This is the real crux of the issue. Blanket pardons shouldn’t be a thing. If you want to pardon someone, it should be specific. Which crimes? Where? When? Who was victimized? Who else was involved? What was the outcome of the crime?
The SCOTUS has already ruled in Burdick v. US that accepting a pardon requires admitting guilt of the crime you’re being pardoned of. The wording of the ruling was that a pardon carries “an imputation of guilt and acceptance of a confession of it.” The SCOTUS has consistently held that a pardon does not overturn a guilty conviction. Instead, it removes the punishment for the crime. You’re still unequivocally guilty after a pardon.
It shouldn’t be some sort of “I pardon you for waves arms in air vaguely” power, because that turns the whole “needing to admit guilt” part into a sly wink wink elbow nudge situation. It puts the person’s crimes in a quantum Schrödinger state. The person accepting a vague pardon is inarguably guilty of something, because they admitted guilt when they accepted the pardon. But the court doesn’t know what they’ve admitted to until a prosecutor tries to indict them, and they go “oh no you can’t prosecute me, I was pardoned.”
Texas has been red for over three decades. The state was a key part of the Southern Strategy, because packing the 5th circuit court of appeals with conservative judges was a big part in overthrowing longstanding liberal legislation.
Texas provides a direct pipeline to the 5th circuit, and they also needed to pack a local district court too. So all of the legislation they hate can get litigated in that district court, seen by a batshit crazy conservative judge, and get a batshit crazy conservative ruling. And then any appeals will go to the 5th circuit court of appeals, where it will land in front of another batshit crazy federal judge. And when that batshit crazy federal judge makes a batshit crazy ruling, it goes into effect nationwide unless the SCOTUS overturns it.
Seriously, basically every time you see some kind of “federal judge overturns the
every person gets a free puppy and our farts all magically smell like cotton candylaw, and reinstates thelivestream puppies getting fed into the Puppy Masher 9000 and we all have uncontrollable diarrhealaw instead” type of news story, it’s coming out of the 5th circuit court of appeals.Texas got hit hard by conservative propaganda as a result, because it has been instrumental as a weapon for conservatives to overturn liberal legislation. Let’s not let perfect be the enemy of progress.