Who will write the dissent in Dobbs?

[TheFonz]

1. Stephen Breyer, the elder statesman. Will this be his swan song?
2. Sonia Sotomayor. Widely regarded as the Court's most liberal justice, but also the weakest writer on the bench.
3. Elena Kagan. Not as much as a firebrand as Sotomayor, but probably the best writer since Scalia.
4. John Roberts. In the event he blows everyone's mind and not only fails to vote to overturn Roe and Casey, but actually votes against the Mississippi law.
5. Included for those who think the Mississippi law will be overturned. If you vote for this, please elaborate in the comments.

[Donerail]

All of the above

[NewYorkExpress]

I think Roberts will be part of the Majority here, and if not, he would write a solo dissent without any of the liberals signing on.

As for the liberals, I think Breyer and Sotomayor each write separate dissents, with Kagan concurring in part to both.

[politicallefty]

All of the liberal Justices will write and join each other's dissents. Roberts will either write the controlling opinion upholding the Mississippi law (but stopping short of overruling Roe/Casey entirely) or he'll write a concurrence upholding the law for the same reason.

If Kavanaugh ends up writing the opinion of the Court, I expect Kagan to have a field day. Based on her writings, I think she's quite annoyed with how he writes.

I've heard some thinking that there will be an earlier ruling for political reasons. I don't buy that at all. I'd be very surprised if this decision comes down before June. I think the bigger question is how many Justice will write overall. I think that number is no less than six.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

If Kavanaugh ends up writing the opinion of the Court, I expect Kagan to have a field day. Based on her writings, I think she's quite annoyed with how he writes.

Almost al of the current hard-right justices have their own writing idiosyncracies--Thomas's extreme and out-of-the-box reasoning style, Alito's undisguised hackishness, Gorsuch's strained and sophomoric prose, Kavanaugh's bad-faith feints at being conciliatory. I haven't read enough of ACB's writing yet to know what her weird quirk is, but I'm sure she has one.

[politicallefty]

If Kavanaugh ends up writing the opinion of the Court, I expect Kagan to have a field day. Based on her writings, I think she's quite annoyed with how he writes.

Almost al of the current hard-right justices have their own writing idiosyncracies--Thomas's extreme and out-of-the-box reasoning style, Alito's undisguised hackishness, Gorsuch's strained and sophomoric prose, Kavanaugh's bad-faith feints at being conciliatory. I haven't read enough of ACB's writing yet to know what her weird quirk is, but I'm sure she has one.

Yeah, that aspect of Kavanaugh's writings seems to have really struck a nerve in Justice Kagan.

Despite generally being in general disagreement most of the time, I was generally fascinated with Justice Scalia's writings (apart from when he showed his obvious homophobia, which I found quite disgusting and disturbing). I've said it before, but I think Brown v. EMA was a brilliant decision and opinion and one that cuts across the ideological divide.

[Calthrina950]

Who is the best writer on the Court currently?

[Donerail]

Who is the best writer on the Court currently?

Kagan in my book. Maybe an outside case for the Chief.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Who is the best writer on the Court currently?

On the left? Kagan easily. Overall, I'd say Gorsuch, though Barrett's opinions on the 7th were very good.

Gorsuch has interesting ideas but his writing qua writing is pretty bad--lots of sentence fragments, sentences beginning with words like "but" or "and" followed by a comma, and metaphors or high-cultural references that don't land or that he stretches past their elastic limits. I would say that Kagan is the best writer on the Court overall and that the right has lacked heavyweight prose stylists since the deaths of Rehnquist and then Scalia.