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The ‘Supremacy’ of the Supreme Court’s Endorsement of Minority Rule Endangers American Democracy and is to be FEARED(1) Congress passes laws,
(2) the Executive Branch, headed by the
President, administers these laws and
(3) disputes over the meaning of and the
validity of laws are resolved by the
Judiciary, with the Supreme Court as the final arbiter.
That’s how our federal government was
designed to work as documented by the first three articles of the Constitution,
and in tandem with the governments of the states, united to form the ‘United
States’ of America.
How are these three branches of our government in
our representative democracy filled?
(1) The voters elect the Congress, and also
(2) Vote for ‘electors’ who elect the President,
(3) who in turn appoints the federal judiciary with the
approval of the Senate (the least representative part of Congress), including
the Justices of the members of the Supreme Court.
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| Supreme Court Building |
That body of nine Justices seems
to have the last word in determining how this system works, being able to address
the meaning of and validity of laws passed by Congress and carried out by the Executive branch.
Let’s look at a roadmap showing the circuitous and indirect route of your vote in selecting these Supreme Court Justices. It follows a path that begins with your voting for electors every four years who choose the President, (the number of electors being determined by each State’s number of Senators and House Representatives combined), and then continues on to the Senate (not the House of Representatives) where the President’s nominees for judgeships, including those on the Supreme Court, are voted upon. By quite a stretch, supposedly that’s democracy at work.
Unfortunately, this system does not reflect the
views of the majority of the people due to (1) the intentionally undemocratic
nature of the Senate itself and also (2) its role in determining the number
of presidential electors each State has.
(Without explaining this in detail, just consider that California
with 40,000,000 residents, and Wyoming with less than 600,000 residents, each
have two Senators.) This 'thumb on the scale' in the Senate is reflected in both the
composition of the Electoral College and of the forum where judicial
appointments are confirmed.
It can, and sometimes does, result in the
Electoral College electing a president who did not win the ‘popular’ vote and whose judicial nominations are acted on by the Senate, approving judges who
would never be approved by the more representative House of Representatives, which has no say on
the nominations. This is intentional.
Giving two Senate seats to each State,
regardless of population, is not representative democracy, and the
Supreme Court reflects this, in terms of who is nominated and who is approved.
Right now, as a result of this Constitutionally prescribed 'thumb on the scale,' we have a Supreme Court, which indeed does have
the last word as to how our system of government works, but is a Court that is
totally out of touch with a majority of the American people. That is the way the
Constitution defined our government. The
‘Founding Fathers’ did not fully trust the voters. In 1789, they had good reason, particularly
those who represented, and often themselves were, owners of significant amounts
of property, including slaves. They saw what the ‘have-nots’ were doing with
their ‘freedom’ across the Atlantic in France. Do we have similar reasons not to entirely trust
democracy today as they did then? But
that is another question.
Long term solutions to repair the Supreme Court’s undemocratic deficiencies, such as increasing its number of Justices or removing that 'thumb from the scale,' changing the Constitution’s ‘two seats for each State’ composition of the Senate would take years to even attempt to accomplish.
For the present, then, that leaves the American
people with only one thing that they can do about this power given by the
Constitution to the Supreme Court and that is to show their displeasure with
them.
Their very unpopular decision overturning a woman’s right to abortion as
established by Roe vs. Wade half a century ago spotlights this issue and gives
the public a grand opportunity to do precisely that.
If every elected official who fails to denounce
the Supreme Court’s Dobbs vs. Jackson decision, which repealed Roe vs. Wade,
were to be defeated on November 8, perhaps the Supreme Court would get
the message. A
massive turnout of women voters from the Atlantic to the Pacific might just
accomplish that!
Most Americans, other than six Supreme Court
Justices, recognize that no judge or government official (or as in Texas, any
interested citizen) should be able to interfere with private medical decisions made
between patients and their doctors. While our system is designed so that Supreme
Court Justices are isolated from such popular opinion and pressures, who knows
what would happen in the face of such a massive outpouring of voters
disagreeing with them.
IF PUSHED TO ANSWER THE QUESTION, MOST REPUBLICAN OFFICEHOLDERS AND CANDIDATES WILL ADMIT TO SUPPORTING THE REPEAL OF ROE vs. WADE, even if only to get the votes of the minority who sincerely supported repeal.
THESE REPUBLICANS MUST BE DEFEATED!
They enable and represent minority rule, which must not be allowed to be dominant in a representative democracy. They must not be allowed to get away with it! IT IS AN ISSUE THAT MUST BE USED AGAINST THEM, SPEARHEADED BY ATTACKING THEIR SUPPORT OF THE REPEAL OF ROE vs WADE!
Failing to defeat them opens the door for such minority
rule to change the acceptance of same-sex marriage, contraception, LGBTQ
rights, and interracial marriage, all made possible through Supreme Court decisions that are now as vulnerable as it turns out that
Roe vs. Wade was. A Supreme Court
which treats the doctrine of ‘stare decisis’ (basing decisions on
precedent) so lightly is to be feared.
You must voice your opinion on
November 8. Massively!
JL
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To How Many People Have YOU Forwarded
this Blog Posting?
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America Afloat
(A poem that is always worth repeating in these blog postings. To learn more, visit this blog's posting of July 30, 2022, accessible from the Archives off to the right.) JL
America
Afloat
Jack Lippman
The greatness of America
Is
that it does survive
Attacks
upon democracy
Whose
flame it keeps alive.
The
laws that blossom from the words
The
Founding Fathers wrote
Still
serve us well today to keep
America
afloat.
This
doesn’t happen by itself,
We
cannot wish it true,
The
bottom line, my friends, is that
It all depends on you.
JL
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To How Many People
Have You Forwarded This Blog Posting?
That’s Not Enough!
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