Balance on the Supreme Court

For John, BLUF:  Democrats are apoplectic about President Trump perhaps being able to appoint another US Supreme Court Associate Justice, to be confirmed by Majority Leader Mitch McConell's Senate Majority.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Liberal Supreme Court justices vote in lockstep, not the conservative justices

Here is the sub-headline:

Over the past several sessions, Supreme Court Justices appointed by Democratic presidents voted in unison more than their Republican counterparts.

From USA Today, by Opinion Mr Ilya Shapiro, 10 September 2019.

Here is the lede plus four:

Ever since Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement last year, commentators have prophesied that President Donald Trump’s replacement of that moderate jurist would lead to a conservative majority running roughshod over core liberal concerns.  That’s why opposition to the milquetoast establishmentarian Brett Kavanaugh was so fierce, even before the 11th-hour sexual-assault allegations.

Justice Kavanaugh was supposed to have single-handedly overturned Roe v. Wade, but a funny thing happened on the road to apocalypse. Particularly in petition rejections and other procedural votes, Kavanaugh has demonstrated a pragmatic approach.  And a term with few big controversies showed the liberals voting together much more than the conservatives.

There were 67 decisions after argument in the term that ended in June. In those cases, the four justices appointed by Democratic presidents voted the same way 51 times, while the five Republican appointees held tight 37 times.  And of the 20 cases where the court split 5-4, only seven had the “expected” ideological divide of conservatives over liberals.  By the end of the term, each conservative justice had joined the liberals as the deciding vote at least once.

That dynamic isn’t something that sprang up in the Trump era or with the court’s newest personnel.  In the 2014-15 term, with Kennedy at the height of his “swing vote” power — the last full term before Justice Antonin Scalia’s death and resulting year-long vacancy — the four liberals stuck together in 55 of 66 cases, while the four conservatives (not counting Kennedy) voted as a unit in 39.

Our Nation's Capitol seems to be a place where analysis, although available, is not absorbed easily.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Political Chaos in Venezuela

For John, BLUF:  Not doing it the regular way invites a spiral descent to disaster.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Top Venezuela official breaks with government, protests mount

From Reuters and the keyboards of Reporters Andrew Cawthorne and Girish Gupta, reporting from Caracas, Venezuela.  The date is Friday, 31 March 2017.

Here is a capture of the first four paragraphs (although, really three of them are only one sentence):♠

Venezuela's powerful attorney general on Friday broke ranks with President Nicolas Maduro's government after the judiciary annulled congress, a rare show of internal dissent as protests and international condemnation grew.

Luisa Ortega, appointed attorney general in 2007 and a staunch ally of the Socialists who have ruled for the last 18 years, rebuked the Supreme Court's controversial move to take over the opposition-led National Assembly's functions.

"It constitutes a rupture of the constitutional order," the 59-year-old said in a speech.  "It's my obligation to express my great concern to the country."

While various prominent political figures have leveled criticism after leaving the government, it is extremely rare for a senior Venezuelan official to criticize like this.

Not that it is not like Venezuela.

There are lessons to be learned here, and not just that Bolivarian Socialism is a non-starter as an economic system.  The other key point is that when the balance of power between the branches of government is upset, government becomes unstable and may not be easily righted again.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  My Middle Brother, Lance, believes I use the term lede as a way of signaling that I am better educated than he.  He should understand "signally" since he is a Democrat and they do a lot of virtue signally.  Anyway, if anyone else cares to roll in on this issue, feel free.