The Supremes are now officially a rogue, radical court
David Kurtz at TPM says it well:
The most consequential decision yet from the six-justice Roberts supermajority was sandwiched between President Biden’s debate pratfall Thursday night and this morning’s Supreme Court decision on former President Trump’s immunity from criminal prosecution. So before it gets wiped clean from the front pages, I want to just take a moment before the immunity decision comes down to re-cast the current court.
The Supreme Court’s decision Friday to overrule Chevron will have vast consequences, many of then unseen or hard to detect, but one of the things we were discussing internally Friday as we assessed the Supreme Court’s term and its four years with a 6-3 conservative supermajority is how the defining characteristic isn’t conservatism at all but the accrual of power to the judiciary at the expense of the executive and legislative branches.
Rather than taking a conservative view of the role of the courts – a modest, humble, restrained posture that is wary of its own power and applies it carefully – the Roberts supermajority has taken a radical course where the judiciary is increasingly the final arbiter not just on the law but on the facts, the interpretation of those facts, the application of those facts in given situations, and the technical, scientific, and professional implications of those facts in the real world.
There’s nothing conservative about it, and you only have to look to conservatives’ exact same complaints about the Warren and especially the Burger courts to see the obvious. We’ve taken to calling the court “right wing” rather than conservative because it’s a more precise description (though it’s still a pretty blunt term). Rather than being driven by a guiding conservative judicial philosophy, however odious it might have been, the current Supreme Court is most consistent when it comes to consolidating power for itself.
It’s one decision after another, wiping out precedent, common sense and centuries of understanding about the meaning of the constitution. They are taking a wrecking ball to the rule of law and our government’s ability to function as a 21st century society.
If you wonder just how far this immunity really stretches:
Roberts: “And some Presidential conduct — for example, speaking to and on behalf of the American people — certainly can qualify as official even when not obviously connected to a particular constitutional or statutory provision.”
So when Trump tells his mob to march to the capitol and fight like hell or they won’t have a country anymore, it’s part of his official duty because he’s speaking “to and on behalf” of the American people? I’m guessing he means yes.