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If Elected Romney Promises to Borkize the Supreme Court
A Romney presidency would make detrimental changes to America that extend beyond his plan to resurrect Bushanomics and Bush Foreign policy. With Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy getting on in years, it is very possible that the next President can shape the Supreme Court for decades to come.
Can we say right wing judicial activism on steroids?
The warning signs are evident when one considers the extent to which corporatists with deep pockets are trying to buy Florida’s Supreme Court. Then there is Supreme Court Justices, Alito Scalia and Thomas’ ties to the Koch Brothers’ and their “grassroots” Tea Party.
Then there are the possible reasons Sheldon Adelson has to pour as much money as it takes into the Romney campaign.
Mitt Romney gave us ample warning of what he would do to the Supreme Court’s balance when he chose Robert Bork as the head of his judicial advisory team. Bork’s own appointment to the SC received bi-partisan rejection by the Senate in 1987. As a judge, he supported corporate “rights” at the expense of people’s rights any chance he got.
As noted by People For the American Way
Bork was confirmed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on February 8, 1982. On the bench, Bork turned his authoritarian instincts into a voting record that nearly always favored government when it was challenged by public interest groups, workers or citizens but favored business corporations whenever they challenged the government. If the New Yorker magazine drew a map of Judge Bork’s vision of America, corporations would loom large and vast over the country, the government would be standing beneath them as a military and police force to control the rabble, and citizens would appear as barely visible specks on the bottom of the land.
Just to give us a brief refresher on Bork’s philosophy on Civil Rights, he described the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a “moral abomination.”
He would send women’s rights back to the dark ages as conveyed by this comment on gender discrimination. “I do think the equal protection clause probably should be kept to things like race and ethnicity.”
A Romney court would reverse Roe v. Wade, which comes as no surprise when one considers the views Romney and his sidekick, Paul Ryan, have on reproductive rights. (Think Todd Aikin of “legitimate rape” fame)
As a defender of DOMA, Romney would defend DOMA and seek a constitutional amendment defining marriage as exclusively between 1 man and 1 woman.
Romney’s website gives us further warning of his intent to further entrench an extreme right wing activist court.
As president, Mitt will nominate judges in the mold of Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito.
This term, the Supreme Court will consider a case seeking to repeal the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County, Alabama v. Eric H. Holder, Jr
The petitioners claim that things have changed since the Voting Rights Act passed in 1964.
In their alternate reality, section 5 “treats modern-day state and local government decisions as if they were made by the Dixiecrats of long ago. Specifically, the black conservative group says the Section 5 “preclearance” standard is now being enforced in Shelby County, Alabama, “as if George Wallace is still governor.”
Well, some modern-day state and local governments controlled by the Republican Party do make decisions as if they were made by the Dixiecrats of long ago.
Ohio’s Jon Husted’s record is but one example. Husted tried to restrict early voting. One group of people who would have been adversely affected had the courts not struck down Husted’s directive on early voting is African Americans.
Doug Priesse put it bluntly when he said the voting system shouldn’t have to accommodate black voters.
Florida’s voter suppression campaign was found to adversely affect Hispanics as well as African Americans as part of the Republican Party’s campaign strategy.
Jim Greer, the former Chairman of Florida’s Republican Party admitted that Party Officials often discussed suppressing the black vote.
Then there’s Darryl Metcalfe, who sponsored Pennsylvania’s version of a Voter ID law.
As Mitt Romney said, 47 percent of the people … are living off the public dole, living off their neighbors’ hard work, and we have a lot of people out there that are too lazy to get up and get out there and get the ID they need. If individuals are too lazy, the state can’t fix that. But the process is put in place to get an ID card. There’s a free ID available if someone needs one.
As many as 25% of eligible African Americans don’t possess a valid form of photo ID, compared with 8% of white Americans. I don’t believe Metcalfe was unaware of that fact.
Perhaps the plaintiffs in Shelby County, Alabama v. Eric H. Holder, Jr are living in the same alternate reality that says there’s nothing racist about a political strategy dependent on denying the vote to an identifiable racial group.
In the reality that most of America lives under, the Voting Rights Act remains a necessary legal instrument.
If the Roberts court manages to understand the current reality and uphold the lower court ruling in this case, there is no question that a Romney court will be given an opportunity to revisit the question in a manner that would please both Mitt Romney and Robert Bork.
In very simple terms, the future of civil rights, including the right to vote, is as much at stake in this election as is the future of economic opportunity, as we know it.
