Supreme Court's conservatives overturn precedent as liberals ask 'which cases the court will overrul
Source: Washington Post
Courts & Law
Supreme Court’s conservatives overturn precedent as liberals ask ‘which cases the court will overrule next’
By Robert Barnes
May 13 at 12:36 PM
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority overturned a 41-year-old precedent Monday, prompting a pointed warning from liberal justices about “which cases the court will overrule next.” ... The issue in Monday’s 5 to 4 ruling was one of limited impact: whether states have sovereign immunity from private lawsuits in the courts of other states. In 1979, the Supreme Court ruled that there is no constitutional right to such immunity, although states are free to extend it to one another and often do.
But the court’s conservative majority overruled that decision, saying there was an implied right in the Constitution that means states “could not be haled involuntarily before each other’s courts,” in the words of Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote Monday’s decision. ... Thomas acknowledged the departure from the legal doctrine of stare decisis, in which courts are to abide by settled law without a compelling reason to overrule the decision.
But he said the court’s decision four decades ago in Nevada v. Hall “is contrary to our constitutional design and the understanding of sovereign immunity shared by the states that ratified the Constitution. Stare decisis does not compel continued adherence to this erroneous precedent.”
As was evident during the confirmation hearings of President Trump’s nominees to the Supreme Court — Justices Neal M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh — liberals are worried about what other court precedents the newly fortified conservative majority will find wrongly decided. ... Justice Stephen G. Breyer clearly had other issues — abortion rights, for instance, or affirmative action — in mind in his dissent. ... It is “dangerous to overrule a decision only because five members of a later court come to agree with earlier dissenters on a difficult legal question,” Breyer wrote, adding: “Today’s decision can only cause one to wonder which cases the court will overrule next.”
....
The case is Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt.
Robert Barnes has been a Washington Post reporter and editor since 1987. He joined The Post to cover Maryland politics, and he has served in various editing positions, including metropolitan editor and national political editor. He has covered the Supreme Court since November 2006. Follow https://twitter.com/scotusreporter
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-courts-conservatives-overturn-precedent-as-liberals-ask-which-cases-the-court-will-overrule-next/2019/05/13/b4d3c4f8-7595-11e9-bd25-c989555e7766_story.html
Supreme Court’s conservatives overturn precedent as liberals ask ‘which cases the court will overrule next’
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Not immediately. But the groundwork looks as if it's being laid.
But the wrong kind -- constitutionally shaky ground.
It's like the Constitution is getting fracked.
It seems as if there will be legal earthquakes in this country.
No state should be permitted to do so to another state. Unless some states are more equal than others. 
