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2016 Postmortem
Showing Original Post only (View all)Only Eight Years of President Hillary Can Take the Supreme Court Away From Conservatives [View all]
Michael TomaskyThere will be more Hobby Lobbies and Citizens United if Democrats dont get a lock on the White House and pack the bench for a generation.
We learned a lot about this Supreme Court on Monday. For one thing, its conservative majority thinks that a for-profit company selling plastic flowers is legally the same thing as a religious nonprofit doing charity work in accordance with its scriptural beliefs. But I really mean weve learned about the Courts modus operandi, and it portends terrible things for the future unless that conservative majority is reduced to a minority. I say to despairing liberals today: It can be so reduced, and all of this judicial activismall of this legislating from the benchcan be overturned.
Its clear now across a number of legal areas that the Courts conservatives pick their spots very carefully. Theyre playing the long game. Theyre like a lion toying with a captured springbok. Youve seen it on the Discovery channel: The lion captures the prey and toys with it for a whileminutes on TV, but in real life sometimes hoursbefore actually consummating the kill.
So it has been with the conservative majority. Across numerous areas, from abortion rights to affirmative action to voting rights to campaign finance to school desegregation, the Courts majority, whether led by William Rehnquist or John Roberts, has generally taken things kind of slow. A decision here will chip away at that particular right, a decision there will roll the clock back a few years but only a few. The result has been a bit of a paradox: a majority that is decidedly radical in its aims but a bit gradualist in its methods.
Voting rights provides perhaps the best example. In a 2009 case, the Roberts Court upheld the Voting Rights Act by 8-1 (Who are you thinking the 1 was? Prize if you guessed Clarence Thomas.) Roberts, writing for the majority, noted then the Court was ducking for the time being the big questions of constitutionality: Whether conditions [faced by black voters in covered jurisdictions] continue to justify such legislation is a difficult constitutional question we do not answer today. Four years later, of course, the majority sunk its great canine teeth right into the Acts neck, in Shelby County v. Holder.
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/30/only-eight-years-of-president-hillary-can-take-the-supreme-court-away-from-conservatives.html
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Only Eight Years of President Hillary Can Take the Supreme Court Away From Conservatives [View all]
DonViejo
Jul 2014
OP
This is why so many of us were angry about 2010. Forget Obama. So much progress
Liberal_Stalwart71
Jul 2014
#18
Hillary Clinton is a Bilderberger AND she is the MAIN architect of the TPP! She will
Welibs
Jul 2014
#5
No silly. We are to just assume that vague terms are valid reasons to not vote for Hillary
LynneSin
Jul 2014
#8
I don't see Mrs Clintons name anywhere in either TTIP or TPP works, where is it?
Sunlei
Jul 2014
#28
To be honest that is the same that could be said for just about any Democrat out there
LynneSin
Jul 2014
#7
I don't think he would, not as long as there are enough moderates and liberals in
Liberal_Stalwart71
Jul 2014
#15
I can't see a conservative Democrat (from Joe Manchin's cloth) getting the party's nomination.
BlueDemKev
Jul 2014
#46
You mean surveillance state, education deform, free trade loving, jail the whistleblowers, give
TheKentuckian
Jul 2014
#42
I'd think his wife would be better, if you feel the need for an Obama.
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
Jul 2014
#54
Hillary Clinton or ANY Democrat in White House. I don't care who it is. As long as he/she
Liberal_Stalwart71
Jul 2014
#12
If Hillary or any dem is elected in 2016, Scalia and Kennedy will turn 84 during the last year of
MillennialDem
Jul 2014
#24
There is a relatively high chance (probably close to 50/50) that one of the two will die in the next
MillennialDem
Jul 2014
#36
I'll somewhat buy the argument that they get better healthcare than us plebs, but the math says
MillennialDem
Jul 2014
#39
a subway line in NYC from back in the day when I lived there...I think it stood for Brooklyn
CTyankee
Jul 2014
#33
The price of public transportation has gone up on Portland have gone up quite a bit
davidpdx
Jul 2014
#34
We aren't going to get equally liberal to Ginsberg. We didn't get equal to Stephens or even Souter
TheKentuckian
Jul 2014
#43
Hillary will be a bigger capitulator than her husband, Hillary is pure corporate conservative.
Todays_Illusion
Jul 2014
#47