My Lord What a Court!

by Ruth A. Sheets

I am not sure how many people watched the Senate “hearing” for Brett Kavanaugh after his nomination to the Supreme Court by Donald Trump a couple of years ago.  I was pretty sure Trump would pick people for the Court who were somehow problematic, and the hearing exposed what kind of problematic guy he picked. 

Trump had already, with the help of Mitch McConnell, shoved through Justice Neil Gorsuch, someone they hoped would be “ordinary” enough to placate non-conservatives and throw them off the track of what would come next.

From the beginning of the Kavanaugh “hearing” we who actually paid attention knew there was a problem with what was going on, the disrespect shown Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who had accused Kavanaugh of attempted sexual assault, the childish behavior of Kavanaugh and his pathetic answers to sensible questions, the ignoring of the other women who had legitimate complaints about the nominee’s behavior, his whining about beer. 

We didn't know at that time that the FBI, our high-quality law enforcement agency in the Department of Justice was cheating all of us of the knowledge of what was really going on around Kavanaugh.  The FBI is supposed to thoroughly investigate all nominees for high-level positions.  This time, they didn’t.  Inquiring minds want to know why.

I have read different accounts of how many tips related to Kavanaugh came into the FBI that were not followed up.  I am guessing it is somewhere between the low of 400 and the high of 4,000 tips.  How is that possible?  Was there interference with the FBI by the administration, from the Justice Department,  or from within the FBI itself?  In any case, that does not bode well for the FBI being separate from a current administration.  It’s like going back to the “good ole days” of J. Edgar Hoover whose corruption of the FBI was massive and generally permitted by each administration for 50 years.  Pick and choose who will be investigated and which evidence to present.

Without addressing the “tips” that came into the FBI related to Kavanaugh, he should never have had a hearing at all.  The information was not available so senators could make an informed decision about putting him on our highest court.  No problem, right?  Republicans in the Senate with Mitch McConnell in the lead chose to ignore everything negative about Kavanaugh because they wanted to own the Court.  Qualifications or past behavior for them seemed irrelevant as long as the candidate was a guaranteed vote for whatever corporate America wants.  Republican senators never had to state their purpose to put women, the poor, Black voters, and others who are not rich white men and corporations in their place.  That was a given.  And, that is not a new Phenomenon either, although highly developed under Mr. Trump.

We can expect that presidents want to put justices on the Supreme Court who reflect their own understanding of “fairness,” their own ideological position.  And, it is possible to learn quite a bit about a president and the people he surrounded himself with by the nominees he has chosen for the Court. 

Lyndon Johnson punctuated his position on Civil Rights by appointing Thurgood Marshall, the first Black justice, a Civil Rights icon.  George H.W. Bush appointed Marshall’s successor, of course, Clarence Thomas, a Black man, but one who would take the “majority” position related to race whenever possible, and a sexual harasser too, and a Catholic, a conservative bonus when religion comes before the Court.    Bush chucked the Black community under the chin with Clarence Thomas, clearly implying, “see I appointed a Black justice for you.”  (So what if he has little experience and erroneously thinks he got where he is totally without help.)

In case Americans weren’t aware of his deep racism, Richard Nixon attempted to appoint to the Court two judges, Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell, who had histories of racist positions while on the lower courts.  Fortunately, the Senate rejected both, a very rare occurrence for any Senate.

Ronald Reagan nominated Judge Antonin Scalia, who believed that somehow he could discern what the Founders would decide about everything brought before the Court (originalist) and that this was the only way to rule on cases.  That, of course is nonsense since the Founders weren’t always sure what they themselves meant.  It made it seem that his pronouncements were straight from the minds of James Madison or Alexander Hamilton or . . ..  Since by the time Scalia was nominated, Reagan was already seriously impacted by Alzheimer’s it is unclear who put Scalia forward.  Reagan was OK with it though.  Scalia was brilliant, you know, not too fond of rights for women, immigrants, minority citizens, but brilliant.

