On the Election Case, Take the Supreme Court Justices at Their Word

On the nuts and bolts of the controversy at the heart of this week’s Supreme Court election-law ruling — non-ruling might be the better way to look at it — I can’t improve on Dan McLaughlin’s customarily stellar analysis (here and here). Instead, I want to draw attention to the tension dividing the justices and spurring the part of the press coverage that is good-faith but rash — as opposed to intentionally misleading.

It’s about this: applying the presumption of regularity — a bedrock principle concerning the deference courts owe to the political branches in a constitutional system based on separation of powers — in an era of eroding trust due to governmental lawlessness.