Justice Samuel Alito has devalued the standing of the Supreme Court according to law school professor and former US Attorney Joyce Vance. Vance is addressing Alito’s controversial dissent in the abortion pill case, after the conservative Supreme Court Justice suggested in his dissent that the executive branch likely wouldn’t abide a SCOTUS decision on the matter anyway.
Alito wrote: “The Government has not dispelled legitimate doubts that it would even obey an unfavorable order in these cases, much less that it would choose to take enforcement actions to which it has strong objections.”
Justice Alito’s assertion that the Biden administration would not follow a legitimate order from the Court is unwarranted & completely unbefitting a Supreme Court justice. pic.twitter.com/QyzILH2t8j
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) April 21, 2023
Vance opined: “Justice Alito’s assertion that the Biden administration would not follow a legitimate order from the Court is unwarranted & completely unbefitting a Supreme Court justice.”
[Note: The only other dissent came from Justice Clarence Thomas, who has been embroiled in accusations of entirely different behavior allegedly “unbefitting” a Supreme Court justice.]
Aligning with Vance, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called Alito’s dissent a “tantrum” and said the Supreme Court had “devolved into a highly politicized entity that is rapidly delegitimizing.”
Yet there is a clear line to draw between Alito’s “unwarranted assertion” — as Vance has it — and Ocasio-Cortez’s own statements about “enforcement actions” on legal decisions with which her side, as Alito writes, “has strong objections.”
One doesn’t even have to go to a different case to find Ocasio-Cortez recommending activity — or rather deliberate inactivity — on an objectionable legal decision. When the lower court ruling in Texas first threatened the abortion pill’s availability, Ocasio-Cortez suggested that the decision was illegitimate and should be ignored.
GOP are losing their mind over this, but there’s precedent – including their own.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 9, 2023
Courts ordered Trump to fully restore DACA. They ignored it w/ Republican support.
GOP operate in complete contempt for the law until they’re in a position to shred Constitutional & human rights. https://t.co/kfxsdF5eKG
“I believe that The Biden Administration should ignore this ruling,” Ocasio-Cortez said, which is exactly what Alito, in his dissent, implied might happen. Alito’s language suggests that he believed Ocasio-Cortez’s threats were actionable, even likely.
The chief difference is that the judge issuing the original order was a lower court judge, not a Supreme Court justice. But the principle at stake — ignoring legal decisions by fiat — scans the same at either level. Alito and Ocasio-Cortez, strange bedfellows, are on the same page on this.
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