Bill Clinton nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg who had a lot of experience and a long history of standing for human rights, women’s rights in particular.  Clinton was trying to show his acknowledgment of women’s importance in society, possibly to make up for the scandals he had been caught up in.  When Ginsburg passed, Trump was president, a well-known misogynist.  Just as Bush Senior got Thomas onto the Court to slap down Black Americans with one of their own, Trump nominated an inexperienced woman, Amy Coney Barrett  who could be counted on to rule against women whenever possible.  She is a good little Catholic too and will stand with the patriarchal Church to do their bidding, particularly against women’s right to choose.  She was barely investigated at all because McConnell and his Senate allies had to push her approval through in case he wasn’t majority leader after the election.  He just made up the rules as he went along, impacting the Court for years.

George Bush the younger nominated Samuel Alito, the son of immigrants who believes only the “right” immigrants should come here and those on the Southern border are not they.  A Catholic too, he can jump in to see that Catholic plaintiffs or defendants will get exactly what they want, most of the time.  That LGBTQ thing is still a thorn in his side, though.

My Lord what a Court, probably no better than the Court was throughout most of our history.  That is not a compliment, though because we now need thinking, caring people on the Court no matter whether conservative, liberal or neither.  What we now have is a 6-3 conservative majority, 6 Catholic members, 2 Jewish members, and 1 Episcopalian, not exactly representative of the United States religious population.

The religion of the justices should not be an issue, but alas, it is and has seriously impacted the justices’ rulings.  It is sad for all of us because the American Catholic Church has become more and more conservative over the past 40 years or so, threatening to ex-communicate any Catholic who does not agree with their oppressive stances in issues from women’s rights to immigration, to Black history to religious freedom/separation of church and state, to the environment and more.  Our Founders were worried that religion could have an outsized influence on our government.  Their worry may be justified with our current Supreme Court, not representative of the American people.  Well, maybe it is, 2 men legitimately accused of sexual harassment, a misogynistic woman, an immigrant-despising son of immigrants, a couple of careful thinkers who are blanked by the biases of the others, a couple who had working-class upbringings. 

However, in other ways, the Court is quite different from the American people, Nearly all the Justices attended one of two law schools.  In addition, all are in some way privileged.  7 are white, 3 are women, 1 is Hispanic and 1 Black.  That is not the configuration of the United States.

Poll after poll reports that the American people want the right of women to choose regarding reproduction.  We want sensible gun laws and do not believe money is speech.  No one should be above the law and global warming is real so corporations need to stop polluting with greenhouse gas.  Voting should be an automatic right of all US citizens.  The conservatives on the Court go along with none of these things, probably because the corporations who helped nurture them do not and because their church does not either.  Too many rights for the unworthy.

I hope the Court can be enlarged and that terms on the Court are limited to 18 years when the justices can either retire or move to another of the Federal courts.  That would hopefully help us to get more variety on the court with decisions that increase or enhance the rights of more Americans than just rich, straight, Evangelical or Catholic white men. 

Sometimes, I think our Supreme Court is a bit of a joke played on the American people, that is not very funny:  a Black justice who hates Black people; a conservative woman who hates women and is just about as confining to women (except herself, of course) as some Medieval rulers; a man whose family were immigrants but because Italians are now seen as white, resents and wants to exclude non-white immigrants; a Chief Justice who claims to care about the rights of citizens while he stands against voting rights - Oh, he's pretty racist too; and a sexual harasser- possible abuser - who never was fully checked out by the FBI or anyone else for that matter except perhaps the Federalist Society, not a good judge of judges’ quality, just political ideology. 

This week, the Court ruled the Centers for Disease Control had no right to set a moratorium on evictions, even during a pandemic with a 6-3 decision, and you can guess which 6.  Yep, rich justices saying a health organization can’t decide how to keep people safe during a pandemic because landlords don’t like it.  I can’t wait to see their rulings on mask mandates.

My Lord what a Court!