The Supreme Court has weakened the civil rights protections offered under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Republican states have added to the problem with discriminatory laws. Sad!
Category: Supreme Court
Citizens United
This has background on the landmark 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision which has enabled companies to give lots of money to political groups.
The Koch brothers (extreme conservatives) plan to spend $400 million on the 2018 midterm election. We need to get big money out of the elections (on both sides)! Sad!
The future of the Supreme Court
It appears that the Supreme Court will become more conservative in its decisions this year. The article also discusses apparent disharmony between the future.
The Republican theft of a Supreme Court seat that should have been filled by Obama is going to set off a chain reaction of bad consequences. I am not just talking about a more conservative court. Let’s also recall that Republican-appointed justices have been in the majority for over 40 years.
At some point, there will be payback. If, for example, Trump tries to fill a Supreme Court vacancy in the latter part of his term, Democrats could vote against it using the same logic Republicans did in 2016 – wait for the next election. I would support that.
Thanks to McConnell’s unwillingness to give the Garland nomination even a hearing, there will never be votes on justices that are not mostly along party lines. It’s been trending that way with Gorsuch as an extreme example.
Here are examples of prior votes (For-Against):
Scalia: 98-0
Kennedy: 97-0
Ginsburg: 96-3
Ginsburg was the last (probably last ever) to get 90 votes.
More recent ones:
Alito: 58-42
Sotomayor: 68-31
Kagan: 63-37
Gorsuch: 54-45
If Trump makes other appointments, he has made it clear they will be very conservative. When Democrats get a chance to pick, I expect the response to be a very liberal justice. Trump has polarized the country and the Democratic party has become more liberal in response to his terrible behavior and policies.
In the future, say 30 years from now, I expect all justices will be extreme conservatives or extreme liberals and most decisions will be made on party lines. That’s not ideal but you have McConnell to thank for it. Sad!
Update: Trump’s tweet this morning shows how he thinks only of party lines not the law. The Supreme Court does not belong to either political party. Their loyalty should be to the Constitution.
Sad! 