Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 34mAnd then just usual political penduluming would be at play. Anyway, enjoy this 2008 flashback: 020
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 48mNow whether a 2004 McCain presidency would have yielded Roberts and Alito is a different story altogether, but I'm fairly certain any Republican President would have followed conservative legal movement's "no more Souters" command by that point. 000
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 48mCaveat: Roberts & Alito were 2nd-term GWB appointees. Gore's reelection potential in 2004 would have been slim bc one party holding the WH for more than 8 years is very rare, and if 9/11 happened on his watch Republicans woulda run (and won) on his not keeping us safe and our need to invade Iraq. 200
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 3hAnd Stevens from his swan song: “It all depends on judges' exercising careful, reasoned judgment. As it always has, and as it always will.” 032
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 3hDude’s pretty much fessing up to being a common law constitutionalist like Stevens and Souter, but with none of the small-c conservative restraint either showed even as they turned left 43214
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 22h(As in, decades in pursuit of trying and failing to overrule Roe turned a movement that was once ostensibly about restoring our Republic to its proper moorings into one that has become outright against democracy altogether because only the right wing is ever allowed to hold power) 0140
Reposted by Mike SacksAri Berman @ariberman.bsky.social · 22hThank you @mikesacks.bsky.social @legalafmtn.bsky.social for having me & @pemalevy.bsky.social on for important discussion on how Roberts Court is bringing back Jim Crow & ending Second Reconstruction youtu.be/U8o1g_EA5gU?...youtu.beRoberts Court BETRAYS History with LATEST RULING...YouTube video by Legal AF 12112
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 22hOriginalism has always been inherently anti-precedent! Originalists adopted the One True Way™ to overturn the other side's constitutionalizing its political preferences as though they were constitutional heresies to be purified. But the movement became Gollum in pursuit of the ring. More at 21:00:liberalcurrents.comDon't Let John Roberts Fool You (Neon Liberalism #93, with Mike Sacks)How we need to think about court reform in the future. 13111
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 22h(Tom Morello is allowed to like KISS. Paul Ryan isn't allowed to like RATM. Yes, I make the rules, but they're not without reason.) 2310
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 22hI write this as someone who loves Rage and TM, and find quite healthy for our democracy by the latter's self-professed communism coexisting alongside his membership in the ubercapitalist KISS Army: he inducted KISS into the Rock Hall and covered RnR All Nite at the Power to the People festival! 1190
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 23hNot gonna repost the entire thread here, so you hazard a look at the other place if you want more x.com/mikesacksesq...x.com 1100
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 23h"I choose to remain hopeful that one day we will remember that nobody elected these nine petty kings and queens. Power in a democracy flows from the people, and if the people ever remember that, this Supreme Court can be stopped." - @elienyc.bsky.social 222856
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026"Hello, Denny. Remember me, from Yorkville?"c-span.org 022
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Not sure how they get a majority out of any of this, which is why I was wondering if Alito's recusal meant they'd just broadly junk the thing on jurisdiction. There could still be a coalition for that, but none of the Republican justices (save Thomas) showed any interest in it during the args. 2181
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026My read on this mess: The 3 Dem justices just want the case to go away, would do so by saying SCOCO's ruling isn't final or remanding to determine choice of law. Roberts and Gorsuch don't buy Suncor's const'l arg. Kav and Barrett are votes for Suncor. Thomas...no jurisdiction? Suncor on merits? 1191
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Kagan goes back in on suggesting that she may think Boulder's case could be preempted by the Clean Air Act 2110
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Barrett's exploring the difference between a state statute purporting to cap emissions in the other 49 states, and a state law suit to recover damages from pollution harms. She thinks they're the same thing, which suggests she believes the state law suit should be preempted. 2161
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Gorsuch: "is there anything anomalous to applying state law principles to worldwide conduct?" Russell: No. Gorsuch does seem to think there's something distinct between this case and a basic products liability case. 1130
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Kagan mocks Kavanaugh's pro-Suncor citations as the "wall of precedents idea" 1180
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Roberts: "We're not talking about emissions at all, it's just production." Accuses Boulder of trying to evade the precedents that Kavanaugh keeps citing. Kagan: "Is there still...a constitutional limit on what states can do in the air and water field?" They're pushing Boulder's weak spots. 1180
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Roberts to Boulder's lawyer: "presumably if you prevail the next day a minucipality in every state will file a lawsuit...and then there will be at least 50 causes of action filed. How would you think that would work out on the ground?" Sounds like Roberts is looking to assuage Thomas's concerns. 1140
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Boulder's lawyer (Kevin Russell) now up. Thomas: "If you prevail, is there a limiting principle as to whom you can sue...So you could just as easily sue large retailers of these products?" Thomas doesn't like tort lawyers. 1150
