Conservatives game the system to drag Supreme Court further into culture war

Opinion by Steve Vladeck, CNN

It would be understandable if the Supreme Court justices were experiencing a strange sense of déjà vu during last Tuesday’s oral argument in a case seeking to block nationwide access to mifepristone — one of the two drugs used in the most common (and safest) way to abort early-stage pregnancies.

For the second time in an eight-day period, the justices were hearing a case smack dab in the middle of the culture wars — and one for which it wasn’t at all clear why the suit should’ve been allowed to proceed in the first place.

Just as in Murthy v. Missouri, a challenge heard by the court on March 18 filed by two red states and three anti-vaccine activists to Biden administration efforts to combat Covid 19 disinformation and misinformation on social media platforms, the justices spent much of the argument in the mifepristone case on Tuesday asking whether the plaintiffs have the “standing” required to proceed with their suit — that is, whether they could show any connection between the federal government conduct they were challenging and harms they’ve allegedly suffered.

The similarities don’t stop there. Both cases were filed in federal district courts in which the plaintiffs could literally hand-pick the specific federal judge who would be assigned to hear the dispute.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/opinion-conservatives-game-system-drag-220447613.html