law fine

I disagree with this statement. Justices may be ideological, but they aren't idiots. They know that they will lose any possible shred of legitimacy the court has left if they are that open about their hypocrisy. Indeed, the biggest concern that conservative justices expressed during the hearing on the Texas law was whether it would allow any constitutional right, especially gun rights, to be invalidated in this manner.

Justices may be ideological, but they know they need to craft their rulings to appear non-political in order to uphold their legitimacy (Roberts has been especially clear about this).

Definitely a wait and see on this - because I hope (sincerely) that you are right. Their specific selection for appointment doesn’t give me the same level of confidence.

My expectation is that the court will rule abortion bans are legal but the citizen enforcement schemes are not. So the bounty system won't stand but abortion will become illegal in much of the country.

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