Ideology

BRT has talked about the Robert's SC on numerous occasions as you, my loyal readers know. From Citizens United to Greece NY, the radical decisions authored by this ideological court in direct oposition to the Constitution and our civil rights, has had no equal since the founding of this once great nation. To further support BRT's argument comes a superb Linda Greenhouse NYTimes article titled Polar Vision.

But I’m finding it impossible to avoid the conclusion that the Republican-appointed majority is committed to harnessing the Supreme Court to an ideological agenda. The evidence is everywhere: from the way the court invited and then accepted a fundamental challenge to public employee labor unions in Harris v. Quinn, a case argued in January and due for decision any day; to its brick-by-brick deregulation of campaign finance; to its obsession with race and with drawing the final curtain on the civil rights revolution.

I wrote “ideological” rather than “partisan” agenda because there’s something deeper going on than mere partisanship. Congress, after all, reauthorized the Voting Rights Act in 2006 by overwhelming bipartisan majorities in both houses, in a bill signed into law by President George W. Bush. The Bush administration urged the court to uphold the law in one of the last briefs filed before the president left office. It was a small cadre of right-wing activists that pressed the opposing view on the court. Success took a while: The court lost its nerve on that initial round in 2009, but conspicuously kept the door open for a renewed challenge. The result was last term’s Shelby County v. Holder, the 5-to-4 decision that cut the heart out of the Voting Rights Act – which had been the plan all along.

I rest my case.