The outpouring of criticism of the U.S. Supreme Court by Democrats seems to know no bounds. When the Court won’t serve up the decisions they prefer, Democrats go crazy describing the Court as “partisan”, protesting outside judges homes, and urging President Biden to make the Court a Democrat shill by “stacking” the Court with judges they think will subvert objective logic to ideology, precisely what they seem to think the current panel is doing.
That needs a bit of review. The U.S. Constitution established three co-equal branches of government with Congress the only legislative body, the Presidency the adminstrative arm and the Supeme Court the judicial branch tasked with interpreting the law in conformity with the Constitution. That system worked well for over 200 years until political parties became frustrated with the checks and balances in the system and decided that legislating was too complex if they could achieve their poltical goals through unelected judges in the Supreme Court or unelected bureaucrats in the Administration.
In Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court some 50 years ago made the terrible decision to ignore the Constitution to facilitate abortion rights - something that should have been dealt with by the legislative bodies. Judges let their sympathies for pregnant women (50 years ago the judges could even define “woman”, although the most recent appointee, Judge Jackson, apparently is incapable of doing so since she is not a “biologist”) guide their decision instead of dismissing the case and returning it to Congress for legislative action.
Sixty three million children’s lives were ended by abortion in the next 50 years, a process that the Court in Roe thought should be rare and safe. Fifty million is not “rare”. The world is outraged by the callous murder of 6 million souls in Nazi Germany but Democrats are not outraged by the loss of 63 million children’s lives through elective surgery. Many of those 63 million abortions were justified by any measure by the risks to mother, those who were victims of rape or incest, and those where the child had no chance of life after birth. Most were not. They were chosen for the convenience of the mothers, and no doubt in many cases by mothers who simply could not afford the financial or emotional commmitment to raise a child and lacked any support from the father.
Under Biden’s left wing Administration, the zeal to have unelected persons making law seems rampant with the Securities and Exchange Commission mandating climate disclosure (despite the climate change theory being devoid of merit) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) compelling operators of coal fired generating facilities to upgrade to expensive new technologies to reduce CO2 emissions. Neither of these steps, and many more like them, were the result of the considered opinions of the elected members of Congress manifested in properly enacted legislation supported by majorities in both houses of Congress.
The public outcry over Roe is now followed by another outcry over recent decisions voiding state laws on “concealed carry” permits for firearms and the Virginia v EPA 597 U.S. 2022 Supreme Court holding that administrative agencies “must point to clear Congressional authority when they claim the authority to make decisions of vast economic and political significance”.
In both cases the Supreme Court was doing its job. Well, a majority of the Court in any event. In the Virginia v EPA case Justice Kagan in dissent railed against the decision bringing her own uninformed views on “climate change” into chambers. A Democrat, Justice Kagan appears to support any left-wing talking point without taking a moment to get into the specious theory underlying the climate change narrative, and without concern that laws should be legislated and not made through the back door through judges who can’t leave their ideology at the Courtroom door.
The Court was also doing its job when it handed Biden a victory in the “remain in Mexico” case with Justice Kavanaugh joining Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan and Roberts in that case. While Biden’s “open border” policy is causing material harm to America, the end of “remain in Mexico” was lawfully formed. It will be up to the electorate to decide whether the border issue warrants a change in Congress this November.
America is in trouble when its institutions are breaking down and ideological views displace facts and argument in Court proceedings. Whether the institutions are strong enough to overcome the threats posed by the wide divide between political parties will become clear in the November mid-term elections. If the Democrats persist in their support of laws made by unelected persons they should be thrown out of office across the board. If they decide to meet their obligations to enforce immigration laws and come to their sense and abandon the climate change nonsense that permeates their thinking at all levels, they should enjoy another two years of power until the next Presidential election.