Image from Yes We Can Long Island
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10 Responses to If Elected Romney Promises to Borkize the Supreme Court
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Kenneth Morgan
Oct. 8th, 2012 at 9:34 am
after the damage romney is going to cause, it will take 100 years to fix in the area of civil rights, and foreign policy. It won’t matter by then. The rich will have all the money in the country, climate change will be near major extinction levels, and we will be nothing but serfs or slaves.
larry
Oct. 8th, 2012 at 1:50 pm
If Romney wins, our country will be at war with Iran,there will be US troops in Syria and Egypt.Romneys top foreign advisor is Dan Senor, George W,s foreign advisor.He is the same man George W would put in front of the cameras screaming to the American people that Iraq had stockpiles of WMD,S!Now he is advising Romney to basically attack Iran and put our troops across all the middle east.If Romney is elected it will be like BUSH/CHEANEY on steroids,not only militarily,but Wall Street will finish destroying our country economically…and Romney and friends will continue to get filthy rich.It’s beyond me how many people Romney has fooled to support his wicked,dangerous agenda.Romney is no leader,he is a follower of big money only!!
AFM
Oct. 8th, 2012 at 9:51 am
If Romney wins I consider he won by stealling the election with voter suppression.
buckeyewill
Oct. 8th, 2012 at 10:07 am
Project 21 is a bunch of so-called Black Conservatives who want to abolish the Voting Rights Act that was won through blood,sweat, tears and yes death. These people have forgotten the struggles that were made 50 years ago to fight for the right to vote.
SHAMEFUL….just shameful.
Anne
Oct. 8th, 2012 at 10:13 am
As a black woman, I am disgusted at the folks in Project 21 who seem to be suffering from selective amnesia in abolishing an important act that came about through the blood, sweat, tears, and death of so many before us, black AND white. They are suffering from what is called Stockholm Syndrome because they are siding with the very people who have been trying to suppress the votes of blacks, Latinos, the poor, students, and the elderly who normally vote for Democrats. They are living in an alternative universe if they don’t realize they are being used as tools.
buckeyewill
Oct. 8th, 2012 at 10:28 am
I want no parts of Black Conservatism. Black people and others have FOUGHT AND DIED for the Voting Rights Act to be implemented into law. Just wait until this is brought into the MSM. Watch the angry response from Black people in this country who listen and read history of Black people trying to vote down South. Is this what it takes to be a Black Conservative??? Do you have to dance while they play “Dixie”??? Do they want the Civil Right Act abolished??? Did Earl Warren and the Court he presided over make a mistake in its ruling???
Reynardine
Oct. 8th, 2012 at 10:22 am
In fact, in ’87, I was pretty involved in the effort to keep Robert Bork off the Supreme Court. Here’s why:
Back in’83, when our Constitutional Law class was studying the First Amendment, we read an article by Robert Bork, of whom I had not then heard. His reasoning on what sort of speech it protected went thus:
1. It protected speech, but clearly not all speech, since when the Framers were writing, some classes of speech were clearly considered unworthy of protection.
2. Clearly, the Framers had meant to limit its protections to political speech. What, then, was political speech?
3. Political speech was speech which expressed the political will of the people, which in turn was voiced by the majority vote of the Congress, so
4. You’re free to agree!
In researching the remainder of his record, I found he was equally adept at Borking away the Fourteenth Amendment, and he never heard of penumbral rights for individuals. Corporations, however, had quite a few, including ordering their female employees to be spayed in order to spare the employer possible liability for future birth defects, if that was more cost-effective than cleaning the work environment of toxic chemicals.
Incidentally, I rather expect Mitt would want to redefine marriage as between one man and as many women as he chose, though he looks like rather a cold cod himself; but the rest of your predictions are pretty much on, and with the kind of artful construction we could expect from a Bork-informed court, we wouldn’t even have to repeal any Constitutional protections to be rid of them.
Reynardine
Oct. 8th, 2012 at 10:57 am
A further comment of mine was glitched, but I can see how, without further amendment, the Nineteenth Amendment could be Borked.
A. The Nineteenth Amendment states that the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex.
B. It does not, however, address marital status.
C. Any jurisdiction may, therefore, limit the right to vote of either sex based on marital status, so
D. It is permissible to limit the vote to married women.
Note that this is exactly what right-wing pundits have been advocating.
Jim Faubel
Oct. 8th, 2012 at 7:41 pm
I can’t think of a worse choice than Robert Bork. Back when he was nominated for the Supreme Court, I learned that this idiot had written that “the Constitution recognizes no rights except those that are clearly enumerated in the Constitution”. That was enough for me to oppose him. READ THE 9TH AMENDMENT, YOU IDIOT!!!
bess moore
Oct. 16th, 2012 at 6:36 pm
So sad! Greed is alive and well. God help us!