It has been a bad year for democracy. With a distinctly legalistic, high-minded and scholarly tone to mask a hypocritical, over-reaching, ideological assault, the Supreme Court of the United States is actively reshaping American democracy.
Exchanging their legal robes for a shot at legislative policy-making, while shattering conservative vows of judicial restraint, the Court first turned corporations into people (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission). Not satiated by empowering inanimate entities, next up for the Court was to disempower the real thing: people. The court opined that people who, by majority vote, create an association at their work place, lack the right to self-governance and cannot ask those who receive benefits to pay their "taxes" for the organization's services.
Making such a ruling required the Court to not only overturn decades of precedence, but also to put forth an answer to a question that was not even briefed, or argued, before them. As Justice Sotomayor wrote, "Not content with our task, prescribed by Article III, of answering constitutional questions, the majority today decides to ask them as well."
Just this week, the Court shut the door on Montana's effort to allow democracy to flourish in its state. And now in the case of the Affordable Care Act, the Court seems determined to apply its activist brush to one of the most important pieces of legislation to be passed since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, with no more than gossamer of a legal argument. Searching for some chink in the armor, the fate of the ACA rests on a determination of whether or not the Commerce Clause permits the federal government to mandate that every American purchase health care.
A recent Bloomberg poll of top American Constitutional law scholars had 19 of 21 scholars stating that the Court should, on Constitutional grounds, uphold the health care legislation. Yet only 8 of those same 21 scholars expect the Court to do so. That disparity bodes ill for the future of any socially, or economically liberal policy put forth by Congress or President Obama. The Court has essentially decided who will win the policy battles to come.
We are clearly dealing with a Supreme Court that is no longer content to preserve the canon of the Constitution, or allow for adaptations that extend the Constitution's promises of freedom and justice to disenfranchised populations (as is the case in with both health care and immigration legislation). A powerful majority of the Court has mapped out a policy-making agenda based on their personal views of how government business should be conducted, and they are determined to stay that course regardless of the intended limitations on the scope of their power. Our Supreme Court is no longer the Founding Fathers' expected check on executive and legislative overreach in our system of checks and balances, but a partisan tipping the scales to its ideological agenda.
Combined with a Congress gripped by demosclerosis (the crippling interplay of special interests and government) the Court's policy-making agenda is allowing for the institutionalization of a new American oligarchy. From the rampant, reckless financial speculation of the Aughts, to Citizens United, and now onto certain states' challenging of the Affordable Care Act, an incredibly wealthy, and even more incredibly well connected handful of individuals are attempting to turn their smoking-parlor notions of a corporatist state into an American reality. The Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson and Harold Simmons are part of an ultra-minority constituency that is seeking not to preserve the position and power of the 0.1%, but to expand it in pursuance of Milton Friedman's free-market fundamentalist doctrine that has so crippled the domestic, and the global economies.
Those Americans who, today, see the Affordable Care Act and the other falsely-labeled "socialist" policies of the Obama administration as unwanted intrusions upon their individual freedoms will find themselves under the leadership of the aforementioned ultra-conservative billionaire oligarchy when their power-grab takes full-hold of our country's political agenda. Americans can no longer trust that the Supreme Court will use the Founding Fathers' Constitutional thoughtfulness as a check on legislation put forth by the other two branches.
Instead, we find that the Court, with Congress mired in an historic logjam, has taken up the mantle of the Conservative cause and has read policy prescriptions into cases where there was no such issue up for judgment. As the checks and balances of our democracy erode, we move ever closer to a future where all the benefits of American economic growth are funneled to the pinnacle of our country's income scale, and to major corporations whose personhood takes precedence over citizens. Were that situation to come about, we might find ourselves looking back fondly at the sad state of affairs today.
Co-authored by Matthew Kessler Cleary
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Robert Reich: Why the Supreme Court Will Uphold the Constitutionality of Obamacare
They packed the court with corporate sychophants. They've log jammed the congress with right wing extremists. All to the purpose of transforming America from democracy to oligarchy.
And an ignorant populace, fed on an unhealthy diet of Fox News and right wing radio, has allowed it all to happen.
todays will be no different. scotus has it's masters.
The Congress is free to go back and pass another bill that accomplishes the same goal but is Constitutionally legal. Healthcare is quite easy to solve if we really wanted to solve it. Too many members of Congress are bowing to special interest groups.
Create national pools that individuals can participate in by paying the premium and qualifying for through an underwriting process. Exclude premium payments from taxes like I get through an employer. If I do not participate in the plan, I do not get care. For profit companies, not for profits, and charities can create pools. You can use whichever you can fits your budget. Doesn't that sound like a free market?
You didn't do that well in school, did'ja?
Your perception of the division of powers in the United States is, uneducated.
Where there is justice there always lurks silliness nearby. I'm just as appalled at this Republican Congress for shaming themselves and the good and decent Republicans out there by this unprecedented and ugly act only to embarrass the nations first Black Attorney General. A sad day indeed.
You are right, the Constitution is set up to allow for changes... so please do so the correct way, rather than to try and get the court to legitimize the overreaching congress.
Have you heard of New York Times v. Sullivan? A corporation had its 1st amendment protections upheld in 1964. Citizens United was nothing new.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan
Democracy of the people, by the people, and for the people is as good as dead. The Roman model of an oligarchy ruling with bread and circuses for the masses is replacing the Founding Fathers' vision. As the yeomanry is further impoverished, the plutocrats tighten their grip on the machinery of state and the reins of the economy.
It's barely possible the Court could surprise us with a ruling on principle, but the fact that so few expect that is a sign of the eminent failure of the system.
Hope you're getting along OK with that $250K/yr pension. Also, how are those people at big pharma treating you in your new job. We in the rank and file worry about you.
Write if you need money.
Rank and File
I suppose in a sad, twisted way, we could call this group of Americans partiotic for their willingness to risk death in the cause of liberty.
our "Guardian Council".
You mean steal money from non-members of that organization in order to fund political campaigns not supported by those non-members. You castigate the Court for allowing organizations to speak (Citizens United), and then you condemn the Court for not allowing organizations to force individuals to support their speech...
democratically elected body "
The entire election of that body was forced on those non-member workers. If they had their way, there would have been no election to begin with.