We seem to have missed the significance of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s response. It’s more than a putdown of Gorsuch’s insufferable manner, and it’s more than just an answer to his argument: It’s recognition that he played a little intellectual game, and she caught him in it.
I thought it was odd that he said this:
“When the Constitution authorizes the federal government to step in on state legislative matters, it’s pretty clear—if you look at the Fifteenth Amendment, you look at the Nineteenth Amendment, the Twenty-sixth Amendment, and even the Fourteenth Amendment, Section 2.”
Emphasis mine. RBG’s response highlighted the omission of the first section of the Fourteenth:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
That is the exact section that led the Supreme Court to enshrine “one person, one vote” in our jurisprudence. Gorsuch knew it didn’t fit his argument; Bader Ginsburg knew precisely why he omitted it.
Gorsuch may be clever, but RBG — she’s smart. Big difference.