A few weeks ago, Senate Judiciary Chairman, and Supreme Court blockader, Chuck Grassley wrote a widely panned op-ed in which he said the "sky wouldn't fall" with an empty seat on the Supreme Court for who knows how long. He argued "the court will continue to function," and that "cases that split evenly will likely be few and far between." Grassley is going to have to eat those words.
The shorthanded Supreme Court divided 4-4 again Tuesday on one of two key questions in a case involving the authority of states to impose penalties on other states.
Ruling in a case over a tax dispute involving a man who moved from California to Nevada, the justices said they could not muster a majority to resolve whether to overrule a 1979 Supreme Court precedent that permits state courts in one state to assert jurisdiction over state agencies in another. […]
Before Tuesday, the high court had split 4-4 in two cases decided after Scalia's death: a dispute over the application of gender discrimination laws to loan guarantors and a high-stakes fight over the funding of public-sector labor unions.
Monday, the court heard the challenge by Texas and other states to President Obama's immigration executive orders. Here's an extremely high-profile case. The results of the argument appeared to reveal a—you got it—4-4 split, though can be very hard to predict from oral arguments what's going on in the justices' heads. A deadlock here, however, "could create judicial chaos."
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The United States v. Texas case would continue to plod, zombielike, through the courts until it receives a final ruling. Meanwhile, supporters of the president's executive actions may try to get a different coalition of states to sue in another court to start implementing them— creating a possible split between appellate courts, in which the executive actions were constitutional in parts of the US and unconstitutional in other parts.
Grassley would pooh-pooh that judicial chaos, dismissing it by saying the court can simply "reach an evenly divided decision and resolve the issue another day." Grassley's gotten so used to the non-functioning Senate, where gridlock and obstruction win the day, he must figure it's just how everything should be.