We Are Already Defying the Supreme Court

[marmar]

We Are Already Defying the Supreme Court
The risks of calling on politicians to push back against the court must be weighed against the present reality of a malign judicial dictatorship.

Ryan Doerfler and Samuel Moyn


(Dissent) The idea of disregarding the U.S. Supreme Court—simply ignoring its decisions—has become a flash point. “Americans will not tolerate defiance of the institution and the rule of law,” remarked one conservative law professor, irate about the possibility that President Joe Biden or other political officials might engage in such behavior. Who has defied the Supreme Court in the past? If leading examples include Andrew Jackson the ethnic cleansing populist or George Wallace the Southern segregationist, the answer has to be: no one good.

Recently, when two left-leaning professors, Aaron Belkin and Mark Tushnet, called for a modest and partial form of disobedience in response to the mounting damage of Supreme Court precedents, conservatives rained opprobrium on them. Disregarding a judgment of the Supreme Court is “a fast track to tyranny,” if not “thuggery” pure and simple, the right raged. The rule of law depends on compliance with the justices’ commands.

....(snip)....

Opposition to the Supreme Court has occurred in myriad forms. Feigning horror at the idea is a con, and a pernicious one at that. To pretend like there aren’t multiple styles of noncompliance gives the impression that resistance is beyond the pale. This, in turn, prevents us from seeing how noncompliance has already escalated, and from grasping lucidly the possibility and the stakes of taking it further.

....(snip)....

While Biden and other institutionalists remain committed to the narrative of compliance, that commitment has proven vulnerable in recent months to popular and especially electoral pressure. In the weeks leading up to the Supreme Court’s student loan decision, for example, activists, along with progressive elected officials like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley, insisted that Biden have a backup plan ready to implement in the event of an adverse decision. Advocates demanded that Biden and his team act “swiftly and boldly,” in contrast to the administration’s lethargic reaction to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Within hours of the ruling, the president delivered his response, calling the court’s decision a “mistake” —one that made him “a little bit angry”—and insisting that the “fight” for debt cancellation was “not over.” To the surprise of many, he added that his Department of Education would pursue cancellation immediately using different statutory authority. The president clarified that this “new path” was “consistent” with the Supreme Court’s decision. Amid other rhetorical escalations, Biden drew praise from several progressives for “refusing to acquiesce” to this most recent judicial power grab. ...........................(more)

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/we-are-already-defying-the-supreme-court/

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Biden has emerged as a surprise and a wonder

Pro-growth, self-described 'capitalist', pro-worker and union, he also touts a virtual industrial policy that funds high tech industries and manufacturers. Pro-civil rights and also toeing the middle on law and order. Diversity, rainbow court nominees, pro-Allies honoring our treaties and obligations, pro-military. Maybe he's just picking and choosing all that has worked for us, he's pro-American. He even takes on the (R) SCOTUS! And lately the GOP Congress, asking voters to give him a Democratic Congressional majority.

Three branches of government are supposed to be co-equal. A Democratic Congress needs to insulate legislation from heavy-handed judicial review. Biden is doing a great job by using existing law - obscure, obsolete - with agency policies, but it's stopgap because SCOTUS eventually reviews it. But it does clog them up and put them on notice.

So the point of this long-winded reply is ways must be found to defy SCOTUS rulings. SCOTUS (R) majority is coming for your civil rights!

[slightlv]

2. Notice it's only "beyond the pale"

when Democrats talk about this. *rumps administration ignored every ruling it couldn't get to go its way. And one of the most worrisome things I see happening now is the (mostly) Southern states totally disregarding established laws and constitutional requirements. WHERE is the outrage about any of that? IMO, what they're doing is secession in action, if not in written word. You never hear a peep about the "conservatives."