This is a followup to my post Senate Democrats threaten the Supreme Court over the Second Amendment and inch us closer to CW2.0.
Since I posted it, National Review and the Wall Street Journal have both covered this story.
Just to gloat, I beat the pros to print, because when it comes to important and timely analysis, you dear readers know that legacy media is dead.
I found the brief from the Supreme Court’s website. It’s a doozie, you really should read it.
It reads like the unhinged conspiracy rantings of Leftist professor.
The Wall Street Journal’s statement was correct:
The not-so-amicus brief attacks the Federalist Society by name five times, as if the network of bookish conservative-leaning students and lawyers is responsible for swinging elections.
The brief doesn’t once mention the rule of law but instead refers entirely to political donations and polls.
To stem the growing public belief that its decisions are “motivated mainly by politics,” the Court should decline invitations like this to engage in “projects.” See Quinnipiac Poll, supra note 2 (showing fifty-five percent of Americans believe the Court is “motivated mainly by politics”).
The idea of a Supreme Court seat being a lifetime appointment was to divorce the court of politics. These Senators suggest that the court is supposed to consult polling data to determine how it should make decisions.
Petitioners’ effort did not emerge from a vacuum. The lead petitioner’s parent organization, the National Rifle Association (NRA), promoted the confirmation (and perhaps selection) of nominees to this Court who, it believed, would “break the tie” in Second Amendment cases. During last year’s confirmation proceedings, the NRA spent $1.2 million on television advertisements declaring exactly that: “Four liberal justices oppose your right to self defense,” the NRA claimed, “four justices support your right to self-defense. President Trump chose Brett Kavanaugh to break the tie. Your right to self defense depends on this vote.”
The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies published an article this spring describing what recent changes to the Court’s composition mean for this very case. That article observed that this Court had not accepted any Second Amendment cases for briefing and argument since its decision in McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010).
But with Justice Kennedy retired, and after a multimillion-dollar campaign asserting his replacement would “break the tie,” that calculation changed. After “reject[ing] multiple certworthy cases since 2010,” the article continued, the Court, “with Justice Brett Kavanaugh now sitting in Justice Kennedy’s seat[,] has suddenly granted review in this case.” Id. That is “seen as evidence that this theory regarding Kennedy is correct, that the logjam has been cleared, and that the current case may be only the first of several over the coming years.”
This commentary is of particular note because it was published by an organization that has such a prominent role in the Republican Party’s efforts to shape the federal judiciary in favor of donor interests.
The Federalist Society’s Executive Vice President, Leonard Leo, has been linked to a million-dollar contribution to the NRA’s lobbying arm, and to a $250 million network largely funded by anonymous donors to promote right-wing causes and judicial nominees.
So the Federalist Society conspired with the NRA to put Kavanaugh on the bench as a replacement for Kennedy to blow open the doors of the Supreme Court to do the NRA’s bidding.
That is what they are asserting.
The influence effort directed at this Court has been industrialized. In this particular “project” to rewrite and expand the Second Amendment, petitioners are flanked by an army of nearly sixty amici. As usual, the true identities and funding sources of most of these amici are impossible to ascertain. Amicus groups claim status as “social welfare” organizations to keep their donor lists private, and this Court’s Rule 37.6 is ineffective at adding any meaningful transparency. Were there such transparency, this amicus army would likely be revealed as more akin to marionettes controlled by a puppet master than to a groundswell of support rallying to a cause.
What this passage does not mention is the amicus curiae of March for Our Lives Action Fund, amici curiae of Public Health Researchers and Social Scientists, amicus curiae of Citizens Crime Commission of New York City, amici curiae of National Education Association, amicus curiae of Everytown for Gun Safety, and amicus curiae of Americans Against Gun Violence.
All of these are activist groups or unions which are all ardently anti-gun. Three of which are funded lock, stock, and barrel by Michael Bloomberg.
Would they not also be an amicus army of questionable transparency?
Of course not, since they are Left-wing, anti-gun groups, they are above reproach.
With bare partisan majorities, the Court has influenced sensitive areas like voting rights, partisan gerrymandering, dark money, union power,
regulation of pollution, corporate liability, and access to federal court, particularly regarding civil rights and discrimination in the workplace.
Every single time, the corporate and Republican political interests
prevailed. The pattern of outcomes is striking; and so is the
frequency with which these 5-4 majorities disregarded “conservative” judicial principles like judicial restraint, originalism, stare decisis, and even federalism.
Every time we win it’s a partisan conspiracy, every time they win it’s justice.
Today, fifty-five percent of Americans believe the Supreme Court is “mainly motivated by politics” (up five percent from last year); fifty-nine percent believe the Court is “too influenced by politics”; and a majority now believes the “Supreme Court should be restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics.” Quinnipiac Poll, supra note 2. To have the public believe that the Court’s pattern of outcomes is the stuff of chance (or “the requirements of the law,” Obergefell, 135 S. Ct. at 2612 (Roberts, C.J., dissenting)) is to treat the “intelligent man on the street,” Gill v. Whitford, No. 16-1161, Oral Arg. Tr. at 37:18-38:11 (Oct. 3, 2017), as a fool.
The Supreme Court is not well. And the people know it. Perhaps the Court can heal itself before the public demands it be “restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics.” Particularly on the urgent issue of gun control, a nation desperately needs it to heal.
A poll of stupid people who don’t understand the law think the court is too politically partisan. Prove that it’s not by being subservient to our political desires. If you don’t we’re going to “heal” the court by killing it as the third leg in a system of checks and balances.
By “restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics” they mean “increase the influence of Progressive politics.” Like how “reeducation” meant “torture and brainwashing” in Soviet parlance.
Considering that these five Senators threw down the gauntlet on a gun rights decision, there is only one thing the court should do.
Go. All. In. And call their bluff.
This should be the majority decision of the court:
“The Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights says ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Infringed means ‘to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another.’ Ergo, all restrictions on gun ownership are Unconstitutional. Fuck you.”
After all the shit they put Kavanaugh through, followed up by this disgusting Mafioso type brief, the only appropriate course of action is to spit in their eye out of pure American cussedness.
Like this:
Like Loading...
