The travesty of America's judiciary
Transformation of SCOTUS ... Alito and Thomas's ethical voids ... Rorting and stacking the courts in the Red States ... Circuit mischief ... Trump judges on the loose ... Roger Fitch reports from Washington
After Donald Trump's presidency, no US government institution, however respected, may be considered safe or immutable.
Perhaps the most striking change has been the installation of a reactionary and theocratic majority on a rogue supreme court.
The court's new term is about to start, with grave consequences likely; with a prospect that the court may claim even more power.
Perhaps it's time to reflect on the court's transformation under its tiresome Chief Justice John Roberts, in the years leading up to this term. In the view of the veteran court observer Linda Greenhouse, the CJ has already achieved everything he set out to do in 2005.
He had the help of justices who had all worked in Republican administrations (Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh) or participated as loyalist Republican lawyers in Bush v Gore (Kavanaugh, Barrett).
During the CJ's early years, the sleeper cell of Sam Alito (appointed 2005) and Clarence Thomas (1991) lay low, awaiting the moment some timely death (e.g, that of Ruth Bader Ginsburg) might make them part of an originalist majority.
The Republican Senate's refusal to confirm Obama's appointee Merrick Garland (now Biden's AG) brought forward plans, and the unexpected 2016 election of Trump fully activated the two men and their intractable rightwing agenda - witness last year's full-throated implementation by Alito of Catholic abortion policy (Dobbs), and Thomas's expansive, indeed shocking, gun decision (Bruen).
Justices Thomas and Alito both have shocking ethical standards, but the court has declined to adopt an ethics code. Alito actually claims congress has no power to legislate respecting the court, but that's clearly wrong.
Compounding his own ethics problems, Alito recently gave a controversial WSJ interview refuting a yet-unpublished Pro Publica article about him. The interviewer? A lawyer with business before the court.
Alito: enforcing Catholic abortion policy on the court
Thomas's ethics offences are even greater, and arguably impeachable.
One law prof's suggestion: a declaratory judgment of violations under the federal recusal statute, to "clarify for the voters whether they should accord legitimacy to the high court".
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