Laurence Tribe

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

If the “moderate“ compromise in the ISL case (Moore v. Harper) is a holding that state courts can review, construe, and strike down BUT NOT REWRITE a state legislature’s district lines, that’d be a formula for stalemate — and a harbinger of disaster for constitutional democracy. — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

Any ISL decision that lets the Court ask whether state court decisions are “judicial” enough to satisfy it would impose the Justices’ ideas about proper judging onto state courts, a role fundamentally incompatible with federalism and separation of powers. https://t.co/M6sNLnYymC — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

State secrets? That overstates it. The protected data re covered individuals like children and spouses just couldn’t be traded commercially or posted publicly (eg online) except as part of or related to “a news story, commentary,…, or other speech on a matter of public concern.” — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

Unconst’l? No! The bill dsn’t keep that information “secret” in the sense of sealing it but just prevents its “public posting” by govt (p. 2549) or sale by “businesses” (2556), and even then subject to EXCEPTIONS for display “as part of …speech on a matter of public concern.” — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

You overlooked the EXCEPTIONS at pg. 2557 lines 5-21 to prevent precisely such “unintended consequences.” Part (III) exempts “covered information lawfully received from … an employee … of the Federal Government” and Part (I) exempts information “on a matter of public concern” — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

This misreads the provision, @JaneMayerNYer. I wish you’d read it with your usual care. I helped write it, so I know EXACTLY what it would do and it would NOT have the unfortunate effects you forecast. — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

This isn’t correct, @JaneMayerNYer. You’ve somehow overlooked “EXCEPTIONS” at p. 2557 lines 5-21, saying “Clause (i) shall not apply to — “information . . . relevant to and displayed as part of a news, story, commentary,…, or other speech on a matter of public concern.” — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

“Insulting the intelligence of the jury backfired, as it inevitably does. Common sense, always a strength of the jury system, confirmed that a company’s tax liability dropped when it cooked the books to shrink its reported payroll.” https://t.co/Sdkv3sw37S — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

“This country has been wildly careless with Black bodies, Black stories, Black truths. We’re watching the news every day with the foot of bigotry on our backs and the noose of regression tightening around our throats.” https://t.co/ATHwZ5437Q — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

BRITTNEY GRINER FREED IN PRISONER SWAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

The Trump administration’s inept response to COVID-19 resulted in the “avoidable yet devastating loss of human life.” https://t.co/TDpqkFlX9q — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

“Drawing a line to decide when a court stops acting as a court and moves into legislative territory could be a difficult task.” That puts it mildly: It could be a judicially unmanageable task . . . https://t.co/wZvTfFqvk4 — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

I’m partly with @kenji_yoshino here, but I’m basically a glass 🥃 half full guy — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

“The man who tried to overturn the Constitution to save his job as commander in chief and avoid the law now has to meet it as defendant in chief.” https://t.co/PrAryK2vcT — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

Justice Thomas thought he had nailed the pro-democracy side with his hypo about a state legislature’s district lines being so “generous to minority voters” that they violated the state constitution’s own anti-affirmative-action principle. He failed badly to expose any hypocrisy! — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

Too bad the U.S. Senate, acquitting Trump of impeachable insurrection, lacked the cojones that Peru’s Congress had on display when it dispatched President Castillo for similarly self-aggrandizing high crimes . . . https://t.co/yqHR4z2uiY — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

The plot thickens as more criminally mishandled classified documents turn up at yet another venue. Trump’s skeletons seem to be buried in an ever-expanding array of places: https://t.co/jLHcuO2cTn — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

https://t.co/xLwbVzxoVM — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

Justice Alito tipped his hand in favor of the ISL theory in asking whether it “furthers democracy to transfer power from state legislatures to state courts,” a question as revealing as it was misleading. — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

Only Justice Kagan spoke openly of the “big consequences” (putting it mildly!) for our entire system of checks and balances that any ruling for the NC House of Rep’s in Moore v. Harper could have. All the other Justices danced around that huge elephant in the Supreme Courtroom. — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

Counsel for the NC House tried to turn the 9-0 ruling in Bush v. Palm Beach Cty (2000), decided 8 days before Bush v. Gore, into way more than it actually held. As counsel arguing for Palm Beach Cty in that SCOTUS case, I can say that Justice Kavanaugh had that much exactly right — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

Counsel defending the ISL theory in Moore v. Harper hung their hats on an elusive and dubious distinction between substantive and procedural restrictions on state laws drawing congressional district lines. Justice Barrett joined Justice Kagan in being skeptical of that S/P line. — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

Counsel defending the North Carolina Supreme Court differ over whether there’s a difference between the deference SCOTUS owes to a state court’s interpretation of state legislation and its interpretation of a state constitutional provision. I’d vote for no difference. — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

Justice Jackson’s creative idea is that districting lines that violate the state’s own constitution can’t be deemed to be laws enacted by the state’s actual “legislature” at all. That’s dramatic but seems to me unlikely to persuade her colleagues. — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

My late colleague John Hart Ely would be amused to hear how the Supreme Court’s decision in Moore v. Harper could turn on whether rejecting a gerrymander as the result of representational dysfunction is genuinely “judicial review” of state legislation or is just policymaking — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

It looks like one big Elections Clause danger is that Justices Gorsuch and Barrett & maybe the CJ & Alito will hold that a State Supreme Court may regulate the “manner” of districting but not whether its effects are, eg, “free and fair,” much less >x% from politically random. — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

Only Justice Gorsuch asked Moore’s counsel questions suggesting an inclination to see giving state legislatures unbounded power to trump state constitutions as being consonant with American traditions of checks and balances that, as Justice Kagan stressed, are uniquely vital now. — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

Justice Barrett’s very smart reference to how hard the substance/procedure line is to draw (based on her own experience as a civil procedure teacher) makes clear that she is inclined to agree with Justices Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson in Moore v. Harper. Very reassuring! — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

“Trump’s legal team hired an outside firm to carry out the search of his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., and, more recently, Trump Tower in New York.” They claim no purloined documents are hidden there. Who believes that?!? https://t.co/jLHcuO2cTn — PolitiTweet.org

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

TIME Magazine made the right choices https://t.co/pIIjyHo4aa — PolitiTweet.org