The Supreme Court's Crisis of Legitimacy

[marmar]

The Supreme Court’s Crisis of Legitimacy

CHRIS WINTERS
9 MIN READ
JUL 5, 2022


(YES! Magazine) The United States of America today is a fundamentally different country than the United States of America three weeks ago.

In this new U.S., the federal government can’t regulate carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants under the Clean Air Act because the law, which first passed in 1963, doesn’t specifically give the government that power. In addition, local government cannot stop a school official from leading students in prayer. But it can control what happens inside a uterus. But it can’t prevent you from carrying a gun in public. But it can assert legal jurisdiction over Native American reservations.

The common thread is the Supreme Court is the most radically… I don’t even want to say “Conservative,” because this court has been throwing out precedents the way Donald Trump flung his lunch across the White House dining room. So … interventionist? Revanchist? Insurrectionist?

....(snip)....

There’s not a lot to say about the Supreme Court’s opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade, that hasn’t already been said. The most succinct criticism came from Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan’s fiery dissent: “The majority has overruled Roe and Casey for one and only one reason: because it has always despised them, and now it has the votes to discard them. The majority thereby substitutes a rule by judges for the rule of law.”

....(snip)....

That solidarity now needs to be turned toward specific political objectives, specifically those that will reverse the direction of the country’s drift toward the extreme right: think ensuring fair and free elections at every level, codifying abortion and other civil rights, adding seats to the court and states to the union, and so on. U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Seattle has already floated the idea of a general “women’s strike” in response to the overturning of Roe, presumably with the intention of prodding the Biden administration into action.

....(snip)....

Maybe it’s about time the people demonstrate their full power. A general strike can lead to real gains in liberty; just witness Iceland. And when the arbiters of law are undemocratically installed and unaccountable, the lawmakers are corrupted by lobbying and conflicts of interest, and the chief executive actively seeks to overturn an election and gain unlimited power—all conditions that are illegitimate in a democratic society—resistance is the only legitimate democratic force left. ...........(more)

https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2022/07/05/supreme-court-legitimacy-2

[Tetrachloride]

1. Legitimacy isn't the Court's problem. It's if the 6 justices get

what they deserve.