WASHINGTON — As the Supreme Court nears the midpoint of its annual term and prepares to hear several momentous cases, one question looms: Will the justices' split decision reversing past rulings and allowing new corporate spending in political races set the tone for the term, or will Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission be an exception?
"Is this a turning point?" asks Pamela Harris, director of Georgetown Law's Supreme Court Institute. Harris notes that Chief Justice John Roberts' concurring opinion in the campaign-finance case defended reversing past rulings that have been, as Roberts wrote, "so hotly contested that (they) cannot reliably function as a basis for decision in future cases."
"That is an incredibly muscular vision of when you would overrule precedent," which usually guides justices in new cases, Harris says. "That makes it look like this is a court that's ready to go."
Several pending cases — some that already have been argued, some that will be argued in upcoming weeks — are likely to show the reach of the Roberts Court and its boldness.
Temple University law professor David Kairys expects the Citizens United to distinguish the Roberts Court for years. "I think it will actually define more than this particular term," he says. "It might define the Roberts Court."
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Among the most closely watched disputes: whether the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms covers regulation by states and cities; whether people who signed petitions for a ballot referendum against gay marriage have a First Amendment right to keep their names private; and whether a board set up to regulate public accounting firms after the Enron and Worldcom scandals violates the separation of powers and infringes on the executive branch.
That last case, Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, could challenge the legal consensus that Congress has the power to establish and set rules for certain independent agencies and their members within the executive branch. Some conservatives, including Justice Antonin Scalia, have argued in some situations that only the president can remove executive officials.
Big cases ahead
Citizens United reinforced the court's caustic ideological divide and may have signaled what's to come in the nearly 70 cases that await resolution through July.
The same acrimonious split was seen earlier in January when the five-justice conservative majority — Roberts, Scalia and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito— blocked broadcast of a federal trial in San Francisco on the constitutionality of California's ban on same-sex marriage.
Dissenting were the same four who protested in Citizens United: Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.
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The majority in the dispute over Proposition 8 — the 2008 voter initiative that banned gay marriage — said lower-court judges failed to follow procedures for notifying the public about the potential broadcasts, and it accepted arguments that the broadcasts could lead to the harassment of witnesses who had supported the same-sex marriage ban.
Dissenters countered that "the public interest weighs in favor of providing access to the courts" and accused the majority of "extraordinary intervention" in local affairs.
Kairys sees the current majority as the most conservative in decades. "It really is their time. They seem to have this undercurrent of, 'Let's do the things we want to do while we're in control.' "
President Obama appointed Sotomayor last year and may get another appointment or two. But the Democratic president's nominees would likely succeed liberals, who are among the older members of this bench. Stevens will turn 90 in April, Ginsburg 77 in March. Roberts, who is 55, and his fellow conservatives are generally the younger justices.
Accusations of activism
Of the 11 signed opinions the court has issued for the term, Citizens United was the most consequential.
Kairys argues that because of how money shapes politics, Citizens United marks "a change in the whole system of democracy."
Notre Dame law professor Richard Garnett is among analysts who see it as having less of an impact.
"Citizens United did not really dramatically change the presence of 'corporate' money in politics," he says. "It was there before, and always will be, for better or worse."
Yet Garnett is watching pending constitutional cases.
In Stevens' dissent in Citizens United, he referred to the "majority's agenda" and strongly suggested the majority was not "serious about judicial restraint."
Roberts, who said during his confirmation hearings in 2005 that his job would be "to call balls and strikes and not to pitch or bat," defended himself against criticism of conservative activism.
The chief justice cited what he saw as flaws in past campaign-finance cases that needed to be addressed and wrote, "There is a difference between judicial restraint and judicial abdication."
7 comments:
I think it is terrible that the Supreme court is so divided. Justices should have no political affiliation because by the nature of their job they must be impartial. The current justices are making decisions based on their beliefs rather than constitutionality. This directly contradicts the oath and ideals of the judicial system. As far as letting corporations donate unlimited funds to campaigns, I think it is morally reprehensible. It gives to much power to a select few creating a oligarchy of sorts.
The Supreme Court is supposed to interpret the laws, and while I understand that an interpretation of anything is subject to the bias and mindset of the interpreter, this is the product of presidents of different parties nominating justices who express the same bias as the political party they represent. While this gridlock is also represented in congress, it is exacerbated in the supreme court by the fact that tenure on the supreme court isnt affected by shifts in public opinion and terms are usually for life.
Hopefully the court's split decisions will not set the tone for future cases. Being the Supreme Court, they should remain neutral in politics (like influencing the spending in political races).
I just hate how the system has become so corrupt. Justices, especially supreme court justices, are supposed to make decisions that reflect the unbiased reason of the Constitution, not decisions that reflect their beliefs and the beliefs of their party. Judges should belong to no specific party at all. They should work for the entire nation and all her citizens as a whole, casting political ideologies aside when handling a fair, and constitutional trial.
It's sad that every branch of the government, even the one that is supposed to be neutral, has succombed to beast that is partisan politics. I know there is no such thing as a completely impartial ruling, but it seems like the judges use the Constitution only when it is to their party's advantage. Then again, the only reason there are political parties to begin with is because everyone interprets the Constitution differently, particularly the "elastic clause." Maybe the process of appointing judges could be amended to ensure a more impartial Court. Oh, I don't know...
Politics is too entangled in this “us vs. them” ideology. Instead of thinking about the good of the people, it has become an issue about proving that the other party is wrong. Although it is upsetting that the Supreme Court does have political bias there is no way to stop it. They have no chance of reaching power unless they fit themselves nicely into either the republican or the democratic parties. In a perfect world they would make decisions based on constitutionality, but we don't live in a perfect world. As far as allowing corporations to donate funds to campaigns, I believe that this is going to be a major downfall in political elections. To say that corporations have the same rights as individuals is completely absurd. Many individuals do not have millions of dollars to donate to get their political positions heard. Money would become the deciding factor in who gets what in the game of politics, and the poor and middle class will be the ones to pay the price. Our system is already susceptible to corruption, let's not add "money talks" to the mix, or at least more so than it is now.
The recent Supreme Court decision which was chastised in President Obama’s state of the Union Speech related to campaign contribution and financing, just proves that Supreme Court justices are humans and not machines. They have strong ideology, beliefs and alliances. Even though they are supposed to be impartial and render their opinion based on strict interpretation of constitution, their background plays important role in the process.
More so in recent times, judges are appointed primarily based on their ideology. This has made us use terms such as a conservative Supreme Court or a liberal Supreme Court, which should not be the case.
The recent opinions of the US supreme court including those highlighted above proves that we are going to see more “conservative” opinions rendered by the Robert court.
I do think that we will always have US Supreme Court which is either conservative or liberal especially in the view of current political climate.
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