Equal Odds
Superstring01 said:
I honestly don't believe it will. We'll see.
I'd give equal odds; it really depends on how the issue is framed for the Court, and how the Court frames its response.
Up here in Washington state, we're still arguing about whether or not people who seek to influence the public trust should be hidden from the public record—e.g., whether people who sign a petition to put a citizen initiative on the ballot should be exempt from listing in the public record.
Even though the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld Washington's law that says ballot-measure petitions are public records, the drawn-out battle over whether to release Referendum 71 petition signatures is not over.
The high court ruled Thursday in an 8-1 decision, with Justice Clarence Thomas dissenting, that disclosing the identities of petition-signers does not, generally, violate the First Amendment.
But the justices also said their decision "does not foreclose success" should Ref. 71 sponsors decide to pursue an exemption in a lower court — which the sponsors said they will do.
(Tu and Song)
We still haven't seen the names. After all, as the petition supporters assert, their right to free speech would be damaged if other people had information affecting how they might choose to exercise their own freedom.
True, the public got an 8-1 decision from the Supreme Court, but it apparently doesn't mean a damn thing.
And I think public perception of the
Citizens United decision also affects people's projections of how the Supreme Court will look at other speech cases.
Perhaps when the Court rules in June on
Snyder v. Phelps, and we find out whether bad counsel (e.g., Margie Phelps) will be enough to wreck the historically-appropriate outcome, we'll know a bit more about where the Court is actually going in relation to free speech.
By my reading of the Constitution, there comes a point at which the government's legitimate interest in secrecy is simply overruled by the
Preamble, but while justices have historically looked to that section for guidance, it does not necessarily seem to be treated as a binding part of the Constutition. For me, the stopping point comes in "secur[ing] the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity". Comparatively, I don't see how knowing that our diplomats think Berlusconi is a dick, or that Saudi Arabia is enmeshed in a regional power struggle with Iran, hinders the government's ability to "provide for the common defence".
But that's just me.
In the end, I give even odds because it's hard to count the justices on this one:
Uphold SHIELD
• J. Clarence Thomas
• J. Antonin Scalia
Reject SHIELD
• J. Stephen Breyer
• J. Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Toss-up (leaning Uphold)
• C.J. John Roberts
• J. Samuel Alito
Toss-up (leaning Reject)
• J. Sonia Sotomayor
Toss-up (unpredictable)
• J. Anthony Kennedy
• J. Elena Kagan
If we get a 4-4 split, Kennedy will probably follow Roberts. I would predict either a 6-3 (incl. Kennedy and Kagan) or 5-4 to uphold, or a 6-3 (Alito, Scalia, Thomas in dissent) to reject. In other words, I can't predict it at all. (There's even a slender possibility, depending on how the question is framed, that Thomas would stand alone as dissent in an 8-1 decision against SHIELD. I don't consider that a likely outcome.)
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Notes:
Tu, Janet I and Kyung M. Song. "Ref. 71 signatures are public, Supreme Court rules". The Seattle Times. June 24, 2010. SeattleTimes.NWSource.com. December 16, 2010. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2012196559_scotus25m.html
SCOTUSblog. "Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission". 2010. SCOTUSblog.com. December 16, 2010. http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/citizens-united-v-federal-election-commission/
Epps, Garrett. "Westboro Baptist Church's Surreal Day in Court". The Atlantic. October 6, 2010. TheAtlantic.com. December 16, 2010. http://www.theatlantic.com/national...o-baptist-churchs-surreal-day-in-court/64167/
"United States Constitution". 1992. Legal Information Institute at Cornell University Law School. December 16, 2010. http://topics.law.cornell.edu/constitution