Supreme Court

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Claps Back At Neil Gorsuch

Don't sleep on RBG, she'll cut you down.

By  
on

You come for the queen you best not miss. (Photo by Allison Shelley/Getty Images)

No wonder Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg still likes being called “Notorious RBG” — girl knows how to bring it.

Yesterday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Gill v. Whitford, the case that is challenging Wisconsin’s partisan gerrymandering scheme. Prognosticators are opining the decision will come down to Justice Anthony Kennedy’s swing vote, as the four conservative justices seem likely to side with the state and the four liberal justices will seemingly vote against the gerrymandering. And if the questioning from Justice Neil Gorsuch is anything to go on, it appears as though he’s already made up his mind.

After about an hour of oral arguments, Gorsuch channeled the persona of an eager, Fed Soc-bound 1L, in the guise of a question to Paul Smith, who was arguing on behalf of the Campaign Legal Center that the Wisconsin gerrymandering is unconstitutional. Gorsuch lobbed a pedantic query that sought to bring the questioning back to his textualist worldview, arguing the Constitution fails to provide the Court authority to redistrict:

Maybe we can just for a second talk about the arcane matter of the Constitution.

Sure Neil, you’ve been part of an hour-long conversation about the constitutionality of a state government’s action, but sure, pretend that wasn’t about the “Constitution.” Go ahead, ask your question:

And where exactly do we get authority to revise state legislative lines? When the Constitution authorizes the federal government to step in on state legislative matters, it’s pretty clear—if you look at the Fifteenth Amendment, you look at the Nineteenth Amendment, the Twenty-sixth Amendment, and even the Fourteenth Amendment, Section 2, says Congress has the power, when state legislators don’t provide the right to vote equally, to dilute congressional representation. Aren’t those all textual indications in the Constitution itself that maybe we ought to be cautious about stepping in here?

Sponsored

You know what? This is why you don’t have friends, Neil. Sitting there in your goddamn stolen seat and tryin’ to backdoor lecture your peers on the Court — people with more experience in the job, mind you — on “the arcane matter of the Constitution”? What the hell, man? See, that’s how I would have responded, but I have neither the grace nor wisdom of RBG. Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker perfectly describes her response:

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who is bent with age, can sometimes look disengaged or even sleepy during arguments, and she had that droopy look today as well. But, in this moment, she heard Gorsuch very clearly, and she didn’t even raise her head before offering a brisk and convincing dismissal. In her still Brooklyn-flecked drawl, she grumbled, “Where did ‘one person, one vote’ come from?” There might have been an audible woo that echoed through the courtroom. (Ginsburg’s comment seemed to silence Gorsuch for the rest of the arguments.)

Boom.

And bonus points for managing to silence the chatty Gorsuch.

Sponsored

For the record, Smith took Ginsburg’s cue and passed the election law pop quiz, responding:

That’s what Reynolds v. Sims and Baker v. Carr did, and a number of other cases that have followed along since.

Yes, as Justice Gorsuch is obviously aware, there is more than just a 230-year-old piece of parchment that guides decisions — there are tomes of case law and precedent that play a vital role in determining the constitutionality of state action. That is, after all, what we go to law school to learn.

headshotKathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

Topics

, , , , , , , , , ,