THE THIRD BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT TURNS OUT TO BE THE STRONGEST

 

…Conservative, Amy Coney Barrett is sworn in by the radical Justice, Clarence Thomas

 

Democrats finally realized the GOP has been working on the Supreme Court for decades

 

The following is what the National Public Radio (NPR) had to say about today’s U.S. Supreme Court:  “The atmosphere behind the scenes is so ugly that, as one source put it, ‘the place sounds like it’s imploding.’”

Inside an investigation into the leak of the Court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, the investigators are treating the justices’ clerks like criminal suspects.  Outside, the justices are terribly disappointed with the way their institution has been dragged against its will into the ugly and muddy world of “politics”.

In the coming weeks, the court will hand down a series of intensely political decisions.  Decisions, driven not by some incontrovertible and objective reading of the U.S. Constitution, but by their own intense ideology and their policy preferences. The political effects will be enormous.

When that happens, the court’s conservatives and their Republican defenders will act aggrieved and outraged. They are saying: “How dare we liberals cast aspersions on these noble jurists, who want nothing more than to channel the infinite wisdom of the Constitution Framers!”  Yeah, right!

Not only do they merely want to enact their right-wing, legal revolution, which is almost unstoppable at this point; they actually want us to thank them for it!  “Hey, want us to stop from ever questioning their motives and excuse them from criticism for the consequences of their actions?”

The court’s current term is winding down; a couple dozen decisions are forth coming, most on rather arcane legal issues, the general public will probably take no notice.

But there are at least three potential blockbusters:

• Dobbs v. Jackson, the case the court is expected to use to overturn Roe v. Wade.
• New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, a case challenging New York state gun laws, which the court could use to severely limit a state’s ability to regulate where people take their guns.
• West Virginia v. EPA, a challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gasses.

The outcome of the first two are in little doubt, which the conservatives will probably agree.  In the third case, oral arguments were less clear about whether the Republicans will get what they want, which is for the court to cripple the government’s ability to deal with climate change.

That third case is part of a much larger project that goes beyond environmental regulations. The agenda of many on the right, and at least the court’s conservatives, is nothing less than “dismantling the administrative state.”  They are making it difficult to impossible, for government to protect the environment, workers, consumers or public health, via any regulation.

There will be more hugely consequential cases in the next term, and in the term after that.  With a 6-to-3 advantage, the conservatives can do everything they’ve ever dreamed of.  It took decades for the conservatives to build that supermajority, and you can bet they’re going to use it.

The Democrats is finally waking up to what they failed to realize for the past decades: The Supreme Court is the linchpin of power in America. At any one moment, the party that controls the executive branch has more far-reaching ability to enact change, however, over the long term, the Supreme Court stands alone. Once you control it, as the right does now, there is almost nothing that can’t be accomplished.

You were taught in school that the brilliantly designed American system of “checks and balances” keeps the branches of government in perfect equilibrium, no branch is able to impose itself too strongly on the others. But that isn’t really true about “the Court”. The Supreme Court has a unique and easily exercised ability to nullify the actions of the other two branches, an ability the current court is using as has never been done.

Today, the Court strikes down business regulations, campaign finance statutes and anti-discrimination laws.  It can reach deep into the details of the actions of the other two branches take, saying “You may do this, but not do that.”

And what can the other branches do about it? Not a single thing.  Pretty much the only power they have over the court is to impeach a justice.  That is something that has happened only once, and that was 218 years ago.

But the Republicans have understood this about the Supreme Court all along.  They knew the Court could be the vehicle to achieve their radical policy goals. Only now do the Democrats understand it as well.  But it’s a little too late, and that barn door is now shut.

No one is more upset than Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s most ideologically radical justice.  Like many on the right, even in triumph he is consumed with his own victimhood, complaining about the court being “bullied” and warning that we should refrain from “destroying our institutions” when we don’t get “what we want”.  That is, he is making his noise, even as his wife is totally wrapped up in Trump’s conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.

That issue, Justice Thomas and his allies believe, shouldn’t even be discussed.

The right-wing takeover of the court isn’t enough for them; they instead want all that the court can deliver. 

They also want for the rest of us to leave them out of our messy political debates, so they can carry out their revolution in peace.

Sorry, but most of us are saying “no”. 

But in reality, what can we really do? 

Copyright G. Ater 2022