Gobbledeegook from the SCOTUS

Publius makes a great point in response to yesterday's Supreme Court opinion rejecting Vermont's limits on campaign financing:

The splintered 70-page Randall “opinion” was actually six different opinions that land all over the place. Here’s the summary from the Syllabus for those of you keeping score at home:

Breyer, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Roberts, C. J., joined, and in which Alito, J., joined as to all but Parts II–B–1 and II–B–2. Alito, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. Kennedy, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. Thomas, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Scalia, J., joined. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion. Souter, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Ginsburg, J., joined, and in which Stevens, J., joined as to Parts II and III.

Of course, Randall is a veritable The Sun Also Rises compared to the Court’s last campaign finance opinion, McConnell v. FEC, which was a 300-page, eight-opinion opinion. Here’s the syllabus for that one:

Stevens and O’Connor, JJ., delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to BCRA Titles I and II, in which Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Rehnquist, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to BCRA Titles III and IV, in which O’Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, and Souter, JJ., joined, in which Stevens, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined except with respect to BCRA §305, and in which Thomas, J., joined with respect to BCRA §§304, 305, 307, 316, 319, and 403(b). Breyer, J., delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to BCRA Title V, in which Stevens, O’Connor, Souter, and Ginsburg, JJ., joined. Scalia, J., filed an opinion concurring with respect to BCRA Titles III and IV, dissenting with respect to BCRA Titles I and V, and concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part with respect to BCRA Title II. Thomas, J., filed an opinion concurring with respect to BCRA Titles III and IV, except for BCRA §§311 and 318, concurring in the result with respect to BCRA §318, concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part with respect to BCRA Title II, and dissenting with respect to BCRA Titles I, V, and §311, in which opinion Scalia, J., joined as to Parts I, II—A, and II—B. Kennedy, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part with respect to BCRA Titles I and II, in which Rehnquist, C. J., joined, in which Scalia, J., joined except to the extent the opinion upholds new FECA §323(e) and BCRA §202, and in which Thomas, J., joined with respect to BCRA §213. Rehnquist, C. J., filed an opinion dissenting with respect to BCRA Titles I and V, in which Scalia and Kennedy, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., filed an opinion dissenting with respect to BCRA §305, in which Ginsburg and Breyer, JJ., joined.

Got that?

This is simply ridiculous. I attended law school for 3 years, was a federal clerk, and have worked at a law firm and I can’t make sense of this. How can the general non-legally-trained public — the public who is subject to the Court’s opinions — make sense of any of this? The short answer is that they can’t. And that’s the problem.

Unlike academic journals or esoteric texts from other specialized professional fields, the esoteric text written by courts has the force of law. What these courts decide is binding on the public and the opinions obviously have an enormous impact on people’s lives. For that reason, democratic theory demands that the public be able to offer some sort of informed consent about them — consent that presupposes an ability to actually understand what the hell is going on and debate it. By but cloaking highly-important public decisions in inaccessible legal jargon, which is then further splintered across multiple opinions and concurrences, courts often prevent any sort of informed consent. After all, you can’t really disagree with something if you don't know what it is.

Go read the whole thing.