So...this article is being precipitated by a few stories. First, there's SCOTUS shooting down part of the VRA, which I've already discussed at length. Second, it's Chief justice Roberts lecturing people for not understanding the courts and claiming to not be partisan (yeah, good luck with selling that one). And third, it's the Virginia Supreme Court shooting down their gerrymandering.
So, we already discussed the first one, where I have mostly mixed views. I tend to see it as a loss for democrats from a realpolitik perspective, but also I kind of experience schadenfreude with it because let's face it, I dislike racially driven exemptions myself and believe gerrymandering should be banned entirely. I also have a lot of spite toward the democratic party which regularly waves "OMG T3H BLACK VOTE!" in progressives' faces and constantly uses southern black voters and their conservative preferences as a cudgel against us. So pretty complex thoughts there.
But then, in response to ire over that ruling from democrats, Chief Justice Roberts had the gall to come out and say that we "misunderstand SCOTUS" and that they're NOT partisan actors. As someone who has taken several college classes on our legal system, I'm just gonna call BS on that.
Its true to some degree, abstractly. SCOTUS is NOT supposed to be a partisan institution. And for much of its history, it was relatively nonpartisan. BUT...that's also not really the case in the modern era. Partisanship exists, especially in recent decades. It just manifests differently. AT BEST, it manifests among different interpretations of the constitution. Let's take abortion for example. Conservative justices tend to interpret things very...plainly. They are "originalists" and "textualists." They like to interpret the letter of the law as written, and as intended by the writers of it. The law is the law is the law. Period. They tend to revere the founding fathers and think we should interpret things strictly, and in the original 1789 version of it. Liberals on the court tend to believe in a more "living constitution." They also interpret the law, but a bit more broadly. They're more likely to think philosophically, and to use legal precedents to enforce their rulings. It's based on the transitive property. If A = B, B = C, and C = D, A = D. Simple, right?
So let's look at abortion. Conservatives will be like ABORTION ISNT IN THE CONSTITUTION, THE FOUNDING FATHERS NEVER WOULD HAVE WANTED A RIGHT TO AN ABORTION, THEY SHOULD JUST READ THE PLAIN READING OF THE TEXT BLAH BLAH BLAH. Liberals who were behind Roe V. Wade looked at things like this. We have a right to privacy as guaranteed by like, the 4th and 14th amendments. That right to privacy gives people a right to use contraceptives (griswold v connecticut), because we established that, we can expand that to include abortion since it's a form of birth control. And that's generally speaking, the rough legal precedent behind the courts.
And yeah, the partisanship between liberals and conservatives in SCOTUS is basically over that. There isn't as much rank partisanship, at least in theory, but it's pretty partisan.
With that said, lets talk about how the court BECAME partisan since the 1960s and 1970s. So a lot of SCOTUS rulings drew the ire of the conservative population. The right believed that the court back then was being "judicially activist" and "legislating from the bench" and blah blah blah, when they were really just....using legal precedent to expand the understanding of the court to grant new rights and freedoms. And if anything, THAT'S where I'd say the public doesnt understand the court. They thought they were just making crap up and just ruling arbitrarily, and pushing for a more straightforward reading of the text, because high minded philosophical thinking isnt their strong suit. Their supporters would be like IT'S NOT IN THERE PLAIN TO SEE THEREFORE IT DOESN'T EXIST. Because to get to the liberal interpretation, you gotta use your brain a bit in order to reach that conclusion.
And....let's talk about the current court majority. Since the 1980s with Ronald Reagan, the court has become more partisan. The right went on their own little long term political project to stack the court with conservative, textualist judges to go back to a pre 1960s reading on the constitution, functionally overturning roe v wade, engel v vitale, etc. And then our country would be great and christian again! They started this with the nomination of Robert Bork, who was so extreme with it his nomination was derailed and Reagan was forced to withdraw him and go with Scalia instead. And then they got Kennedy and Thomas. And then they got Roberts and Alito under Bush. And then Scalia died, Kennedy retired, and RBG died too, leading to Gorsuch/Kanvenaugh/Comey-Barrett. And now they're overturning those rulings. Even worse, they're doing their own judicial activism.
