Limiting principles

I co-sign this Stephen Sachs post on the failure of the WWH plaintiffs and the Court to identify limiting principles to justify an offensive action (especially against clerks) here that would not allow for offensive actions whenever a state-court defendant may have a constitutional defense. Any limitation still makes SB8 look like many non-extraordinary laws that have been handled defensively. And the things that make SB8 extraordinary (namely the limitations on state processes) can themselves be raised defensively.

This is a perfect framing of the problem that neither the plaintiffs nor the Court discussed yesterday--the courts possess the tools to handle this case as it does many others. The only way this falls outside of historical defensive litigation is if offensive litigation is constitutionally required--something no one argues but that everyone seems to assume as a background principle.