https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/01/politics ... index.html"In enacting SB 8, the Texas Legislature not only deliberately prohibited the exercise of a constitutional right recognized by this court, it did everything it could to evade effective judicial protection of that right in federal or state court," he said.
He said the lawsuit should be able to go forward because the state "delegated enforcement to literally any person anywhere except for its own state officials."
But Texas Solicitor General Judd Stone said the case should not be able to proceed in federal court because the state is not the proper defendant, since SB 8 bars state officials from enforcing the law. He stressed that the law allows civil lawsuits to proceed in state courts after an abortion is challenged.
Critically, Justice Amy Coney Barrett expressed discomfort with the idea that a federal court could not hear the challenge and wondered if a federal constitutional defense "can be fully aired" in state courts. She seemed troubled that a state court hearing would be sufficient to air constitutional grievances.
And Justice Brett Kavanaugh wondered if other states might copy the law to restrict other rights concerning such issues as gun control and free speech. He asked whether the law couldn't be "easily replicated in other states that disfavor other constitutional rights."
Critically, though, while Barrett and Kavanaugh seemed receptive to the argument put forward by the providers, both had previously voted to allow the controversial law to remain in effect.
Interesting take from Brett - have Republicans created a precedent that would allow the restriction of other rights? This Texas law is as cowardly as they come.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... ar-AAQcb2nKavanaugh pressed Stone on the prospect that the legal machinery of the new abortion law could be used against other freedoms, including gun and religious rights. He asked Texas’ lawyer to imagine a law that let anyone sue a person for using an AR-15 rifle and hold them liable for $1 million.
“A state passes a law: Anyone who declines to provide a good or service for use in a same-sex marriage, a million dollars, a suit by anyone in the state, that’s exempt from pre-enforcement review?” Kavanaugh asked.
Justice Elena Kagan said extreme hypotheticals weren’t necessary to understand the implications of the Texas law. “The actual provisions in this law have prevented every woman in Texas from exercising a constitutional right as declared by this court,” she said. “That’s just not a hypothetical, that’s an actual.”
