Our Anti-Democratic Supreme Court

[NWRatCon]

While most of us have been focused on Trump's electoral malfeasance, we have been misdirected from the malfeasance of the Supreme Court majority. The precedents which these "jurists" (Read: conservative partisans) have been establishing are extremely anti-democratic, and I expect them to be ramped up over the next four years. They became obvious, of course, when they struck down significant portions of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder, and in the abysmal Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

What has been missed, however, is The Supreme Court’s “Breathtakingly Radical” New Approach to Election Law (Opinion, Politico)

In the weeks before Election Day, the court weighed in on more than a dozen cases in a way that many portrayed as a mixed bag for voting rights—allowing voting expansions to stand in some cases and sharply curtailing them in others. But that scorecard approach obscures the principal effect of the court’s rulings: In all of the cases, regardless of whether the Trump campaign won or lost, the justices quietly—yet dramatically—rolled back Americans’ voting rights in ways that could do permanent harm—that is, unless Congress steps in.

I've been concerned about the approach the Justices have been taking to the most fundamental right of American democracy, but the opinions of Alito, Thomas and Kavanaugh, in particular, are astounding. They do not consider any restriction beyond the pale. It is not an exaggeration to say they would have endorsed Jim Crow laws, as their reasoning actually mirrors those provisions.

 

[joko104]

People agreed a long time ago to allow the Supreme Court to erase the US Constitution and declare themselves all-power gods that can erase elected government acts any time a majority of them want to - and that they have absolute total power over everything and everyone - no exceptions. They are masters over everything.

So don't complain about the gods you allowed to self declare themselves to be gods - and you still fully support their absolute unrestricted power. Create tyrants, allow people to make themselves tyrants - and then you live with tyranny. Government and we the people are not controlled by the Constitution nor protected by the Bill Of Rights. We are all mere subjects to the whims of the Supreme Court at the particular time.

 

[d0gbreath]

I usually ignore their decisions.

 

[NWRatCon]

I usually ignore their decisions.

Sadly, at your peril.

 

[NWRatCon]

Rich Lowry, of the National Review, wrote in Politico, Yes, the Supreme Court Is Undemocratic.

In an era of partisan polarization, it is rare to get agreement on anything, but about this there should be a consensus: The Supreme Court is an undemocratic institution whose power should be carefully circumscribed.

The right has long been of this view, and the left is suddenly and opportunistically partway there.



In an essay capturing progressives’ newfound skepticism, Ezra Klein of Vox wrote that the Supreme Court “has always been undemocratic” and is now becoming even “more dangerous.”

This represents a welcome turnabout from cheering the high court’s de facto legislating, most recently in the Obergefell case that mandated gay marriage nationally with little or no constitutional warrant. Indeed, the left is about a half-century late to the insight that the court isn’t a democratically elected legislature.

Unsurprisingly, and consistently, Lowry is wrong, because he fundamentally misunderstands the bases of Obergefell and, for example, Shelby County, and, of course the series of decisions by the Warren and Burger Courts from the 50s to 70s.

What Obergefell and and its predecessors, from Griswold v. Connecticut and Loving v. Virginia to Lawrence v. Texas, United States v. Windsor and Obergefell itself, is that marriage and its appurtenances are a fundamental civil right and needs to be enforced against encroachment by government. In contrast, Shelby, and its ilk (Hobby Lobby, Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission - the title gives a clue), are the opposite. They aggressively dismantle legislative bulwark protecting such civil rights as voting and marriage.

While they are superficially both activist approaches (meaning they struck down legislative enactments), one is in line with the purposes of courts throughout the common law era and particularly the framework of the Constitution, while the latter are ideologically-based offenses to it. We can expect more of the same, and an even more aggressive erosion of civil rights. Goodbye civil rights: Amy Coney Barrett's America is a terrifying place (Arwa Mahdawi, Guardian)