When President George Bush appointed John Roberts as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005, the Court began twenty-years of protecting the powerful over individual citizens. This trend was cemented with the blocking of an Obama appointment in 2016 and the Trump first-term appointments, Neil Gorsuch, Brent Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney-Barrett.
A prime example of the Roberts Court direction is its treatment of voting rights. Throughout the last half of the 20th century, U.S. federal courts upheld the 1965 voting rights law, a law which Americans fought and died for. In 2013, the Roberts Court gutted a key provision of the law, even though a bipartisan Commission on Civil Rights found the decision led to an increase in laws making it harder for minorities to vote and in closure of polling locations in minority areas.
In 2019, the Roberts Court delivered a blow to the concept of one person/one-vote. In Rucho v. Common Cause, Chief Justice Roberts refused to address the constitutionality of partisan gerrymandering even though he wrote that excessive partisanship in redistricting is “incompatible with democratic principles.”
The biggest blow to voting and a gift to the powerful occurred in 2010 when the Roberts Court decided Citizens United. The decision unleashed political contributions by corporations and political action committees (PACs). By 2020, that spending exceeded $3.5 billion. In calling corporations and PACs people entitled to First Amendment rights, the Roberts Court increased corporate influence over politicians and diminished the political power of ordinary Americans.
Throughout the last fifty years, federal courts have upheld women’s right to an abortion. In 2022, that changed. In deciding Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Org., the Court overruled Roe vs Wade, ignored modern precedent, and relied on dust-covered English and American law from the 1700’s and early 1800’s to decide women no longer have a right to choose. One justice went as far to say the Dobbs rationale should be used to ban everyone’s right to contraception.
As a result of the Dobbs decision, many states enacted total abortion bans. In some states, Dobbs-related OB-GYN shortages led to closure of labor and delivery units and affected non-abortion-related care like prenatal visits, miscarriage management, and gynecological exams putting the health of the mother and child at risk.
Since Trump’s second term began, the Roberts Court has decided more than 24 out of 30 cases in the Trump administrations’ favor on its “rapid-intervention,” less-deliberative shadow docket. Many of those decisions give unprecedented power to the federal government over individuals.
In Noem vs. Vasquez Perdomo, the Court held that ICE agents may profile workers and arrest them at will. In a statement inconsistent with American values, Justice Kavanaugh found it was okay to profile and arrest laborers in L.A., even though people legally in this country may be swept up and subjected to excessive use of force.
The biggest gift to the powerful and a blow to individual rights took place when the Roberts Court decided Trump vs. United States, a much-criticized and unprecedented decision which gives the President absolute immunity for his official responsibilities. The decision not only excuses a President’s criminal conduct; it opens up the floodgates for unlimited authoritarian power, bribery and corruption. The dissent wrote that such immunity “makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law.”
The Courts’ trend of favoring the rich and the powerful can stop. By electing presidents who are willing to nominate justices with life experiences showing they favor individual rights and by electing U.S. senators who will confirm those justices, we can have a Court which represents all citizens in our great country, not just a few.
[This post was drafted by my friend and fellow retired lawyer, Rick Topper, who devotes much of his spare time to protecting voting rights.]
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Considerbyjd.com
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