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NationofChange / Op-Ed
Published: Saturday 9 June 2012
Americans’ diminishing respect for the Court can be heard on the right and left of our increasingly polarized political spectrum.
Why the Public’s Growing Disdain for the Supreme Court May Help Obamacare
The public’s growing disdain of the Supreme Court increases the odds that a majority will uphold the constitutionality of Obamacare.
The latest New York Times CBS Poll shows just 44 percent of Americans approve the job the Supreme Court is doing. Fully three-quarters say justices’ decisions are sometimes influenced by their personal political views.
The trend is clearly downward. Approval of the Court reached 66 percent in the late 1980s, and by 2000 had slipped to around 50 percent.
As the Times points out, the decline may stem in part from Americans’ growing distrust in recent years of major institutions in general and the government in particular.
But it’s just as likely to reflect a sense that the Court is more political, especially after it divided in such partisan ways in the 5-4 decisions Bush v. Gore (which decided the 2000 presidential race) and Citizen’s United (which in 2010 opened the floodgates to unlimited campaign spending).
Americans’ diminishing respect for the Court can be heard on the right and left of our increasingly polarized political spectrum.
A few months ago, while a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Newt Gingrich stated that the political branches were “not bound” by the Supreme Court. Gingrich is known for making bizarre claims. The remarkable thing about this one was the silence with which it was greeted, not only by other Republican hopefuls but also by Democrats.
Last week I was on a left-leaning radio talk show whose host suddenly went on a riff about how the Constitution doesn’t really give the Supreme Court the power to overturn laws for being unconstitutional, and it shouldn’t have that power.
All this is deeply dangerous for the Court, and for our system of government.
Almost 225 years ago, Alexander Hamilton, writing in the Federalist (Number 78, June 14, 1788) noted the fragility of our third branch of government, whose power rests completely on public respect for its judgement:
The Executive not only dispenses the honors, but holds the sword of the community. The legislature not only commands the purse, but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated. [Yet lacking sword or purse, the judiciary] is in continual jeopardy of being overpowered, awed, or influenced by its co-ordinate branches; and that as nothing can contribute so much to its firmness and independence as permanency in office, this quality may therefore be justly regarded as an indispensable ingredient in its constitution, and, in a great measure, as the citadel of the public justice and the public security.
The immediate question is whether the Chief Justice, John Roberts, understands the tenuous position of the Court he now runs. If he does, he’ll do whatever he can to avoid another 5-4 split on the upcoming decision over the constitutionality of the Obama healthcare law.
My guess is he’ll try to get Anthony Kennedy to join with him and with the four Democratic appointees to uphold the law’s constitutionality, relying primarily on an opinion by Judge Laurence Silberman of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia – a Republican appointee with impeccable conservative credentials, who found the law to be constitutional.
This article was originally posted on Robert Reich's blog.
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ABOUT Robert Reich
ROBERT B. REICH, one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. Time Magazine has named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including his latest best-seller, “Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future;” “The Work of Nations,” which has been translated into 22 languages; and his newest, an e-book, “Beyond Outrage.” His syndicated columns, television appearances, and public radio commentaries reach millions of people each week. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, and Chairman of the citizen’s group Common Cause. His widely-read blog can be found at www.robertreich.org.
Top Stories
By Kiley Kroh
14 comments on "Why the Public’s Growing Disdain for the Supreme Court May Help Obamacare"
June 15, 2012 9:22am
No wonder the Republicans usually kick the left's butt these days. Even our own supposedly best writers allow them to control the message. It drives me crazy every time I see someone from the left write "Obamacare"!!!! Or talk about the "War on Terror", as if we were fighting against an emotion instead of killing real people. Please stop letting Frank Luntz define the issues for us!
June 11, 2012 10:42pm
Clarence Thomas should never have been appointed and confirmed to the SCOTUS. He has been an embarrassment to the country, is totally corrupt and has huge conflicts of interest. There is nothing racist about pointing out this disgrace to our country. While he is likely the worst, virtually all of the GOP appointees to the Supreme Court over the past three decades have been fanatics.
June 11, 2012 5:17pm
from roe case to citizen united the scotus has been legislating it needs to stick to its basic mission of review
June 10, 2012 5:33am
What needs to be repeated until it sinks in: A corporation is a legal entity whose powers are exactly those which are given it by statute and by its articles of incorporation, which can be written only as authorized by law.
Powers bestowed by the operation of law may be modified, limited, or withdrawn by law. Citizens United declared otherwise, and is absurd on its face.
San Jose, CA
June 10, 2012 7:36am
Exactly DR. That's why they're taxed differently from "people."
June 10, 2012 12:17am
BIGDAD, I must be missing something, but what did Jeffrey say about Clarence Thomas that is racist? He mentions black robes and black-hearted scoundrels-both symbols of "evil" nature. Is this somehow racist? I don't get it...
