Texas abortion case next week!

Are there really any illusions as to how that will go?

Looks like Massachusetts v. EPA is in danger of getting overturned after only 15 years. Not terribly surprising, that was a 5-4 ruling where Kennedy crossed over. Don't know how long this has been percolating in the lower courts but I also wouldn't be surprised if fossil fuel industries and state AGs favorable to them sued as soon as Kennedy retired.

They also have another abortion case from Mississippi coming up a month later, so they might do something tricky here and save the chalk for the later case.

A majority of the justices appeared skeptical that, despite Texas’ arguments to the contrary, no one can bring a lawsuit to challenge S.B. 8 before it is enforced. Justice Elena Kagan seemed to summarize the problem before the court, as well as the sentiment of several of her colleagues, when she observed that the “entire point of” S.B. 8 is to “find the chink in the armor” of Ex parte Young, a 1908 Supreme Court case allowing lawsuits in federal courts against state officials to bar them from enforcing unconstitutional laws, but prohibiting injunctions against state courts. She dismissed the idea that the court’s hands are tied merely because “some geniuses came up with a way to evade the commands of that decision, as well as … the broader principle that states are not to nullify federal constitutional rights.” The court, she suggested, should not simply resign itself to the idea that “we’ve never seen this before, so we can’t do anything about it.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh echoed Kagan’s point a few minutes later. He told Stone that Ex parte Young “sets out this principle that you can get pre-enforcement review in federal court against state enforcement of laws that are assertedly unconstitutional” – normally, by suing a state official. This case, he explained, involved a “loophole that’s been exploited here, which is the private suits … enforced by state court clerks or judges.” So although the text of Ex parte Young is “strong for you,” he acknowledged to Stone, the rationale of Ex parte Young “would suggest extending the principle here” to allow the providers’ suit to go forward.

Is there any indication on how quickly they'll be issuing a ruling for this one? They declined the state's request to overturn Roe through this case so they could probably go procedural on this pretty easily and either allow lawsuits to proceed or not proceed without ruling on anything further, right?

Hopefully there will be solid precedence preventing other novel uses of these kind of private suits.

I know its not the same, and not likely to happen, but blowing up the enforcement mechanism of prop 65 would be nice.

That matches the summaries given by the NPR reporters after the arguments.

I find it interesting that the Justices who are comparing this to Plessy vs. Ferguson don't seem concerned about creating a separate set of laws for men and for women.

*a separate set of laws for birthing persons and non-birthing persons.


Roe was eggregiously wrong, so...

Anybody?