Calhounhite Court allows Calhounite statute to remain in force

Today, the Supreme Court continued to allow Texas to openly and willfully nullify what is as of now a federally protected constitutional right. The argument made by Trump nominee/embodiment Neil Gorsuch is essentially that because of the novelty of the Fugitive Uterus Act there is no precedent that allows most of the suits to proceed, and even though the Supreme Court’s job is precisely to make new law if circumstances warrant it it will not, and moreover even though some of the suits can proceed Texas’s law — despite its undisputed unconstitutionality under the currently controlling precedents — will remain in effect. (Trump avant la lettre Clarence Thomas would not allow any of the challenges to Texas’s law to proceed.)

As Roberts’s dissent-on-most-points opinion observes, “Any novelty in [the remedy of allowing challenged to S.B. 8 to proceed] is a direct result of the novelty of Texas’s scheme”:

Justice Sotomayor’s opinion, meanwhile, correctly situates the Texas statute and the majority’s opinion allowing it to remain in effect, rewarding the state for nullifying federal law, within the American political tradition:

As Sotomayor also points out, the Supreme Court has also provided a roadmap to states who want to permanently nullify federal rights by writing the nullification statute more carefully:

That the Republican Party is the party of the neocofederacy has long been evident, and this is yet another step down the path. And we should remember that while Roberts in on the right side in this particular case he’s much more often been a major part of the problem.