The Loser Is The Law

In the wake of the Roberts Court's decision on the Voting Rights Act, the effect of which, so far as can be told, will be to disenfranchise millions, I add the following observation: since 2000 we have seen multiple conservative Court decisions which, rather than outright outlawing such things laws designed to suppress the vote, instead make the laws technically impossible to enforce. Conservative jurists often speak of "bright lines," but the conservatives of the Supreme Court seem instead to prefer vast buckets of dull grey paint. This is judicial hypocrisy and enormously weakens the law.

So we have conservative political victories and losses for the law. The Court's conservatives, it seems, only support the rule of law when it supports the rule of conservatives. In such judgments, the law is the loser.

The Roberts Court: working on being the worst since Taney.