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026KBJ: "what's the source state in this case? Is that established?" "We don't really know yet because we don't have the whole set of facts to how this pollution is happening because we haven't gotten to that state of litigation." She wants this case gone. 1211
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Kav, restating the Trump admin's arg (that it shares with Suncor) - "What is preserved by the Clean Air Act and what is permissible is a state tort suit under the source state's law, but not under the affected state's law, so not Colorado law." 1130
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Gorsuch also previews his own desire to overrule Mass v EPA in the suits coming up now against Trump's rescission of the endangerment finding, though he gives usual disclaimer that his question expresses no view one way or the other 1191
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Gorsuch back to probing the structural constitutional arg, too: "If Congress carved out GHG regulation from EPA's responsibility, does that mean there could never be a cause of action against it?" He's against Suncor. 1221
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Kavanaugh sweeping back in to help Suncor, citing again the four SCOTUS precedents "since 1972" he says help their args. "What's the problem" with those precedents, "why are you leading" with other args? 2160
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Roberts: "there are a lot of famiiar situations where conduct outside of a state has broad effects on other states and yet we allow state courts in a partcular state to bring litigation that affects that...I guess i'm not quite sure which makes this case different." Yeah, he's not with Suncor here. 2334
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Trump admin lawyer now arguing and she seems very excited to side with BigOil. 2211
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026As expected, Sotomayor, Kagan, and KBJ just want this case to go away. 1271
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026KBJ: "why shouldn't we wait and to hear all these claims one the state courts are done" with all your defenses? Shanmugam: fossil fuel industry is facing more than three dozen cases by more than 60 states and municipalities, and they "need an answer...sooner rather than later...the time is now." 1231
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026KBJ goes back to Kagan's point that this is "really early" in the case, and that the choice of law issue is undercooked. 1211
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Barrett now brings up Trump EPA's rescission of the endangerment finding, and asks whether that means plaintiffs could still bring bring suits in state courts after all. Shanmugam then says nope, constitutional structure still controls. Barrett doesn't buy that. 1211
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Unclear where Barrett is yet. Trying to get Suncor's lawyer to walk back broad sweep of their structural args, while probing whether Boulder's arg is within the scope of the CAA's savings clause. 1180
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Barrett: "this is a field that is an enclave of federal common law because it is not suited to any one state" but "even under that pre-CAA system, there was this outer ring where states had authority..." and after the CAA, Congress preserved some state authority in a savings clause. 1190
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Kav also saying the Court's precedents are backed up by the "equal sovereignty principle." You know, the thing they made up in Shelby County to gut the Voting Rights Act. So it's a weapon to be used against Acts of Congress that states don't like...and state law suits that industry doesn't like. 16615
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Kav: "Clean Air Act is very significant in terms of the responsibilities it puts on states...explain as clearly as you can the conflicts or inconsistencies or the like if states could do tort suits and were no longer constrained by the [CAA's] good neighbor provision." He's with Suncor (I think). 1212
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Kavanaugh: now the "wrinkle" - cites Roberts and Gorsuch's questions - another case did allow a Vermont party to sue a New York party in a similar case. He's trying to help shore up Suncor's arg, but unclear if he's on the other side of Roberts and Gorsuch. 1232
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Kavanaugh tries to save Suncor by asking why its lawyer is avoiding what Kav says is the strongest answer: "We have four precedents on point...make crystal clear that interstate air andwater pollution are matters for federal law unless Congress explicitly preserves state law." 2191
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Alito's prob sitting in his chambers pounding his desk screaming softball questions to save Suncor's lawyers. 1777
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Kagan's just brutalizing Suncor. "What's the support for the default rule about air and water regulation" that the constitution forbids state law suits against polluters like this one? 1493
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Kagan cites tobacco and opioid cases and asks why this isn't like that? "I'm waiting to see the distinction." "This is the same kind of lawsuit against the same kind of actors for the same kind of harm." She gives the A the lawyer failed to give: it's "about air and water." She doesn't buy it. 29312
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Sotomayor goes back to the jurisdiction question Thomas started off with, says SCOCO's decision below wasn't final. "Shouldn't we be certifying this question to SCOCO rather we decide it?" She, like Kagan, wants this case to go away. 1302
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Sotomayor "I have a starting problem because I don't see anywhere below where you argued the extraterritoriality principle at all...and yet you come here and start arguing it as your first argument....didn't you forfeit it?" "You're really staying away from the word...preemption." Cites Roberts. 1403
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026(BTW I was trying to set up a Twitch stream to MST3K this arg...but that'll have to wait till the next big arg) 3350