New York Times reports conservative supreme court justice had no changes to 98-page draft of opinion that removed right to abortion
The conservative supreme court justice Neil Gorsuch took just 10 minutes to approve without changes a 98-page draft of the opinion that would remove the federal right to abortion that had been guaranteed for nearly 50 years, the New York Times reported.
According to the paper, Samuel Alito, the author of the opinion in Dobbs v Jackson, the case that struck down Roe v Wade, from 1973, circulated his draft at 11.16am on 10 February 2022.
Citing two people who saw communications between the justices, the Times said: “After a justice shares an opinion inside the court, other members scrutinise it. Those in the majority can request revisions, sometimes as the price of their votes, sweating sentences or even words.
“But this time, despite the document’s length, Justice Neil M Gorsuch wrote back just 10 minutes later to say that he would sign on to the opinion and had no changes.”
There are 13 circuit courts full of judges, all with their own lifetime appointments. I believe the proposed idea is that the current supreme court could be made up of random, rotating judges on temporary assignments from the 13 circuit courts. Currently, the 9 justices oversee one or more of the 13 circuits. So, we could expand the court to match the 13 circuits, and then, as justices retire/die, their replacements are randomly assigned to terms of 18-24 months from the circuits they oversee. It would still meet the constitutional requirements for the supreme court, as it only requires that there is a supreme Court made up of appointed justices in good standing.
I’m sure it’s more complex than that, but those are the basics of the random appointments and rotating seated justices.