I can't wait for some GOPtard to call Scalia a dirty liberal or a "fag".

"Justice Antonin Scalia essentially called them cowards"

Thanks you Eli for providing me with an opinion! Now I am sufficiently outraged!

@1 - *Snicker*

Nino is many, many things, but stupid is not one of them. The problem for the petitioners in this case is that neither the liberals nor the conservatives are going to be all that sympathetic. The liberals for the obvious reasons, and the conservatives (in part) because they don't want to open any new First Amendment floodgates.

I've got the odd sense that the case is going to go 8-1, maybe 7-2, in favor of the state, with Alito and/or Thomas in dissent. But that's just guesswork on my part.

Interesting. I had a strong feeling Thomas might join the "liberals" since there is no original constitutional right to protect your privacy from your political opinions: hell those early New England town halls were open for crying out loud!

Maybe Scalia will fall into that category too.

My guess is Alito and Roberts might side with the "keep petitions secret" crew, though.

@4 - What s/he said.

And I meant "Alito and/or Roberts" @3, not Thomas. I'm apparently an idiot who can't keep nine simple names straight, even though I read SCOTUS blog on a daily basis.

*Slams head repeatedly into wall*

#5: Yeah, I'm really anxious to see.

Truth is, Thomas bothers me less than Alito or Scalia or Roberts. Even though sometimes he goes so far to the "right" I at least get a true, original constructionist consistancy there. Didn't he join the "liberals" on a state marijuana issue once?

This is probably the first and last time I will ever say that Scalia is right on. Politics is a public institution by its very nature. If politics were not transparent you'd basically be sanctioning illuminati style control over the political system.

I don't agree with Scalia's politics but the man is very smart, works very hard & takes his job very seriously. I think having one guy on the court like that is OK - at the very least to be the devil's advocate. Thomas on the other hand is useless - he brings nothing to the table - worse he reinforces all the worst aspects of affirmative action since he was deliberately picked to replace the brilliant Thurgood Marshall.

@ 6 - I'm not sure which case you're referring to. There was a 2005 case, Gonzalez v. Raich, which had the rather counterintuitive result of the liberals, Kennedy, and Scalia in a concurrence, voting to uphold Congressional bans on the use or marijuana even where states approve its use for medicinal purposes, while O'Connor, Rehnquist, and Thomas dissented. Which sounds odd, until you realize that it was essentially a commerce clause case; the liberals (and Scalia) voted to uphold federal commerce powers over state regulatory powers, which isn't surprising.

I also think originalism is a crap judicial philosophy that tends to be abandoned by the conservatives on the bench whenever it's convenient (see: Citizens United). But I'm biased.

Hmm. Since Scalia isn't a "dirty liberal" or a "fag" perhaps it's his Roman Catholicism that has him so wrong-headed on this one.

Well, what do you know. Now would be a good time to use the "a stopped clock" adage, I think...

Politics, the Justice went on, “takes a certain amount of civic courage. The First Amendment does not protect you from civic discourse—or even from nasty phone calls.”

That blows my mind. And makes me hopeful that Scalia will write the opinion. He's a solipsistic prick, but he writes amazing opinions.

the liberals (and Scalia) voted to uphold federal commerce powers over state regulatory powers, which isn't surprising.

It is, sort of, when you consider that Scalia was on the majority in Lopez and Morrison, which are pretty much the first SCOTUS cases to limit Commerce Clause powers since the Guilded Age.

@11 - I'm not so sure. Maybe, stopped calendar?

@ 12 - That's true, but I feel like I've seen more pro-Commerce Clause defections from Scalia than from other liberals on the Court. I'm thinking, for instance, of Granholm v. Heald. Of course, that was a weird case in which Stevens voted with the conservatives in dissent...

I didn't mean to imply that Scalia was the Great Defender of the Commerce Clause, though. Sorry if I was unclear.

I expect Thomas to vote in favor of non-disclosure. He argued against disclosure in his Citizens United dissent, recounting the "harrassment" Prop 8 supporters faced when their identities were made known. And, while I agree that he would not be inclined to find a privacy right, the arguments and QPs have addressed the First Amendment (if I recall correctly). It would not be surprising for him to analogize this issue (anonymous political speech) to the anonymity of the authors of the Federalist Papers.

@ 13 - That's not totally fair. I actually have a fair amount of respect for Scalia's administrative law jurisprudence, which really is his area of expertise anyway.

I never thought I'd say it, but go Scalia!!!

@ 12, (correcting 14) - Conservatives. Than from other conservatives on the Court.

I'm sorry. I'm just having one of those days. Yeesh.

@7, I think it was Kylo where Scalia voted that the use of thermal imagery on homes to look for grow rooms was a Fourth Amendment violation. He may have written the opinion, too. That's an agreeable position.

Using the example of the authors of the Federalist Papers would be a very weak argument in my admittedly layman's opinion. For one thing, those anonymous authors legitimately feared reprisal, including arrest and potentially being charged with treason, by the governing authority at the time. That R-71 group isn't even positing that same level of threat to their persons, since, for one thing, it wouldn't have been the State making those harassing phone calls or whatever "reprisals" they're afraid of encountering.

In the old days, going to vote on election day used to involve a fairly high level of risk of assault, including people locking you up in a cellar or bashing you over the head.

But that was only for the first hundred or so years of elections.

@ 19 - Oh yeah, forgot about Kyllo. Nino wrote the opinion holding that thermal imaging was a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, so it required a warrant.

Held: Where, as here, the Government uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of a private home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a Fourth Amendment "search," and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant. Pp. 3—13.

The breakdown in that case was a little weird. Scalia, Souter, Thomas, Ginsberg, and Breyer were in the majority; Stevens, Rehnquist, O'Connor, and Kennedy were in dissent.

Scalia's comments point to regional differences: East Coast directness vs. Pacific Northwest passive aggressive bulls*t.

Of course nobody should interpret this as a reason to question your own prejudices about ideology. This is all about how contradictory other people can be. Your own opinions are perfectly consistent. Never change.

@23:

Speaking of "passive aggressive bullshit"...

@24

So, to paraphrase your statement: "Uh-oh. It looks like I might have been totally wrong about how the Supreme Court will decide this issue. I must now attack everyone who disagrees with me."

@25 for the Puget Sound Shut-Yo-Mouth direct win.

Haha, when you get called a political coward by Justice Scalia, that really says something.

Perhaps the anti-R71 crowd really is at the bottom of the political food chain.