re: #10 KGxvi

In Supreme Court news today, four opinions handed down thus far. In Iancu v Brunetti the Court ruled that the Lanham Act’s prohibition of trademarking “immoral or salacious” terms violates the First Amendment. Kagan wrote for the majority (Ginsburg, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh); Alito had a concurring opinion; Roberts concurred in part and dissented in part (joined by Breyer); and, Sotomayor concurred in part and dissented in part.

In another case, the Court held that the residual clause of the Hobbs Act is unconstitutionally vague:

Gorsuch wrote for the majority (Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor). Kavanaugh dissented which was joined by the rest of the justices.

I’m interested to see how the alignments end up after this term. Seems like Gorsuch has been more willing to side with the more “liberal” justices (the liberal/conservative political spectrum doesn’t always line up well with jurisprudence).

Gorsuch seems to be lining up as a “limited government” type, and being fairly consistent about it. Sometimes, limited government is what liberals want, and sometimes it isn’t.