New York Times obtains 2016 exchanges between Supreme Court justices on quick rulings
The Supreme Court’s “shadow docket” was once a sleepy procedural backwater—used for last-minute technical rulings, often in death penalty cases, and typically without much attention.
But according to a New York Times deep dive into internal court memos, that began to change over the course of five days in 2016, when the justices took the unusual step of blocking an Obama-era climate rule before lower courts had finished weighing in.
Behind the scenes, the documents show, the move was anything but routine—an early signal that the court was willing to act faster, and more aggressively, than tradition might suggest.
The response to that (at least the one that I’m willing to type online) is to join your local chapters of RankTheVote or other RCV advocacy groups. If we removed FPTP in every state, and also push for local state implementations of “The Montana Plan” (Transparent Election Initiative) which is a way around overturning Citzens United. Check it out.
There is also a constitutional amendment underway to do the same, called American Promise: The For Our Freedom Amendment. It does NOT require a Constitutional Convention to be ratified (a proposed amendment becomes an operative part of the Constitution as soon as it is ratified by three-fourths of the States, currently 38 of the 50 states. No additional action by Congress or anyone else after ratification is required).
This is the text of the proposed amendment:
If passed, it takes the power over campaign spending away from the corrupt SCOTUS and gives it back to the states as intended all along, and nullifies corrupt rulings like Citizens United. It’s already about halfway to ratification.
Everybody should be aware of it, but mainstream media DOES NOT talk about it, probably because it has the power to undo all those hard years of right-wing graft in eroding our rights and protections in election funding. I personally heard about it from a Heather Cox Richardson interview, linked below:
The For Our Freedom Amendment website:
https://americanpromise.net/
The Heather Cox Richardson episode where I learned about it and its author answers questions, including how and why it needs no Constitutional Convention to get passed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWhSVDCKIfc
That’s fantastic and the first time I’ve even heard about it, and I’m generally pretty informed on these matters.
However… this is never passing lol
I was amazed myself that I’d never heard of it before now. But yeah, it will pass in time, if we have that time: the only ones who don’t like it are the ones pouring the dark cash into elections. Did you see the map on their website? 25 of 50 states have already passed it or are in the actual process of advancing it. They only need 38.
If you get a chance, listen to Richardson’s interview (or read the transcript) because one of the surprising effects moving this amendment through state legislatures is that representatives who do not have major corporate donors see it as a win for a more equivalent playing field: if they can get it passed, they don’t have to spend all that time and money in races fighting grey money pouring in from undisclosed sources at their opponents.
Didn’t you know, basic economics is a woke lib worldwide conspiracy.