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This month the U.S. Supreme Court reconvened when public confidence in the court is at a new low. Polls show how dramatically public respect for the court has declined over the last decade. If this decline continues, it threatens our civil democratic society. It is becoming a more serious concern given that the court may play a major role in deciding the 2024 election.
Our founders created an independent judiciary that was supposed to be immune to political pressures and passions. In Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton wrote that an independent judiciary is a bulwark against “ill humors which … sometimes disseminate among the people themselves.” The current court is no longer a bulwark against ill humors. The court may be on its way to becoming one of the ill humors that Hamilton warned about. It is out of touch with mainstream American society and often finds it difficult to render commonsense decisions.
The court is using its awesome power to reshape America to conform to its view of what our country should be. A court majority promotes a nostalgic vision of a white-dominated Christian nation that never was. It only exists in their minds. That vision ignores history as well as our treatment of women and children, persons of color and the poor. The court’s agenda makes it difficult to remedy the shortcomings of our past and build a better America.
For three decades I have lectured on the judiciary at Minnesota Boys State. I was a defender of the Supreme Court and federal judiciary, noting that courts protect our rights and preserve our freedoms. They were fulfilling our founders’ idea of the pursuit of happiness by interpreting the law in a way that provided the maximum opportunity for the maximum number of our fellow Americans to achieve happiness. They were a bulwark against racial discrimination, voting restrictions, and attacks on the right to marry, criminal defendants’ rights, LGBT rights and a woman’s right to control her own body. The courts were the ultimate authority that ensured that rights guaranteed in our Constitution remain in place. Fortunately, a majority of our federal courts still do their job well, but several recent appointees and especially those on the Supreme Court have moved away from that role.
The court acts with impunity while several justices ignore the most basic tenets of ethical behavior. The justices refuse to be bound by a code of ethical conduct. Chief Justice John Roberts has lost control of the court. He has failed to keep politics and passions out. The court has issued a series of aberrant opinions. It has equated money with free speech, allowing our politics to be corrupted by an unfettered flow of money. It has gutted our civil rights laws, holding they are no longer needed when they are needed nationwide. It has endangered the health of women by overturning Roe v. Wade. Its hypocritically convoluted misinterpretation of the Second Amendment has created a violent society. It has condoned gerrymandering and restricted our fundamental right to vote. Space restrictions do not permit listing even more of its aberrant decisions.