June 11, 2012 10:53am
I also didn't see anything racist in Jeffrey's post. In fact, when one examines Clarence Thomas' life (and I won't soil the term "justice" by connecting it with Clarence Thomas), the suggestion appears that it is he, Mr. Thomas, who is racist; i.e., he appears to hate both black people and the fact that he, himself, is black.
June 09, 2012 7:44pm
Oromneycare means only one thing to the working poor, less healthcare. The give your money to wall street mandate means staying sick or injured instead of going to the hospital in order to avoid being fined or imprisoned for not having the money to give to rich tape worms.
June 09, 2012 6:15pm
The 21st Century has not been their finest hour, so far. Not mentioned in the Reich essay was the case of Angel Raich, the sick California woman who grew her own pot. The Supreme Court ruled that she was engaged in interstate commerce because, by growing her own, less pot might be brought in from out of state than if she'd not grown it. Reason takes a back seat for the drug war, that darling of Congress. I'd rather they rule on how many angels can stand on the head of a pin. Any ruling would be laughable, but no one would suffer for it. No wonder the Court commands less respect from the public now than before.
June 09, 2012 5:14pm
This will never happen. Americans en masse worship not only God, but the corporate leaders who they believe are god like and to be revered as American heroes.
Too bad they're too ignorant to see that corporations have lost over 10 million jobs in the last 10 years.
June 09, 2012 2:34pm
The super PACs are the result of a disgraceful partisan supreme court Citizens United ruling. They made a very serious free speech error in ruling that corporations and unions have the same political speech rights as individuals under the First Amendment. Essentially, they gave money a First Amendment right to buy a Congress that will promote their profit at the expense of the human public well being. They agreed with the saying that "money talks", and decided that the dollar was to have a vote.
This was NOT a matter of free speech as they asserted. It IS a matter of one-man-one-vote in a republican form of government. By allowing unlimited contributions by corporations they have essentially given them as many votes as they can afford. It is the equivalent of saying that votes can be had for every x number of dollars, or that only landowners can vote; a concept proposed and rejected by our founders.
In addition, they have ignored the laws that prohibit political contributions by foreign interests because almost all publicly held companies have some stock owned by non citizens. Further, because there is no reporting requirement for contributors, foreign interests can make direct anonymous contributions to these Super PACs. Shouldn't it be a violation to let foreign interests decide who is going to be a US public servant?
Corporations are NOT people; they are commercial and legal paper entities, and they have legal protections people do not. They do not have children who need good schools, they cannot get cancer from a polluted environment, they cannot lose their lives in wars of choice, they cannot be sent to prison or jail, and they do not benefit from a happy populace. Their sole interest is in monetary profit. When corporations enter political debates with vast expenditures and propaganda, they seek to further their own interest, not those of humans. Far too often their interests prevail at the expense of the public well being because of their immense wealth.
The ruling was a fiasco that threatens the very nature of our republic. It leads us towards an oligarchy, which in our case will be a plutocracy, a rule by wealthy paper entities with money, controlled by a handfull of officers and board members, with some level of foreign ownership influence.
The kicker on the SCOTUS is Clarence Thomas's compromised integrity. He is a criminal tax cheat for not reporting income from special interests that are bringing cases before the court. Not to mention his perceived lack of judicial competence.
It's scary to know your republican form of government might depend on disease or accident to alter the bent of the SCOTUS. We have the worst, most partisan, Supreme Court in history. Maybe it's time for a constitutional amendment limiting SCOTUS terms or allowing for public recall.
Meanwhile...Senator Sanders has started a petition for another amendment to overturn this ugly ruling. If you think this is a good cause, SEARCH FOR /sanders.senate.gov/petition/?uid=f1c2660f-54b9-4193-86a4-ec2c39342c6cPLEASE SIGN THE PETITION
June 09, 2012 1:32pm
When Roberts face the Senate, he lied. He said he would not disturb precedence. He did. We know that Alito and Scalia (or was it Thomas) attended at least one Koch brothers bash. We know that Alito went duck hunting with cheney when a particular case was coming before the court. But, we should trust them. Yeah, trust them like the vipers they are.
June 09, 2012 12:54pm
"judges" call themselves "Honorable".
They wear the colors (black) of Team Evil to signify the condition of their hearts (black-hearted scoundrels).
The "Honorable" US Supreme kourt "justice" Clarence Thomas deliberately FALSIFIED his financial disclosure forms for years omitting his wife's obscene Kochroach teabagger lobbyist income.
Why would the public have a growing disdain for lying, casefixing whores?!
June 09, 2012 10:13pm
Jeffrey,
It's time for you to resume taking your meds and stop your disgusting racist attacks on MISTER Justice Thomas. You just can't stand seeing a Black man who you cannot control.
Take your meds AND get a job.