Justice Brett Kavanaugh
Brett Michael KavanaughMedia makes wagon circles for conspiracy theorist Neera Tanden January 6 case to end Senate filibuster Laurence Tribe: Justice Thomas no longer works in 2020 elections MORE he horrified conservatives this week when he voiced what appears to be the decisive vote preventing the Supreme Court from initiating pro-Trump electoral processes.
Kavanaugh’s apparent break-up with the most daring conservatives of the court – the Justices Clarence Thomas
Clarence ThomasLaurence Tribe: Justice Thomas is out of order on 2020 elections Supreme Court will not review Pennsylvania GOP electoral processes A powerful tool to take the Supreme Court – if Democrats use it correctly MORE, Samuel Alito
Samuel AlitoLaurence Tribe: Justice Thomas is out of order on 2020 elections Supreme Court will not review Pennsylvania GOP electoral processes A powerful tool to take the Supreme Court – if Democrats use it correctly MORE and Neil Gorsuch
Neil Gorsuch January 6 case to end Senate filibuster Laurence Tribe: Justice Thomas has no order in 2020 election McConnell backs Garland for attorney general MORE – he seemed to surprise his colleagues by surprise and provoked anger among some in the political right who saw this movement as an act of betrayal.
Thomas, in a dissent, said he was “confused” by the court’s reluctance to take over the disputes, as four judges – including Kavanaugh – signaled in late October their view that pro-Trump provocateurs could win on appeal. .
“We are wondering what awaits this Court. We failed to resolve this dispute before the election and thus provide clear rules, “Thomas wrote in what some analysts saw as a thin veiled blow to Kavanaugh.” Now we are again failing to provide clear rules for future The decision to leave the electoral law hidden under a shroud of doubt is staggering. “
Alito and Gorsuch wrote separate disagreements over the court’s denial on Monday, but said they agreed with Thomas. Judges who did not give opinions indicated that the disputes would not have disturbed the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
As is common practice, judges did not provide the public with a complete picture of how they voted on their petitions or their reasoning. But the dissidents of Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch strongly suggested that Kavanaugh lost his appetite for engaging in election disputes.
If so, Kavanaugh’s vote this week marked a reversal from his previous position. In the run-up to the November election, he joined Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch, along with Pennsylvania Republicans, in their urgent move to return to the election cases that Trump claimed were illegal.
Anthony Sanders of the Libertarian Institute of Justice, a litigation firm, said conservative judges’ dissent appeared to target Kavanaugh’s apparent flip-flop.
“Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch today seem quite” puzzled “and” puzzled “by Kavanaugh’s justice,” Sanders wrote on Twitter. “He voted with them to take a case on the scope of the ‘legislative clause’ last fall, but strangely he is absent from granting the certificate in the Pennsylvania case.”
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board called Kavanaugh directly in an article dismissing the court for not concluding what it described as “electoral anarchy.”
“[W]Did Judge Brett Kavanaugh go here since it was the fourth vote in October? “Wrote the editorial office.
In their petition, Pennsylvania Republicans argued that the US Constitution gives state lawmakers exclusive authority over Keystone State elections. If this view were embraced by judges, it would mean that pandemic-era accommodations, such as the extended postal vote, which were instituted by the secretary of state, would be unconstitutional.
Kavanaugh, in October, appeared sympathetic to this argument. Following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Ruth Bader Ginsburg McConnell backs Garland for attorney general A powerful tool for taking the Supreme Court – if Democrats use it correctly Fauci says he was nervous about trapping COVID-19 in Trump’s White House MORE, Kavanaugh joined the three conservative pagans in court, taking part in the Pennsylvania GOP to stop the new voting rules. The court’s 4-4 draw left the accommodation intact until the November 6 elections.
Some see a link between Kavanaugh’s change of heart on Monday and the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, which was fueled by misinformation about Trump’s election.
Julie Kelly, a staunch supporter of Trump and a self-described “agitator,” accused Kavanaugh, named by Trump, of cowardice in the face of pressure from Democrats and the media.
“It can only be assumed that since Kavanaugh changed his pre-election position in Pennsylvania, threats to promote a ‘big lie’ about election fraud have caught his eye,” Kelly wrote in the far-right American Greatness.
Rick Hasen, an electoral rights expert and law professor at the University of California Irvine, offered two assumptions as to why the court avoided hearing the election process. Either the judges have lost interest in litigation because they are now questionable, he said, or the court has stayed away because Trump’s cases are seen as “somewhat radioactive.”
“It simply came to our notice then President Trump
Donald TrumpNoem backs South Dakota coronavirus response, blocks deadlock in CPAC speech On The Trail: Cuomo and Newsom – a story of two defeated McCarthy governors: “I’d bet my house” GOP takes back lower house in 2022 MOREThe continuing false allegations of the elections have been stolen, the case will become an additional vehicle to argue that the election results were illegitimate, “Hasen wrote on the Election Law blog. “It would bring the Court back to the spotlight on an issue that judges have repeatedly pointed out that they wanted to avoid.”
After Trump’s election defeat, he and his allies amassed an abysmal record in court as they tried to undermine President Biden
Joe BidenNoem backs South Dakota coronavirus response, blocks deadlock in CPAC speech On The Trail: Cuomo and Newsom – a story of two battalion governors, Biden celebrates vaccine approval, warns that “current improvement could reverse” MOREwins through post-election processes. To date, the Supreme Court has refused to consider about a dozen such cases.
In all, the court on Monday rejected appeals in eight lawsuits related to elections by Trump or his allies. Many of the lawsuits have urged judges to clarify the legal gray area of the branch of state government that has the power to administer elections.
However, the court did not completely eliminate its post-election litigation file. Judges on Friday are expected to discuss a challenge from Trump to Wisconsin’s postal voting policy, and Kavanaugh could face renewed pressure to find out.