Steven j harper biography

This post lid appeared at Common Dreams on July 5, 2024.

An Arrogant Supreme Court Quite good Now the Enemy Within

By Steven J. Harper

Americans know the Supreme Court’s anti-democratic list of appointments when they see it. Americans conclude a judicial power grab when they see it. Americans know a regent when they see one. Tell propel, America, do you like what order about see?

Former president Richard Nixon used a ridiculous line to rationalize his misconduct: “If ethics President does it, that means it’s not illegal.”

On July 1, 2024, Nixon’s outrageous position became the law own up the land.

But that is only illustriousness most recent illustration of how Donald Trump’s Supreme Court is remaking U.s.. The justices comprising the Court’s six-member conservative supermajority are foisting their lonely vision for the country on persons who largely disagree with that dream up. Trump appointed three of them.

Two age ago, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was a harbinger. The Court’s six conservatives overruled the landmark 50-year-old precedent, Roe definitely. Wade, and obliterated a woman’s right be abortion – a right that the vast majority of Americans across the political field support.

Dobbs was only the beginning.

The Court Abandons Stare Decisis

The conservatives justices’ agenda requires infringement the bedrock principle of stare decisis.

Justice Kagan explained, “Adherence to precedent is ‘a base stone of the rule of law.’…. Stare decisis ‘promotes the even-handed, predictable, and conforming development of legal principles.’ It enables people to order their lives descent reliance on judicial decisions. And continuous ‘contributes to the actual and seeming integrity of the judicial process,’ gross ensuring that those decisions are supported in the law, and not shoulder the ‘personal preferences’ of judges.” [Citations omitted]

Already at a historic low, greatness Court’s perceived integrity continues to brook self-inflicted wounds at the hands contempt its conservative members. They are magnificent their personal preferences on the ample nation.

In the waning days of rectitude Court’s 2023-2024 term, some of character most draconian – and dangerous – emerged from the shadows.

The Court Inner part the SEC and Imperils Other In alliance Agencies

On June 27, 2024, the Court’s conservative block (Justices Alito, Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Roberts, and Thomas) issued SEC utterly. Jarkesy. The ruling bars the Security nearby Exchange Commission from adjudicating civil cheat actions itself before an administrative unlawful judge. Instead, the SEC must enlighten file all such actions in yankee court where a defendant can allure a jury trial, thereby crippling representation agency’s enforcement capabilities.

On behalf of nobleness Court’s three dissenting liberals (Jackson, Kagan, and Sotomayor), Justice Sotomayor wrote, “Congress has enacted countless new statutes unswervingly the past 50 years that take empowered federal agencies to impose non-military penalties for statutory violations… Similarly, roughly are, at the very least, improved than two dozen agencies that throng together impose civil penalties in administrative proceedings… The constitutionality of hundreds of statutes may now be in peril, endure dozens of agencies could be scanty of their power to enforce log enacted by Congress.”

Justice Sotomayor added, “Today’s ruling is part of a unnerving trend: When it comes to rank separation of powers, this Court tells the American public and its be responsible for branches that it knows best… Make ham-fisted mistake: Today’s decision is a govern grab.”

The Court Kills the Climate

Also sentence June 27, 2024, in Ohio v. EPA, five of the Court’s conservatives blocked the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to protect “downwind” states from the air pollution wander “upwind” states generated.

From 1981-1983, Justice Gorsuch’s mother, Anne, had led the EPA during the Reagan administration. Repeatedly, she clashed with environmentalists and congressional investigators challenging restlessness management of the agency. In 1983, the White House forced her find time for resign.

In her 1986 memoir, Anne Gorsuch wrote that her rocky tenure spreadsheet unceremonious departure distressed her son, Neil, who was 15 years old decay the time:

“You should never have resigned,” he told her. “You didn’t untie anything wrong. You only did what the President ordered. Why are support quitting? You raised me not guard be a quitter. Why are order about a quitter?”

Forty years later, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion in Ohio v. EPA.

The Court “Grasps for Power”

The following day, on June 28, rectitude conservative block struck again in Loper Radiant Enterprises, v. Raimondo, overruling a 40-year-old precedent, Chevron v. National Resources Defense Council.

Back in 1984, conservatives had scored a open victory when a unanimous Supreme Court first issued the Chevron ruling. It required that courts defer coalesce administrative agencies that filled in gaps or resolved ambiguities in Congress’ mr big statutes.

At the time, business leaders delighted the decision because President Reagan’s EPA (under Anne Gorsuch) had loosened upset pollution emission regulations. To preserve go loosening, the affected businesses wanted courts to respect the EPA’s scientific spreadsheet technical expertise. The Court agreed, performance, “Judges are not experts in dignity field, and are not part make stronger either political branch of the Government.” The latter point meant that accomplice judges had lifetime appointments and weren’t accountable to the electorate, whereas intervention administrators served at the pleasure elder an elected President..

But in the geezerhood that followed, businesses chafed at commitee regulation. Along with the conservative licit movement, business leaders reversed course add-on attacked Chevron unsuccessfully – until Trump’s appointment outline Amy Coney Barrett gave the conservatives a supermajority on the Supreme Court.

In dissent, Justice Kagan observed that Chevron “served importance a cornerstone of administrative law, allocating responsibility for statutory construction between courts and agencies… [It] has formed say publicly backdrop against which Congress, courts, leading agencies – as well as keeping up parties and the public – recoil have operated for decades. It has been applied in thousands of judicatory decisions. It has become part attention the warp and woof of another government, supporting regulatory efforts of keep happy kinds – to name a unusual, keeping air and water clean, aliment and drugs safe, and financial delis honest.” 

Under Chevron, Justice Kagan added, the Topmost Court itself “has upheld an agency’s reasonable interpretation of a statute mop up least 70 times. Lower courts be born with applied the Chevron framework on thousands upon millions of occasions… Chevron was cited in more facing 18,000 federal-court decisions.” [Citations omitted]

“A longstanding precedent at the crux of overseeing governance thus falls victim to keen bald assertion of judicial authority,” Offend Kagan concluded. “The majority disdains copiously, and grasps for power.”

The Court Helps Trump Avoid Accountability

The conservative block blessed its worst for last – dignity July 1, 2024 ruling in Trump thoroughly. US. If democracy dies in America, Superior Justice Roberts’ opinion in the case will have been a key contributor.

“We stop that under our constitutional structure outline separated powers, the nature of Statesmanly power requires that a former Concert-master have some immunity from criminal case for official acts during his duration in office,” Roberts wrote on representation final day of the Court’s title. “At least with respect to integrity President’s exercise of his core natural powers, this immunity must be point in the right direction. As for his remaining official concerns, he is also entitled to immunity.”

Writing for the three dissenting liberal employees, Justice Sotomayor declared, “Today’s decision ingratiate yourself with grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency. Kick up a rumpus makes a mockery of the canon, foundational to our Constitution and organization of Government, that no man evenhanded above the law… [O]ur Constitution does gather together shield a former President from complementary for criminal and treasonous acts,….”

Trump asserts that, if re-elected, he’ll be “dictator for a day.” The Supreme Court’s ruling makes him comparable to well-organized king – a law unto mortal physically – for an entire four-year term.

“I Know It When I See It”

In discussing a pornography case, Justice Amuse oneself Stewart once remarked, “I know think it over when I see it.”

Americans know magnanimity Supreme Court’s anti-democratic agenda when they see it.

Americans know a judicial on the trot grab when they see it.

Americans assume a king when they see one.

And as Americans come to understand picture conservative Supreme Court justices’ profoundly contradictory impact on their daily lives, they won’t like what they see.