Justice Gorsuch's Home Runs in Learning Resources
Spanking colleagues to his left and his right
I’m old enough to remember when Reggie Jackson hit 3 home runs on 3 consecutive pitches in 1977 Game 6. One of the greatest baseball moments of my lifetime.
I’m not a constitutional lawyer, but like all law professors I can pretend like the best of them. And as I read Justice Gorsuch’s concurrence in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, I couldn’t help remembering Jackson’s home run spree. Because Gorsuch nailed it. And, along the way, he delivered a spanking of his colleagues for the ages.
First, he slams his colleagues for their inconsistencies.
I have to agree with both Lewis and Shapiro’s take:
Anyway, back to Gorsuch. He tasks the liberals for being inconsistent in their application of statutory interpretation.
Then he reprimands them for preferring unelected technocrats ensconced in “independent” administrative agencies of dubious constitutionality to the legislators empowered by the Constitution to make law (a point to which he elegantly returns at the end of the concurrence):
Then comes a lengthy reply to the three conservative dissenters:
Finally, he ends with a paean to government by elected legislators rather than unelected technocrats:
As someone who has long argued that Presidents of both parties rely too much on using executive orders to bypass the legislative process, I wanted to stand up and cheer.
But now we must turn to a most regrettable incident; namely, of course, President Trump’s asinine news conference:
Yup. The deliberative nature of legislation is the whole damn point!