The current makeup of SCOTUS is four rabid right extremists, one conservative, three moderates, and 1 liberal. It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out where the Court will come down on most issues, especially since the fascist four have zero regard for the Constitutional r1ghts of main street Americans, if they interfere with the Republican greed of criminal corporations and the richest 1%. Citizens United made that crystal clear. Therefore it should come as no surprise that they are selecting cases with the intent to do more harm to the poor and middle classes.
The Supreme Court enjoys all but free rein in selecting which cases to review. From the end of one term in the summer until the start of the next, on the first Monday in October, the work of the court is to sift through thousands of petitions from parties that lost in one of the federal appeals courts or highest state courts and are eager for the justices to reverse their fate.
The kinds of petitioners favored say a lot about the court’s interests and biases. The Warren court, eager to champion individual rights, chose a large number of petitions from downtrodden people. The Rehnquist court, looking for opportunities to vindicate states’ rights, favored petitions from the states.
The Roberts court has championed corporations. The cases it has chosen for review this term suggest it will continue that trend. Of the 51 it has so far decided to hear, over 40 percent have a corporation on one side. The most far-reaching example of the Roberts court’s pro-business bias was Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. By a 5-to-4 vote, the conservative justices overturned a century of precedent to give corporations, along with labor unions, an unlimited right to spend money in politics.
Equally striking is that the court reached far beyond what the parties had argued, to make a sweeping change in constitutional law. It could have upheld the right of the conservative nonprofit group to show an anti-Hillary Clinton movie on a video-on-demand service during the primary season — without opening the door to a new era of political corruption.
The cases scheduled for argument in the next few months may appear modest. But if there is one lesson from the Citizens United ruling, it is that nothing — for this court — is inevitably modest. There are two areas of business law particularly worth watching: “pre-emption” and protection of employees from retaliation… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <NY Times>
The preemption question is whether or not federal law preempts state law. This is a funny one, because Republicans are for and against it. They think state law prevails when it comes to racial profiling, teaching pseudo-Christian dogma in schools, refusing to participate in health care reform, and more, but that federal preemption prevails when it comes to negating state laws that protect citizens from corporate criminal scams. In my lay opinion, preemption needs to be decided case by case by the determination of compelling national interest. When the need exists, the authority comes form the commerce clause.
The protection of employees from retaliation for such actions as unionizing and whistle blowing is clearly constitutional and in severe jeopardy.
It will take many years to restore balance to SCOTUS. That more Republicans there are in the Senate, the longer it will take. And if a Republican becomes President, before balance is restored, you can kiss your Constitution good bye. That is why it is imperative that you vote.
8 Responses to “More Grief from Extreme Activist Roberts Court”
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How can you kiss good bye what is already 4/5s out the door. If you want to lose that last 1/5 then go ahead and stay home November 4.
The so called left has given the “balance ” away and she ain’t coming back and that’s a fact.
I kissed the Constitution goodbye after the Supremes declared corporations people. I remember some news report on John Roberts before he became Chief Judge saying he was a “thoughtful” man seeking to build “consensus” and protect judicial precedence. At the time I had my suspicions but I really had no honest idea about the man, boy do I find that nativity funny now.
The current SCOTUS is a disgrace, and the fascist four who effectively control it are atrocious.They are driving this country over the cliff so far as individual social and economic rights are concerned. They are constructing the framework for aplutocratic dictatorship.
” …preemption needs to be decided case by case by the determination of compelling national interest.”
Unfortunately, I am afraid that the current Court will decide preemption by determination of compelling corporate interest instead.
I knew the Supremes were gone, along with the Constitution when they installed Shrub in 2000. The Citizens United Decision was the final nail in the coffin. Say good bye to your individual rights and hello to the rights of the corporations. Whistle-blowing is dead, so don’t even try it. The corps now own this country, so everyone better get used to it. 😕
The only good thing to come from the Roberts court happened during questioning at his confirmation hearings when he outrageously claimed he was only going to act like an umpire calling balls and strikes. And Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) immediately shot back, “It’s a little hard to see home plate from right field!”
As Jeffery Toobin describes in The Nine, the Burger Court (1969-1986) was run very inefficiently with cases having to be bound over to the next sessions. While I’m not a fan of Rehnquist, he (correctly, in my opinion) cleaned up many of the procedural snafus and seniority and case allotment issues. He worked for several years to get congress to allow the supremes to grant their own certs and set their own docket. Sadly, the Rule of Four which has been in unofficial practice for over a century allows the current four right extremists to grant cert to what ever they’d like to hear as in Citizen’s United.