Alright, let’s talk about the Supreme Court decision that
came out yesterday regarding the Wisconsin spring election. It. Is. Trash.
Utter garbage. In a long line of terrible decisions made by the Supreme Court,
this is, absolutely, one of the worst ones ever. And, shocking no one, this is
a per curiam decision. Now, for my friends who don’t know what a per
curiam decision is, it’s when no one judge in an opinion signs their name
onto an opinion. Normally, when an opinion is written, one judge writes it and
other judges join it. Whoever pens the opinion gets to set the reasoning for
the decision, which is what will drive future cases on the issue, while the
other judges who join may not 100% agree with the reasoning, but they agree
enough that it’s not an obstacle to them saying the author is right. But a per
curiam opinion remains comparatively anonymous. Who wrote it? We don’t
know. We just know that all of these judges are of one mind, which, guess what,
we would have known if it wasn’t a per curiam opinion. So with this case
we know that it’s the five conservatives who voted for this decision, but I
guess we can’t pin the blame on any one of them. In essence they protect each
other by making no one stick out their neck to draw the line of fire. Which is hilarious
given that NONE OF THEM CAN BE FIRED.
But what about the opinion itself? Well, in four very well
formatted pages that have ridiculous margins, our good old conservative
justices have essentially told the Wisconsin voting public that they can go
die. No, really, that’s what they’re saying. You see, the Court is not
concerned with the wellbeing of Wisconsinites, but, rather, whether the “nature
of the election” will be fundamentally altered. Their decision seems to be premised
largely on two things: (1) that the District Court should not have allowed for absentee
ballots to be mailed after the April 7, 2020 even if they would only count if
they were received by the already agreed upon April 13, 2020 deadline, and (2)
that the plaintiffs (the DNC) didn’t explicitly ask to allow absentee ballots with
postmark dates after April 7, 2020 to count.
To both points, the Court, and I say the Court because I
cannot say it was Roberts, or Kavanaugh, or Thomas, or Alito, or Gorsuch
because they’re all big cowards in this opinion, says that “changing the
election rules so close to the election date” and granting “relief that the
plaintiffs themselves did not ask for” means the District Court made a mistake and
violated the Court’s precedent set in Purcell v. Gonzalez, Frank v.
Walker, and Veasey v. Perry. Their reasoning being that, well, “courts
should ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election” and
that the District Court’s order has an “unusual nature.” News flash: Pandemics
that will kill thousands are not “ordinary.” In fact, they are quite “unusual.”
A District Court faced with ensuring that an election can take place safely is
probably going to have issue orders of an “unusual nature.”
Now the Court, worried about suppression in the context of
voting for the first time in its history, also mentions that the District Court’s
order that tied the postmark extension to enjoining the release of any election
results before April 13 likely won’t work. They don’t say why it won’t, just
that it won’t, and that the release of that information while people are still
mailing in their ballots could have a negative effect on the election’s
integrity. You know what, I agree, releasing that information would have a
negative effect on the election’s integrity. You know what might have more of
one, though? People trying to decide whether to vote, get sick, maybe die,
maybe severely jeopardize their loved ones. But, I don’t know, maybe that’s all
small potatoes. I mean, Grandma would happily sacrifice herself to keep the
economy going, so why wouldn’t she happily sacrifice herself for the election,
right?
Our most wizened old white men (and one Black dude, because
you don’t have to be white to uphold white supremacy) also really want you know
that the plaintiffs didn’t ask for this. If they didn’t ask for it, the Court
just simply can’t grant it. That would be utter chaos. Of course, the Court is
ignoring the fact that courts can affect equitable remedies as justice requires.
That is to say, if a suit is before a court, and a court can not only solve the
issue but also apply a fix that it deems equitable to all parties given the circumstances.
I don’t know about you, but ensuring people don’t die to fill in some bubbles
and press some buttons seems like a pretty basic issue requiring equitable
justice.
And our favorite decision-making boyband wrap up their masterwork,
handed down to us from on high, with this: “The Court’s decision on the narrow
question before the Court should not be viewed as expressing an opinion on the
broader question of whether to hold the election, or whether other reforms or
modifications in election procedures in light of COVID-19 are appropriate.”
Yes, because writing a per curiam opinion was not enough, Robert, Alito,
Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh (or, as I like to call them, GRAKT, not to be
confused with their chief rival, Japanese pop legend GACKT) had to point out
that their opinion was very narrow and that they might, like Susan Collins is
about everything, be concerned about elections amidst COVID-19. Of course, if
you’ve ever read a Supreme Court opinion, you would know that not a single
justice is scared to write reasoning, leave hints, or just blatantly tell you
what they want to happen instead even if they feel constrained by Supreme Court
precedent. That’s not present here. They’re not concerned. They are actually
quite pleased with what they’ve done. Not a one of them could be bothered with
suggesting a path to an alternative in this opinion because they do not care
since they are sticking it to the liberals and preserving conservative power.
If you ever thought the Supreme Court was a hallowed hall of
the country’s wisest people making difficult decisions regarding questions of
great import, time to disabuse yourself of that notion. It is no more than a
bunch of people, hiding behind their pomp, their black robes, and their alleged
non-partisanship, doing whatever it takes for their side to win. Some of them
will play the long game, some will wear their beliefs on their sleeve, but they
all play for a side, and that side is never regular people. Roberts likes to
say he’s an umpire calling balls and strikes. Well, if that’s true, then this
is a case of the umpire taking the ball and just hurling it into the face of
the closest fan and then grabbing a bat and beating them with it. This is not a
technical point ‘and whatever can the Supreme Court do to alleviate the
suffering that people will endure today, April 7, 2020,’ this is just cruelty
designed to keep one group of people in power.
