I thought I’d check out SCOTUSblog and, just by chance, got into a live blog of the court releasing opinions.
There were two opinions released, and one might be interesting to folks who read FtB. In the matter of the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling that you can’t have explicitly religious charter schools1, with Justice Barrett recused2, the SCOTUS vote was 4-4, so the Oklahoma ruling was not overturned.
This doesn’t set a precedent anywhere except Oklahoma, so it can come back to the Supreme Count. It was just one of those one-sentence statements that doesn’t say who voted which way; but there was some speculation on the live blog that maybe it was Roberts who voted with the liberals to just kick the can down the road yet again.
1“Charter schools” are public schools supported by our tax money.
2Apparently, she’s a very close friend of a woman who’s a big proponent of using public funds for religious schools.
Charter schools are generally quite different than public schools. Here is a nice set of questions to show some of the differences, from https://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2021/03/is-your-charter-school-public-school.html .
Is the school and its resources owned by the public? Does the school accept all students? Is the school run by local elected officials? Did those local officials open the school? Are those local official required by law to meet only ever in public? Are all financial records available upon request, and subject to state audit? Does the school operate under the same rules laid out by the state in its public school code?
Greene then comments “Finally, here is a question that has absolutely no bearing on whether or not your charter is a public school– is the school funded with public taxpayer dollars? … In voucher states like Indiana and Florida, public tax dollars are used to fund religious schools, and yet none of them would claim to be a “public school.” Public tax dollars delivered by way of food stamps and rent support do not turn supermarkets and apartment complexes into public facilities. The mere presence of a public tax dollar does not turn a private business into a public institution.”
Yeah, Barrett has been interesting. She holds some of what I consider horrible views, but she appears to hold them relatively honestly and has been fairly good about actually arguing with what the law actually says. Unlike Thomas or Alito, she seems to actually argue in good faith.
I’m sure she’s been a horrible disappointment to Trump as she’s not openly bending the knee like some of the others.
There was a comment recently at Lawyers Guns & Money that it says something about the competency of the Trump regime that the two most reliable bootlickers on the Court were people that Trump didn’t appoint.