Another year, another raft of execrable decisions from the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). As each was handed down, one phrase echoed through my mind … “Thank you, George W. Bush.” Sure, I know … I’m still a victim of Bush Derangement Syndrome, as diagnosed by Dr. Krauthammer not so many years ago, right? Well, I see it more as a case of SCOTUS-itis, brought on by the re-election of a knee-jerk reactionary in 2004 who has locked in an equally reactionary majority on the Supreme Court for the foreseeable future.

Lest you think I’m unfairly blaming Bush II, just consider – most Supreme Court vacancies occur according to plan. To the greatest extent possible, a justice now plans his/her (usually his) exit based on the likelihood that his/her successor will be appointed by a president who shares the Justice’s general political orientation. (Hence Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s reported  election night 2000 angst over the apparent election of Al Gore.) That pattern was disrupted in 2005, when illness compelled Chief Justice William Rehnquist to step down. Had Bush not been re-elected the year before, John Kerry would have nominated Rehnquist’s replacement and the political balance of the court would very likely have shifted to the center-left for perhaps the next generation. Instead, thanks to Dubya, we have Citizen’s United, McCutcheon v FEC, and now Hobby Lobby, Harris v Quinn, and McCullen.

Let’s be clear: these are really bad decisions. Take the Hobby Lobby case, for instance. Despite all the efforts of the punditocracy to suggest that this is a very limited decision, narrowly focused on a specific class of contraceptives and a specific category of employers, it turns out that the opinion is not, in fact, so narrow. As Rachel Maddow pointed out last week, based on reporting by Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog.com, subsequent to the release of their ruling on Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court issued orders on pending cases involving a number of employers, most notably some Catholic owners of companies seeking exclude any form of birth control from their employee-provided health plans. The Court orders, of course, side with the employers. So much for that limitation.

I could go on, but I’ll save the rest of my tirade for subsequent posts. Suffice to say that we needn’t have ended up in this place; it was a conscious choice of the American electorate, some ten years ago, and it’s going to take a monumental effort to turn this around in the coming decades.

luv u,

jp