Florida’s Governor is taking to social media to decry social media censorship, after a SCOTUS ruling said Louisiana, Missouri and social media users lacked standing to sue over the federal government’s push for platforms to remove COVID misinformation at the height of the pandemic.
“The Court majority has rubber-stamped a way for the federal government to censor speech that it doesn’t like,” posted Gov. Ron DeSantis to X, regarding the 6-3 ruling in Murthy v. Missouri, which overturned a lower court ruling where the Judge bemoaned the feds’ “Orwellian” tactics.
“The Court is telling would be censors: you can’t directly censor speech but if you pursue a sophisticated plan with enough subtlety you can get away with doing indirectly what the Constitution clearly forbids you from doing directly.”
The majority opinion, authored by Donald Trump appointee Amy Coney Barrett, traversed ideological divides as it presented skepticism about the facts presented by the plaintiffs. While Facebook and Twitter removed posts, the Court majority questioned the “traceability” of those removals to the Joe Biden White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The liberal bloc of the court, as constituted by Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, was joined by a trio from the conservative wing of the high court. In addition to Barrett, Chief Justice John Roberts and Trump appointee Brett Kavanaugh joined them.
Meanwhile, conservatives Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas were on the other side, with Alito authoring a dissent joined by his colleagues.
As a presidential candidate, DeSantis hypothesized about how he could transform the court if elected, while suggesting that even those jurists identified as being on the Right weren’t conservative enough for him.
“Republican appointees are not in lockstep,” DeSantis said in Iowa last year, complaining that Kavanaugh was on the “Left” and Gorsuch was “even worse.”
DeSantis also suggested that when the next President replaces conservative stalwarts Thomas and Alito, picking “good Judges” is not enough.
“As a President, you got to know that we’re going to need justices in the mold of it, Alito, in the mold of Clarence Thomas to replace them and then any other vacancies that may occur, because if you don’t get that right, then you’re moving the court in a more leftward direction.”
DeSantis said he expected to be able to replace up to four Justices if elected President. He said he saw a path to a “7-2” conservative majority on the Supreme Court under ideal circumstances.
However, with Trump making the picks if elected, it’s unclear if even the right selection will prove to be far-right enough for the Governor.
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