Not a done deal, of course, but this is pretty encouraging. After oral arguments, it still seems there are only 3 hard yesses on the ludicrous "independent state legislatures" doctrine ("original intent" that somehow never came up for 200 years).
Kavanaugh is partially sympathetic, but not all in. And Barrett seems skeptical, like Roberts.
Maybe it's changed on this court. Traditionally it was hard to call how they would vote, because they would play devil's advocate and make the appellants really get granular in their arguments, even if they agreed with them.
@EileenKCarpenter It's striking that Mark Stern - an analyst who's frankly prone to seeing worst-case scenarios - though Alito sounded like he knew he'd lose, and that Alito was seething about it.
@RationalLeft GRUMBLE GRUMBLE HARRUMPH FULMINATIONS! @EileenKCarpenter
@EileenKCarpenter Although Scalia and Ginsburg were friends outside of work, and that didn't really dampen his reactionary stances. @RationalLeft
@LiberalLibrarian @EileenKCarpenter There are apparently cross-ideological friendships still on this court. Several of them seem to really like Thomas, which frankly surprises me.
@LiberalLibrarian @RationalLeft
Yeah, I get the sense there is less intellectual curiosity on this court, no chance of anyone becoming more moderate from being in the high court milieau. There are probably justices who won't even talk to each other after work.