[EL] Abbott v. Perez, on the oddity of the oral argument revisited

[Adam Bonin]

Having attended that oral argument,I can only say that it felt in the room
like the Court's liberal justices were doing everything they could to keep
the discussion on jurisdiction because they knew were this was going if it
reached the merits.  (The Chief Justice, FWIW, did extend a few extra
minutes to each of the attorneys.)

N.B. When you're bringing your 10-year-old daughter to the Court for the
first time, because she's expressed interest in seeing what an argument is
like and you wind up preparing her well for what a gerrymander is and why
it might be good to try to draw districts that encourage inclusive,
representative legislatures, and you even prepare her for "there's going to
be a balding Justice on the right who'll keep rubbing his brain until
three-part questions emerge," and then the Court spends more than half the
time on the jurisdictional question instead and RBG only asked two
questions (and in the second half) ... well, that's a kid who gets to visit
the museum of her choice (Spy) and enjoy a lot of ice cream thereafter.

Adam C. Bonin
The Law Office of Adam C. Bonin
121 S. Broad Street, Suite 400
Philadelphia, PA  19107

(267) 242-5014 (c)
(215) 701-2321 (f)
adam at boninlaw.com
http://www.boninlaw.com

On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 10:19 AM, Pildes, Rick <rick.pildes at nyu.edu> wrote:

> For now, I want to comment only on one aspect of this decision, since it
> will take a bit of time to digest the important merits issues decided.  But
> at the time of the argument, I wrote a post I what I called “The Oddity
> of the Oral Argument in the Texas Redistricting Cases.”
> <http://“The%20Oddity%20of%20the%20Oral%20Argument%20in%20the%20Texas%20Redistricting%20Cases,”>
>  Instead of focusing on the merits, much of the argument centered on
> whether the case was properly before the Court at all – and I thought that
> was peculiar because it seemed the Court had already decided *that *issue,
> 5-4, when it had granted a stay much earlier in the case.  The Court did
> indeed divided today 5-4 on that procedural issue.  But as I feared, the
> Court went on to make a good deal of substantive law on the merits, and
> almost none of those issues were fully engaged in the oral argument.  It
> seemed to me unfortunate then, and even more unfortunate now, that such
> important substantive law about the VRA and redistricting was being made
> without sustained discussion at oral argument.  That’s not to say anything
> would have changed about the outcome, we have no way of knowing that.
>
>
>
>
>
> Best,
>
> Rick
>
>
>
> Richard H. Pildes
>
> Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law
>
> NYU School of Law, Vanderbilt Hall 507
>
> 40 Washington Square South, NY, NY 10012
>
> 212 998-6377
>
>
>
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