If you read Michael Tomaksy’s piece in the Daily Beast, it perfectly captured the liberal tantrum over their back-to-back defeats in the Supreme Court with the Hobby Lobby and Quinn decisions. He equated conservatives to lions who toy with their prey before killing and consuming it. In other words, conservatives are patient to gut laws that protect of cornerstones of American liberalism, specifically public sector unions and the less-than-necessary Voting Rights Act.
He later suggests the utopia that is to come with a liberal Supreme Court:
Imagine a 6-3 liberal court revisiting all of these appalling decisions. Overturning Citizens United. Reinstating the Voting Rights Act. Re-desegregating, if you follow me, the nation’s school districts. Expanding women’s right to control their physical destiny instead contracting it. And more.
Tomasky did note that conservatives took the judiciary more seriously, which has enabled us to keep them from rendering our Constitution moot. After all, our founding document keeps progressives from enacting large portions of their agenda; it constrains change.
But, is the Court leading us to a right-wing dystopia? While the Supreme Court handed liberals judicial defeats over the past two weeks, let us not forget that they upheld the constitutionality of Obamacare by saying the individual mandate falls under the taxation powers of Congress.
In fact, the nine justices agree with each other more often than not, with almost half of all cases this past term ending in unanimous decisions (via NYT):
In their public appearances, the justices often complain that the press focuses on closely divided cases and not on the many unanimous ones. The court is indeed often united, and it will end this term with unanimous decisions in more than half of its cases. Over the past four terms, even the members of the court least likely to agree voted together 65 percent of the time.
Liberals should keep that in mind before start dreaming about a liberal Court post-Hobby Lobby; complain about the institution’s conservative-leanings and divisions; or how Scalia is a fascist. Although, I doubt they will.
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