Today’s orders list from the Supreme Court is available here. It appears the Court granted certiorari in two cases, neither of them the Donofrio v. Wells case. All other orders are expected to be released on Monday and if custom holds, we can expect those orders to include a denial of hearing for this case.The media blackout on this is stunning to me. Nothing on POTUS 08 on XM, Fox and CNN full of discussion about the The Three Big Beggars on capital hill and the sentencing of OJ. But the Supreme Court reviewing a case that could potentially cost Obama the presidency? Not so much.
By declining the case in conference, the Court has perhaps definitively closed down this route of attack on Obama's presidency. The case would now have been submitted to the court twice, rejected first by Justice Souter, then reviewed by the entire court in conference on the referral of Justice Thomas and rejected again. While the request for an emergency stay could be submitted again to another Justice, having been now rejected by the full court, it seems unlikely in the extreme that further attempts would be fruitful.
What I would give to have heard the deliberations of the court and their rationale for declining to take up this case. Judges are supposed to be wise, so perhaps today we have witnessed the wisdom of the Supreme Court in refusing to place itself at the center of a profound constitutional crisis that would have caused turmoil and conflict across this country and indeed across the globe itself. SCOTUS blinked.
