Kavanaugh trying to erase Kavanaugh Stops

Someone’s been feeling the heat.

In the case of United States v. Illinois, SCOTUS just ruled that the federal government cannot currently deploy the National Guard to Chicago. That in itself is a major, and hopefully not temporary, victory for the forces of good over evil.

But Ryan Goodman caught an interesting side note:

In a footnote that is seemingly totally unrelated to the actual case being decided, Justice Kavanaugh seemed to be trying to erase the term “Kavanagh stop” from common lingo by writing the following:

It seems as if at least one SCOTUS justice pays attention to societal chatter. Maybe the guy just doesn’t want his name associated with government fascist abuse. Maybe he wants everyone to know he’s a nice guy who’s simply misunderstood. Maybe he actually saw the light (nahhh - that’s a bridge too far).

Whatever it is, this footnote clearly signals - in a very small way - that Kavanaugh knows they went too far previously (the original case which set the stage was a seemingly innocuous case called Kansas v. Glover, but it was ultimately Kavanaugh’s concurrence in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, where he stated that race and ethnicity could be a “relevant factor” in ICE detaining someone, that led to the term). I’m spit balling here, but, again, it does seem as if Kavanaugh was okay with their prior decision in Glover until his name became synonymous with government overreach and abuse.

However, I won’t hold my breath that this will change anything in the real world where people don’t wear black robes…