U.S. Supreme Court
“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, you must be Susan Collins.”—Author Stephen King, June 26, 2022.
By Jack Bernard, contributing columnist
PEACHTREE CITY, Ga. | Amen, brother Stephen. Tell it like it is.
The new Supreme Court has become something unrecognizable, something that could have been featured in one of your Stephen King’s novels.
Our current Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has been carefully packed by the Republican Party, resulting in right wing extremists controlling the Court… now and for the foreseeable future. But we all knew, including every senator, that they were right-wing jurists when they were nominated and confirmed. Especially look at the last three nominees who were, and still are, an insult to the integrity and reputation of the court (as opposed to respected traditional conservatives like Chief Justice John Roberts).
As we all know by now, all three Trump nominees lied to Congress about overturning Roe v. Wade (which I believe is a legal issue worthy of action in and of itself). And it is not only “I feel misled” GOP U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine who disingenuously states that she was “fooled” by one or more of the last three SCOTUS nominations. U.S. Sen. Lisa (“Vote based on a solid evaluation of her qualifications”) Murkowski of Alaska now claims that she did not know who she was voting for when Justice Barrett was confirmed. In the Democratic party, U.S. Sen. Joe (“I am alarmed”) Manchin hilariously claimed he was also deceived.
How could sophisticated politicians be so naïve? The answer is that they were and are not. They knew what they were doing when they did it. They felt that voting against one or more of the three extremist nominees would bite them come election time. So, they held their noses and voted for them, knowing full well that they were biased and extreme in their views.
The Supreme Court is one of the three branches of our government enshrined in our Constitution. The Executive branch and Congress are elected and meant to be partisan, but SCOTUS is by design non-political. Its decisions are to be based on the long-standing legal principles of precedent and stare decisis. And throughout its history, the Court has been highly respected because of its non-political nature. That is, with the exception of the current court.
In its actions on abortion, gun control, voting rights and other hot social issues, the current version of the Court has ignored precedent. SCOTUS has found… in nonsensical, inconsistent, poorly thought-out, clearly ideological opinions… that the other Supreme Courts over the last 50 or 100 hundred years were somehow awfully wrong in their findings.
Now, thanks to Trump/McConnell and several gutless wonders in the Senate (note – both parties are disingenuous, about the only bipartisan thing in the Senate), we have a packed Supreme Court. It is an extremist Court that clearly does not represent the will of the American people regarding abortion, gun control and many other core social issues, as numerous surveys have shown.
And, it has clearly lost the respect of our citizens who now see it as a highly partisan body.
It took conservatives, like wily Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, many decades to pack the Court. But they persevered and successfully did so.
Moderates and progressives must not lose faith in our political system, as biased as it is towards smaller, redder states. They must get out the vote, which will eventually result in returning the Court to become an unbiased, nonpolitical institution.
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