Radical Justices

by digby

I remember some smart people warning that liberals shouldn’t simply worry about the new Roberts Court overturning Roe vs Wade, but rather should be very concerned about its pro-business tilt. That turns out to be an understatement. This court isn’t just pro-business or anti-regulation. It’s radically anti-consumer and anti-worker — far worse than anyone anticipated, I think.

Dahlia Lithwick has written a typically interesting piece about the corporate friendly ruling this last term and what she finds is not just that the Court is favorable toward business but that it is writing a veritable instruction manual for firms to screw their workers and customers without any repercussions. It’s fairly amazing:

Depending on how you count “big cases,” the Supreme Court has just finished off either agreat (according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce) or spectacularly great (according to a new study by the Constitutional Accountability Center) term for big business. The measure of success here isn’t just the win-loss record of the Chamber of Commerce, although that’s certainly part of the story. Nor is it news that—in keeping with a recent trend—the court is systematically closing the courthouse doors to everyday litigants, though that’s a tale that always bears retelling. The reason the Roberts Court has proven to be Christmas in July for big business is this: Slowly but surely, the Supreme Court is giving corporate America a handbook on how to engage in misconduct. In case after case, it seems big companies are being given the playbook on how to win even bigger the next time.

It’s going to be very hard to put this particular genie back in the bottle. And it doesn’t bode well for whatever reforms rational people may want to put in place in the near term. This court is proving to be extremely radical on these questions and it’s unlikely they will uphold anything that limits the rights of the wealthy and the corporations.