Hugh Hewitt: Brett Kavanaugh reshapes the ‘Rule of Four’ and what cases SCOTUS hears
While the Alt-left is protesting President Trump’s Supreme Court’s nomination, Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, to the court, decrying the fall of Roe v. Wade, the change felt may be something else. Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt penned a new post explaining how the real impact to the court will be the cases brought forward and the “rule of four.”
photo/ jessica45
Hewitt explains: “The rule of four holds that for the court to grant certiorari to hear and decide a case, four of its members must vote to do so. This is a crucial hurdle for the 7,000 to 8,000 or so petitions for certiorari — requests to be heard — filed with the high court each year. Of those thousands, about 50 will be accepted and decided quickly and another 60 to 80 will move to oral arguments. The rest, unable to obtain four votes, are simply turned away.”
It is unknown where Chief Justice Roberts vote differently to “grant cert” with the shift in court structure and ideology. Hewitt speaks to the history of NOT bringing cases to vote which had no way of “no path to five votes for the government’s position.”
“Roberts will be presiding over cert votes in which his quartet of more like-minded colleagues are for hitting the gas, whether or not he wants to tap the brakes. Cases involving religious freedom and especially cases of regulatory ‘takings’ without compensation can go from near zero to 70 in a hurry.
“Thus the strategic dynamic of the court is vastly different come October with Kavanaugh among the nine. Want to put an end to the vestiges of government-sponsored affirmative action sooner rather than later? Grant cert in the fall in one the 8,000 petitions in which the issue is presented. How about returning some certainty to the rightful role of the states on matters of redistricting? These five justices might well decide to tackle the doctrine of ‘Chevron deference ,’ which obliges federal courts to genuflect to agencies’ alleged “expertise.”
Check out Hewitt full evaluation and insight here.
So while abortion bans or limits (Iowa’s heartbeat bill or Mississippi’s 15 week ban) may land at the Supreme Court, what is likely is the type of cases Roberts will lead the court to hear: those affecting the second amendment, more religious freedom cases, the Patrick Murphy murder case, more cases clarifying use of metadata or police tracking and of course, challenges to anything tied to a Trump decision the left does not like.
