Discomforting

The US Supreme Court denied certiorari in Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. Degraffenreid yesterday.  The case was a challenge to the procedures used in the last election in Pennsylvania.  It was, more recently, a vehicle to test the latest Republican theory on how to constraint voting, a sort of state legislative supremacy view of election rules.  With the election over and no likelihood that a decision in the case would have any effect on the electoral outcome, there was a genuine question of mootness, and that is the basis for denial.  There were dissents by Thomas and Alito.  The key point in Thomas' dissent was that the problem raised by the case is not going away, and that it will return at a point hen the briefing and consideration will be quite compressed.  It makes sense for all to address the question about regulation of election now when there is time and quiet to do so. 

I think Thomas and his co-dissenters are more interested in getting a case that will enable them to restrict voting, and see this as a respectable means to achieve that end (because it sounds like a neutral judicial effort), whatever the outcome.  Take away a potential shadow on a next election.  In other words, the dissents seem to me disingenuous.  But, the dissenters have a good point.  It does make more sense to solve the problem now rather than wait for the contested election that makes resolution crucial, and highly political.  It leaves me in the unexpected and somewhat uncomfortable position of reluctantly agreeing with Thomas -- the only reason I see for denial is the thin hope that several justices on the way out right side of the bench will retire or die or be disabled in the next couple of years.  In addition to very poor odds, there is something at best unseemly and perhaps worse, in having such a hope.

Well, then, fall back to the mantra - the Supreme Court is a super legislature, and all courts are reduced politics.  The oath is a lie or we give allegiance to an unjust state.