America’s democracy is a delicate balance. In theory, the Supreme Court acts as a check on the two elected branches, so neither gets out of control. But what if the Court allies itself with one of those branches against the other, or gets out of control itself?
Labels are squirrely, and often misused, but if I have to use any here, I would describe America as slightly right-of-center, and in the process of shifting to slightly left-of-center. Polls and election results show a majority of Americans don’t embrace rightwing extremism, but nor do they want the Democratic Party’s progressive wing to run the country. Joe Biden, politically, is almost on the mark.
Amy Comey Barrett, on the other hand, is very conservative. And that puts her out of sync with the American nation. While she is only one of nine members of the Court, and only one-fifth of the Court majority it takes to decide cases, she has the potential to unbalance the Court. And there’s no reason in her record to believe she won’t.
An analysis by Five-Thirty-Eight writer Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux (read it here) reveals that Barrett was the most conservative judge on the Seventh Circuit, and sometimes far to the right of her colleagues. Thomson-DeVeaux found that she is “especially likely to rule in a conservative direction on civil rights issues,” which is bad news for the new civil rights movement that sprang from George Floyd’s murder in May 2020.
Will Barrett become more moderate on the highest court? Ideological shifts have been known to happen; President Eisenhower famously said he made two mistakes as president, “and they’re both on the Supreme Court.” Court appointments don’t always — often don’t — turn out the way the presidents who made them expected.
Barrett has reason to think about her standing — and the Court’s standing — in the public mind. In mid-October — just a week ago — polling by the Economist found she was “the most unpopular nominee in Supreme Court history.” If she isn’t careful, she could end up being one of the most reviled justices in the Court’s history.
One thing that will be closely watched: Whether she’s a handmaiden to Trump (for example, on his taxes), who serves the personal interests of the president who appointed her, or exhibits judicial independence. Having been put on the Court by a highly unpopular president who lost the popular vote and was impeached adds more pressure to distance herself from him.
On top of that, the 52 Republican senators who confirmed were elected with 15 million fewer votes than the 47 Democratic and 1 Republican senator who voted against her confirmation.
Another thing she has to consider: If the Democrats win control of the other two branches next week, but the Court doesn’t let them govern, she could quickly find herself in the minority of an enlarged Court, and spend decades writing dissents instead of creating law. We now know Biden isn’t eager to pack the Court, but he has signaled he’ll consider doing so if that’s what it takes to govern.
Will all of this give her pause, or will she use her new position to enforce upon an unwilling nation an unpopular ideology she has hewed to all her life? Probably the worst thing she could do, for herself, her legacy, and the Court’s reputation and public standing, would be to provide the swing vote in an election case that overrules the people and puts Trump back in the White House after having been voted out.
Guess we is in for some fun from the Supreme Court. Could start later this week. Guess John Roberts is going to get pushed. Maybe to the point he has to become a liberal judge. Or he will have to be a conservative. he does seem to have the interest of the court foremost in his mind. Ever since that little old thing that Andy Jackson did to the Cherokee in spite of the court. The court discovered they needed to ally with one or the other branches and have done so in many instances ever since.
You seem to suggest that our justices are politicians in robes and certainly sometimes they are. Not all the time though. Does not matter if the new justice or the old justices are unpopular. They behave themselves and do not do something impeachable they got a gig for life. They have room to royally piss off the public, and some justices have done just that often to the betterment of the United States. We do have amendments to the constitution that should give some pause to this supposed civil rights movement that seems to be more the mob demanding that the Sheriff give them the man or woman for the mobs justice, and expect all the brancehes of government to kow tow to the mob. That is what mobs do, and they have to be told no, and often the trial, appeals and supreme court has told the mob no, and others who expectations are not reasonable and skip over some of the first ten amendments and all.
Ah yes, the “mob.” The last refuge of anti-democrats is calling the majority of citizens a “mob.” What should we call an unpopular minority faction that arrogates to itself a “right” to lord it over the majority? That word starts with a “d” too: dictatorship.