Scotusblog has this explanation about what happens to U.S. Supreme Court decisions that haven’t been issued yet, but in which the initial vote after the oral argument resulted in a tentative 5-4 decision, in which Justice Antonin Scalia was in the majority. As the article explains, such tentative votes don’t count, and there may be many 4-4 decisions. On a U.S. Supreme Court tie, the ruling of the lower court stands.
This article explains the consequences for several high-profile cases.
For election law, the first impact of Scalia’s death may be in Harris v McCrory, 15A809, the North Carolina gerrymandering case. The Court was expected to decide very soon whether or not to stay the lower court ruling. With no stay, the North Carolina U.S. House districts will be redrawn soon. And with new districts in place, the state will almost certainly then provide for a primary at some time other than the scheduled March 15 primary. That special, later primary would be just for U.S. House.
As someone who belongs to a public sector union I feel very encouraged by this development. I feel awful that the man died. But I think the benefits of organized labor by far outweigh the costs.
Let’s hope that President Obama at least names a nominee who will bring a little bit of diversity to the Supreme Court. All of the 8 remaining Justices have law degrees from an Ivy League law school (4 Harvard, 3 Yale & 1 Columbia) and except for 2 Californians and Justice Thomas from Georgia, they all were born in the NY-NJ area. Surely he can find some “Progressive/Liberal” (if not Centrist) lawyer from some other region than NY or CA and from one of the very many fine law schools other than the Ivy League!
Bernie Sanders to Nominate Next Supreme?
The American court is strong and resilient. It will be easy to find a solution.