TODAY’S TOTALLY PARTISAN U.S. SUPREME COURT

Chief Roberts’ legacy will never be able tosay that he ran a non-partisan high court.

 

America’s founding fathers should be turning over in their graves with today’s high court hi-jinx.

 

I have been a major critic of the current conservative US Supreme Court.  But as of this day, I am going to go much, much further with my criticism.

 

It is being accepted today by many Americans that the current Robert’s court is just another conservative political branch of the US government.  This conservative court has now declared itself as a major political prop for the Republican party.

 

It was disgusting to see how an attorney, a Mr. Michael Carvin, was leading the anti-union side of the latest court arguments which was giving further justification for that negative impression of the high court.

 

Attorney Carvin, when responding to the conservatives on the court, he continually responded with positive comments like those to Antonin Scalia: “You’re a thousand percent right, Your Honor.” To Anthony Kennedy he smiled and said: “Exactly, Your Honor.” To Justice Alito: “Your recollection of history is correct.”

 

But to the other side, Carvin frequently interrupted and talked over the three liberal female justices and he referred to the other side’s argument as the “so-called opposition”.  To show how much disrespect he could display toward the liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, he slowly pronounced her last name as “Soto-my-ear”.

 

My point of this court being run as a political government branch is that the decision on the latest case appears to be a done-deal.  It is in total support of making their previous decision on the Citizens-United case even stronger.  This was the famous case that gave corporations more political and financial power than that of average American citizens.  The current Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association case will most assuredly go against all unions and will take away serious union revenues.  The Unions are one of the most powerful groups for American workers to compete against the corporations in national elections.

 

This decision in support of removing more union revenues is just one more move to give the corporate sponsored Super PAC’s more power, while removing financial power away from the unions.  As Dana Milbank of the Washington Post wrote, “It’s virtually certain to be another step toward an American oligarchy.”

 

In 1970, the courts had said that even though someone that worked for a company that was a union shop, they were not required to join that shop’s union.  But, since the non-union employee was reaping the wages and benefits that had been negotiated by the union management, the employees were required to pay a portion of the union dues.  The California teachers have brought on the suit so that any teachers that didn’t want to join the union wouldn’t have to pay anything to the union if they decided not to join.  If the court decides against the union, as it seems it will, that decision will affect all US unions, not just the California Teachers Union.

 

In front of the justices, Lawyer Carvin, snidely dismissed the notion “that anything would happen adversely to unions” as a result of the case. But then he went out to the court’s street plaza and stated the following:  “It may limit their [union] revenue somewhat, but of course they can compensate for that by being less involved in things like politics.”

 

So, it’s perfectly just fine to have multiple Super-PACS with millions of dollars to spend on whatever or whoever the billionaires and corporations want to support in an election.  But for average working Americans, who do not have access to vast amounts of political money, (except possibly through their unions), lawyer Carvin and the conservative US Supreme Court just can’t have something like that.

 

Here’s how the conservative justices responded to the arguments as they left no doubt where they stood:

 

·       Chief Justice John Roberts dismissed the case as “really insignificant the unions’ argument against the free riders”.

 

·       Justice Antonin Scalia informed the union’s lawyer that his argument “doesn’t mean anything to me.”

 

·       Justice Breyer reminded his colleagues that when the court jettisons precedent, it’s usually to right an egregious or basic wrong. “I don’t see anything too basic in the lines you’re drawing,” he told Carvin.

 

·       Justice Samuel Alito stated to the union lawyer, “Virtually every word out of their [union] mouth I disagree with.”

 

·       Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is usually the swing vote, made it pretty clear that he was agreeing with the other conservatives.

 

What was pretty disgusting at the end of the arguments was when Carvin brought up Thomas Jefferson saying that the third president thought it “sinful and tyrannical to require people to give money which they don’t wish to give.”

 

But I think Dana Milbank had the best response: “It’s not known how Jefferson would have felt about public-sector unions. But what’s sinful and tyrannical is for billionaires to take over the electoral process and the government — and for the highest court in the land to take aim at the last remaining counterweight.”

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016