Year of the SCOTUS

All right, vacation's over.  In truth, it wasn't a vacation but a combination of being overly busy at work, out of town on the weekends and without a computer for the last so many months.  But I have a couple of days whereby I can write, and so I will.

In the last couple of the days, the Supreme Court of the United States -- otherwise known as the SCOTUS -- has delivered opinions in 5-4 decisions upholding the travel ban put in place by President Trump, striking a decision that required a Christian family planning center to inform clients about abortion as an option and striking down the requirement that state employees must pay certain union dues even if they don't belong to the union.  In each case, the conservative position was upheld by the Court.  Personally and professionally, I saw each outcome before it happened, meaning that I thought that would be the proper result.  That each outcome was what it was is both shocking and refreshing.

Many on the Left are complaining that the SCOTUS is bought and paid for by conservatives.  Oddly, when decisions went their way during the Obama Administration, there was no equivalent gnashing of teeth and rending of garments.  Chris Matthews, whose career is best defined as political gadfly, was apoplectic at the first two results.  Here's hoping the Janus decision on union dues pushed him over the edge.

What's as surprising as well as troubling is the dissent in the travel ban case reads as if it's out of the Left's playbook.  Invoking Korematsu, the execrable 1940's decision allowing the internment of Japanese-Americans on the basis of national security, Justice Sotomayor railed at the anti-Muslim bias of the travel ban, invoking then-candidate Trump's comments about Islamic terrorism.  Nevermind that the ban, on its face, was neutral in that regard and, as any lawyer would point out, the first level of inquiry of any statute is the plain-language of the statute. 

The hysteria on the Left is entertaining, because it's equivalent to a child whining when it doesn't get its way.  To be sure, disappointment and sadness are to be expected, but the Left's rhetoric -- which in recent days has reached historic lows, a topic for another upcoming post -- smacks of hysteria.

That hysteria is about to go into overdrive.  Today, on the heels of the trio of SCOTUS decisions, Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement.  Assuming the POTUS's nominee is approved by the Senate, which necessarily will happen because the Democrats misplayed the Gorsuch nomination forcing the Republicans to invoke the nuclear option, conservatives will have a 6 to 3 majority in the SCOTUS.  That majority will increase sometime in the next two years, in all likelihood, because Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg is older than Justice Kennedy and has been rumored to be in ill health.

Of course, nothing is written in stone.  Anyone with any sense of history about the SCOTUS will recall Dwight Eisenhower's ill-fated appointment of Earl Warren as Chief Justice in 1953.  Justice Warren led what many believe was one of the most liberal and activist Courts in its history.  Many conservatives have complained that Chief Justice Roberts suffers from the same malady, not being nearly as conservative as they expected him to be when he was appointed.  Ideally, this means that the nominee is independent in thought and action and not doing the President's bidding.  Time will only tell, but for now it doesn't look good for the Left.

I think the SCOTUS reached the right decisions on these three cases.  I don't have a vested interest in any of the outcomes beyond that of any American citizen.  As an attorney I think the right result obtained.

It will be interesting to see how the rest of the Year of the SCOTUS plays out.

(c) 2018 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles