Please note: The Supreme Court decision tonight was actually a UNANIMOUS smackdown

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

12. Exactly. There's a whole lot of whining about the Thomas and Alito "dissents,"

which weren't really dissents at all. Those two have previously expressed the opinion that in state vs. state cases, as to which which the Supreme Court has both original and exclusive jurisdiction (meaning that these cases can go directly to the Supreme Court without going through the usual layers of appeals and that the Supreme Court is the only court that can hear those cases), the court must hear those cases and can't dismiss them preliminarily without at least a hearing. The reason for their position is that because the Court has exclusive jurisdiction, there is no other court where a state-party can bring its case, so it would be unfair to deprive them of any shot at a hearing. It's not totally a stupid argument but it's never been accepted by a majority of the court.

But anyhow, what Alito and Thomas would have done is allow Texas to show up and explain why they think they have standing to complain about how other states conduct their elections, and then hear the other states' motions to dismiss, which they'd have won. Otherwise the result would be the same, and this was clearly a 9-0 decision. The two dissents, such as they were, were entirely procedural.