Would you consider this Supreme Court an "activist" Court?

[cascadiance]

4. I think you are right that there was a political element to them...

... but in that case I don't think there's an either/or question here. I think that this court has been judicial activist in its rulings.

I do find that the timing of these decisions all right in a row right after the TPA was passed last week in such a divisive fashion, that helped Obama not only claim victory with these decisions, but to also couple that with his speech in South Carolina to recover some of his tainted image from last week too. I wouldn't be surprised that there was some corporate lobbyist pressure on the court to make these decisions now to help with that.

I was just noting in another post, that I thought it was interesting that there was a lot more media attention to what our state's Senator Wyden's opinions were on these decisions (I saw it mentioned when the decision first come down on local tv here too), than what Senator Merkley's feelings were on them who was on the opposite side of the TPA fence too. Those all together make me wonder if not only were the decisions and their timing "political", but also the media's coverage of those associated with them, who were also associated in a negative way with Fast Track/TPA last week too.

So yes, they were probably "political" too!

BTW, the court case I was referencing was Santa Clara vs. Southern Pacific back in the 1800's. You can read more here...

https://riversong.wordpress.com/myth-of-corporate-personhood/

And note this quote too:

...
In one of the most blatant examples of legal legerdemain, Chief Justice Morrison Waite stated at the outset that “The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does.” The Court Reporter, J.C. Bancroft Davis (former president of the board of directors for the Newburgh & New York Railroad Company), included this statement in the headnotes of the written decision (which was a trivial one, limited to whether fence posts could be considered taxable property).

Such an incidental and collateral opinion that is uttered by a judge (which is known in legal circles as “obiter dictum”), has no legal standing and cannot be used as precedent for future court decisions. In fact, not only is obiter dictum considered non-precedential, the Supreme Court, soon after, decided that headnotes are “not the work of the Court, but are simply the work of the Reporter, giving his understanding of the decision, prepared for the convenience of the profession” (United States v. Detroit Timber Lumber Company, 1906).

But the Supreme Court used those headnotes and the obiter dictum declaration of opinion as the stare decisis (“to stand by decisions”) basis for future, more important, decisions – and thereby it became the defacto law of the land, a case of judicial activism unmatched in our history.

Hugo Black, considered one of the most influential Supreme Court justices in the 20th century, said “Of the cases in this court in which the 14th Amendment was applied during the first 50 years after its adoption, less than one half of one percent invoked it in protection of the Negro race, and more than 50% asked that its benefits be extended to corporations.”
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