MSNBC contributor Neal Katyal said Monday on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” that if the Politico report that the Supreme Court has made a 5-4 decision to overturn abortion is true, then they can throw out any prior decision that is not codified in law.
Katyal said, “The process is, this case was argued in December, the justices take a tentative vote right after it and then, the senior-most justice of the majority assigns the opinion to whomever she or he wants. Here, it’s unlikely Roberts was in the majority because you would’ve probably signed the draft opinion to himself. So it’s likely Alito or Thomas was one of those two. Alito has now written this opinion. It is circulated to the other justices. There’s going to be a descent that will be prepared. Sometimes it’s possible that the decent can change the minds of those of the majority. But here, you know, so far, we haven’t seen any indications with that from the other four. So I’m afraid to say, and this is, of course, this literally never happened in our history, but right now, it does look like the Supreme Court is poised to overrule Roe v. Wade and bless flat bans. On abortion and 50 states in the federal government.”
He added, “And if they can do this, for this, what’s next? And they can do it for the most, probably the opinion that most Americans know by name, more than anything, except maybe Brown v. Board of Education, they can do it for gay marriage, or anything else that the court has guaranteed and that is a very scary prospect.”
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