Posted on Jul 2, 2023 at 5:09 p.m.Updated on Jul 2, 2023 at 6:00 p.m.
Removing federal protection of the right to abortion last year was not enough for him. The Supreme Court seems to want to bring down one by one the pillars of progressivism in the United States. On Thursday and Friday, the institution that some call the “Extreme Court” issued three “punchy” decisions, which outraged Democrats.
She began by putting down “affirmative action” at the university, judging that the positive discrimination of black or Latino candidates for admission is discrimination plain and simple, and therefore unacceptable. Yet it is the main tool of the most selective establishments to create diversity where it is still lacking.
Then she struck a blow at another institution, gay marriage, which she has been protecting since 2015. The Court ruled that a website creator could refuse her services during a marriage between homosexuals, which “contradicts biblical truth” according to the complainant. The judges invoked freedom of speech, overriding Colorado’s anti-discrimination law.
Politicization and fall in the polls
Finally, they blew up one of Joe Biden’s election promises, that of canceling a good part of the student debt, two months before the end of the moratorium on repayments introduced in 2020. And to conclude, the Court took up a case of the right to bear arms for a person who had committed domestic violence.
These decisions were made along an ideological divide and thanks to a right-wing “supermajority”: six judges appointed by Republican presidents, against three judges appointed by Democrats. This politicization weakens the prestige of the Court, reunites the Democratic camp, and could even harm the next Republican presidential candidate.
The rollback of abortion rights, which is largely unpopular, thus contributed to the poor electoral scores of the opposition in the midterm elections in 2022. It also caused the institution’s approval rating to plummet to a low 30% of voters, according to a Quinnipiac poll taken just before the three iconic decisions of 2023.
A halo of scandal
President Biden, usually so respectful of democratic institutions, said this was not a “normal” court. Conversely, the President of the Court, John Roberts, split a call to order of the dissenting judges (Democrats) who “criticize the decisions they do not approve as exceeding the powers of the judiciary “.
However, the Court seemed less aggressive at the start of this session. It must be said that it evolves in a halo of scandal. The press revealed that two conservative judges, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, were quietly offered a vacation by billionaire friends. No code of ethics obliges them to reveal these links of interest.
Despite its deep distrust of the federal state, the Court notably renounced to support the daring theory of the “independent state legislature”, defended by the Trumpists who still do not recognize the results of the elections of 2020.
If she had followed Judges Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito, and validated this groundbreaking case law, the judiciary would no longer have been able to control electoral laws. For once, the dividing line between the nine judges passed in the middle of the conservative camp.
2023-07-02 15:09:14
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