Hypocrisy? Unconstitutionality? Pandering? All of the above from Texas Lege Senatecritters

I'm referring in particular to a couple of bills touted by my Senatecritter, Drew Springer. Drew is somewhere between wingnut-lite and full wingnut. He was less wingnut than wingnut squared and Christofascist Tim Dunn's darling, Shelley Luther, of course, in the SD 30 race, but, that goes without saying.

He was smart-political enough NOT to attack renewables after the Abbott Blackout, given how many wind farms are in the district.

And, that's about it.

Let's look at how he, at least, seems to be hitting on all three of the above cylinders of the rhetorical questions above, and bragging about it.

Senate Concurrent Resolution 12, SCR 41 and Senate Bill 20 — the third being the notorious "Pack your guns to Motel 6" bill — stick out. SCR 41 is the "Always Nine" shoutout to other "assembly of states" type states to pass a constitutional amendment to always keep SCOTUS at just nine members and SCR 20 is the normal Tenth Amendment panderfest shoutout.

In reverse order? 

SB 20 is hypocrisy from Legiscritters who blabber about the sacred value of private property, only to say that hotel owners don't really have private property. Speaking of SCR12, SB 20 seems to have whiffs of unconstitutionality as well as hypocrisy. Compelling a private actor to engage in a certain behavior does have that sense. But, of course, Drew Springer is a constitutional law scholar, or plays one on teevee, or the Texas Senate cameras or whatever.

SCR12 is hypocrisy from Legiscritters who continue to show zero intention of honoring local government authority, among other things. Drew claims it would also block federal violations of the constitution, but won't cite chapter and verse on current federal proposals that may allegedly actually do so. And, of course, it ignores that the federal court system, since Marbury v Madison, has arrogated the right of constitutional review and state legislatures don't have that. It gives a hat tip to the Ninth Amendment before ignoring it, or, rather, trying to replace "the people" with "state governments" by sleight of hand or gaslighting. 

What? There's gaslighting under the Pink Dome? I am shocked!

Frankly, I doubt Springer even knows what the Ninth Amendment actually gets at. (Sadly, it's had just about ZERO court rulings based on it, and many actual constitutional law scholars consider it little more than a dead letter, if it's even "little more." Oh, to be the philosopher-president of We the People and change that!)

That said, Tenth Amendment shout-outs are always panderfests from pander bears.

SCR 41 of course ignores history, namely that SCOTUS started with six justices. In reality, and beyond BOTH duopoly parties, we really need 13 justices today anyway.

Let me explain.

John Roberts is Chief Justice of the United States, NOT Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He, and his successors, need to focus just on their dual roles of overseeing the Supremes and the federal judiciary system.

Now, today, associate justices don't "circuit ride" like 200 or even 100 years or so ago. Nonetheless, it would be nice to have one justice for each court. We have 11 enumerated circuit courts of appeal plus the D.C. Circuit. (Patent courts, FISA, etc., all fall under the chief's scrutiny.) So, that means 12 associate justices for 13 total.