It was not critical to the lawsuit, and if the plaintiff had made it up, I doubt she would have selected a random web designer in San Francisco, rather than just, you know, making up a name. Seems more likely that it was a prank.
— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) July 3, 2023
If you didn't complain about those decisions, then you have little, ahem, standing to complain about 303 Creative.
— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) July 3, 2023
The complaint was not central, and was added after the lawsuit, and AFAIK, no one tried to make a standing claim; the state of Colorado stipulated that a) her business involved expressive conduct and b) they sure as hell were going to establish limits on her rights of expression
— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) July 3, 2023
[Alexandria Brown has an excellent thread on stipulation in the court process, and why Colorado lost this case at that point, for all intents and purposes. Read through her entire thread, but this is the most important part. — Ed]
So stipulations are very important because that is an absolute determination of a fact and the parties cannot contest it on appeal. The parties can only contest how the law applies to the facts. Thus, a case can be won or lost on stipulations. And Colorado did just that.
— alexandriabrown (@alexthechick) July 3, 2023
It should have been clear that conceding it was expressive speech was going to result in another loss before SCOTUS. This Court isn't the Masterpiece court. This Court was always going to find the strict scrutiny test would fail. It is beyond me why this stipulation was entered.
— alexandriabrown (@alexthechick) July 3, 2023
[Had critics actually read the opinion, they would have understood this, because Justice Gorsuch explained it in detail. In fact, the dissent never even challenges the finding of standing by the Tenth Circuit — or addresses standing at all. Nor do either side discuss the issue of ripeness. — Ed]
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