Republicans and other conservatives were seized by conniption fits when
President Biden formed a commission to investigate the possibility of expanding the number of justices on the Supreme Court.
Quite predictably, the committee has recommended that the court should not be expanded. So what else is new in D.C.?
What that committee, Republicans, other erstwhile conservatives, and establishment Democrats all fail to recognize, at least in public, is that the Supreme Court has already been successfully “packed” by Senator Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump.
Millions of dollars of “dark money” has been invested in placing new justices on the bench that will predictably rule in favor of big-money, corporate interests.
The fact that some of these justices may also lean in an anti-abortion direction is a serendipitous coincidence for “pro-life” evangelicals who are generally so monomaniacally focused on their anti-abortion agenda that they give little thought to other issues at stake.
The Daily Poster has an important article entitled “How Dark Money Captured the Supreme Court” describing a recent report issued by three senior members of the Senate.
The report explains the pivotal role played by anonymous, big-money donors in the selection of the Supreme Court justices appointed by Donald Trump and the Republican members of the Senate.
Justice may still be blind — though that is debatable — but her sensitive nose can detect the sickening-sweet smell of money a mile away. And her hand is always held out for another corrupting contribution.
Here is the article. I strongly encourage you to follow the links and read the additional material you find there:
As Congress nears a deal on Biden’s Build Back Better reconciliation bill, a separate battle is quietly playing out within the Democratic Party over how to handle the extremism and minoritarian rule of the Supreme Court.
Last week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sens. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., published a report on the way that dark money and corporations have captured the Supreme Court.
The report lays out how an extensive network of right-wing groups — including the Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation, and organizations in the Koch network — have worked to appoint judges who undermine voting rights and favor corporate interests.
What is perhaps most remarkable about the report is that three senators, including the Senate majority leader, are raising serious questions about the legitimacy of an institution that many Democrats are unwilling to confront.
For example, just two weeks earlier, the commission that Biden set up to examine court reform published draft materials of their own report. Those materials expressed skepticism about adding justices to the court, suggesting that it would be seen as a partisan move and undermine public trust in the court.
“Some commissioners believe that there is a real risk that the willingness of Congress to expand the size of the U.S. Supreme Court could further weaken national and international norms against tampering with independent judiciaries,” said the draft document on court expansion, even going so far as to suggest that court-packing may be evidence of “democratic backsliding.”
But, as the three senators’ new report on “court capture” argues, the country’s highest court is already being manipulated.
Whitehouse separately wrote a law review article last week about the influence of dark money and dark money groups’ use of amicus briefs to influence the court.
“The effects of this litigation strategy on our democracy are frightening: the courts are becoming an arena for enacting policies by judicial decree that are too unpopular to pass through democratically elected legislatures,” he wrote. “These coordinated efforts warp the judiciary toward anonymous, ultrawealthy donor interests, all without the public ever learning about the role of dark-money interests in shaping the law.”