I admit, like, in 2016, the dems did use BUT THE COURT as a cudgel to get us to vote for hillary. And i didnt buy it, given my relatively low priority on social issues, and the fact that I did think that even a conservative court would be relatively constrained on what they would do. They wanna maintain legitimacy. But I'm gonna be honest, these guys are just PARTISAN HACKS. They ARE being judicially activist. They ARE throwing out rulings willy nilly. They ARE just manufacturing judicial pretexts for things in my view. I admit, sometimes they restrain themselves somewhat, to maintain the court's legitimacy somewhat, but a lot of the time, they're just giving cover for Trump on stuff, and passing rulings that are flat out scary, like that one that gave Trump the theoretical power to just assassinate people. Ya know? I have trouble taking the current court seriously. They ARE supposed to be principled actors who interpret the law relatively objectively. And yeah, there are some differences in judicial philosophy, but ever since it went 6-3, some justices have felt very emboldened to just do far right rulings. And there are questions of legitimacy, with Clarence Thomas for example being subject to multiple controversies that challenge the idea that he's not being a partisan hack at all.
And it seems like shooting down part of the VRA was something the right has wanted since the 1960s. Now, admittedly, the ruling was very narrow in scope. But it comes at a time where the republican party clearly wants to draw rigged electoral maps to maintain the house of representatives, which they would otherwise very easily lose. And look, it seems clear this case was set up to challenge that ruling, they knew they could get the courts to rule in their favor on it, and it happened. Sure, Roberts likely restrained it to a narrow ruling because the court has to maintain some image of legitimacy, but this ruling was very partisan in nature. And we can't ignore that SCOTUS is very political. Theres a reason Hillary was able to say "but the court" in 2016. Because the nomination process IS partisan. And when on the court, these justices are typically gonna rule in a certain way. So it's all about packing the court with justices who see things your way.
Again, to defend my 2016 decision NOT to vote for hillary, I didn't think they would be THIS brazenly partisan, and they've already lost legitimacy in my eyes, like, SCOTUS is supposed to maintain the image of NOT being partisan, despite partisan differences in judicial philosophy, but again, that Trump v US ruling I linked above....yeah....they're just doing whatever tf they want on stuff like that. And that's scary. It's like having a ref blatantly biased toward one team.
Anyway, that's my view on the Roberts court. He can claim to be nonpartisan all he wants but it's very clear that court is in fact partisan and these guys arent just even having a different opinion on judicial philosophy but are obviously tipping the scales to one side.
Now, on the VA gerrymander situation. I was originally under the impression their supreme court leaned left, and I was originally gonna be like "are we really gonna do this they go low, we go high" BS? I mean, as I see it, the dems are like that sometimes. In the face of blatant partisanship they'll still act all above the fray and like "oh we can't act like THEY do..." Why not? You realize that if one side constrains themselves to the rules while the other side is actively making them and bending them to their favor, that we're gonna lose, right? And given these guys ARE reshaping American government in their image, we seriously gotta use ANY MEANS NECESSARY to protect our vision, and democracy itself. We cant afford to be like "ugh, WE can't gerrymander that's beneath us" while...they aggressively gerrymander. And I hate gerrymandering too. I get the principle. But again, in this current environment, we need to play hardball with the right and not be afraid to punch them in the #### when we get the opportunity.
Even more so, I say, show me a good president and I'll show you how they sometimes bent the rules to their favor. I think washington was the only one who didn't, and at that point the country just needed someone like that. But Abraham Lincoln? He suspended habeas corpus. FDR packed the courts. Like, most great leaders in the US who are great BECAUSE they navigated severe crises that would have broke lesser presidents, are great because they read the room, and they realized that they couldnt just sit back and get pushed around. They HAD to act for the good of the nation. And that's where we're at now. In response to this ruling, someone I was watching, I think it was Mike Figuredo, said that we're functionally in a cold civil war. No one is actively shooting and fighting, but yeah the south is rising again and they will use ANY means necessary to grab power and force their vision on us. And unless we're willing to stand up to them, they're gonna win.
Unfortunately I then googled the VA court's partisan leanings and it seems to be 4-3 republican. So....yeah. Again, another bad call from obviously biased refs.
Anyway I still expect us to win the house this year, but the right is actively trying to sabotage that. And it won't bode well for us in future election cycles. If we retake power in 2028, and we get a trifecta, we need to use ANY means necessary to pass strong legislation to un#### our democracy. Like HR1 but even better. I don't care any more. There's a time to stand in our power, and that time is now. If there's ever been a time, it's now.
EDIT: Also I wanna be clear, in this era of bad faith misconstruing of comments, when I say any means necessary, I mean legal means of course.
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