Another brilliant carefully researched and worded analysis with remarkable promptness. This Substack subscription is well worth it. Hope this article is widely read in AZ or at least shamelessly plagiarized by news and social media there. C
I disagree who is responsible. Trump has bragged about it. He is to blame. We can also give blame to Sinema for stopping a Federal law that would have overruled the state law.
I noticed all the commentary on the case (except this post) highlight 1864 as if laws just should expire after some undefined length of time. That’s not how laws work, with the exception of rare laws that actually include an expiration date.
One other related fact about the AZ government: When the GOP controlled both the governorship and the legislature, they passed a law expanding the size of the Supreme Court by 2 justices - the exact margin between the majority and the dissent here.
So, Supreme Court packing by Republicans is another reason why this happened.
Great take! Thank you for writing such thoughtful, thorough, and balanced articles on the big legal issues in the country. I often post your weekly newsletters as examples for political science students to learn how to think through political issues.
I believe the first sentence of the final paragraph runs counter to experience and historical fact. The GOP is on a crusade to institutionalize minority rule.
Thank you for this very well-written, thoughtful and insightful post. I particularly appreciate the discussion of the 2022 statute's rule of construction and the various alternatives the Arizona legislature could have pursued vis-a-vis the 1864 law. Having muddled my way through the Arizona court's opinion and dissent and reading your analysis, I regrettably believe that the majority has the more persuasive argument: the legislature never intended the 2022 law to limit what was already on the books. Rather than craft an informed, fact-based piece of legislation after the Mississippi case was decided, Arizona legislators decided to place an unenforceable law on the books to guarantee that Arizona's abortion statutes would always be as stringent as Roe's progeny would allow. The hypocrisy of criticizing the court for doing exactly what the legislators intended is, unfortunately, par for the course. What angers me, however, is the utter speciousness of the reaction of the leaders of the Arizona House and Senate. They didn't give one whit about court rulings or the views of their constituents when they enacted an unenforceable law in 2022. And they don't care about court rulings or the views of their constituents now. I can only hope that their constituents decide they are tired of the being governed by a cabal of anachronistic misogynists.
Another wonderful article, as always. I hadn't gotten this level of detail anywhere else so this really helped to explain the issue
Another brilliant carefully researched and worded analysis with remarkable promptness. This Substack subscription is well worth it. Hope this article is widely read in AZ or at least shamelessly plagiarized by news and social media there. C
I disagree who is responsible. Trump has bragged about it. He is to blame. We can also give blame to Sinema for stopping a Federal law that would have overruled the state law.
I noticed all the commentary on the case (except this post) highlight 1864 as if laws just should expire after some undefined length of time. That’s not how laws work, with the exception of rare laws that actually include an expiration date.
One other related fact about the AZ government: When the GOP controlled both the governorship and the legislature, they passed a law expanding the size of the Supreme Court by 2 justices - the exact margin between the majority and the dissent here.
So, Supreme Court packing by Republicans is another reason why this happened.
Great take! Thank you for writing such thoughtful, thorough, and balanced articles on the big legal issues in the country. I often post your weekly newsletters as examples for political science students to learn how to think through political issues.
I believe the first sentence of the final paragraph runs counter to experience and historical fact. The GOP is on a crusade to institutionalize minority rule.
Thank you for this very well-written, thoughtful and insightful post. I particularly appreciate the discussion of the 2022 statute's rule of construction and the various alternatives the Arizona legislature could have pursued vis-a-vis the 1864 law. Having muddled my way through the Arizona court's opinion and dissent and reading your analysis, I regrettably believe that the majority has the more persuasive argument: the legislature never intended the 2022 law to limit what was already on the books. Rather than craft an informed, fact-based piece of legislation after the Mississippi case was decided, Arizona legislators decided to place an unenforceable law on the books to guarantee that Arizona's abortion statutes would always be as stringent as Roe's progeny would allow. The hypocrisy of criticizing the court for doing exactly what the legislators intended is, unfortunately, par for the course. What angers me, however, is the utter speciousness of the reaction of the leaders of the Arizona House and Senate. They didn't give one whit about court rulings or the views of their constituents when they enacted an unenforceable law in 2022. And they don't care about court rulings or the views of their constituents now. I can only hope that their constituents decide they are tired of the being governed by a cabal of anachronistic misogynists.
Wow, what a thorough analysis! Thank you from Arizona - I wanted this info and will use it.
Relying on reliance, a better court would have stayed their decision until 12/31, not a measly 14 days.