October 27, 2020
Yesterday, with eight days left until Election Day, after almost 64 million Americans had already voted, in a ruthlessly hypocritical move, Republicans voted to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Determined not to wait a minute more than necessary, Barrett was then hastily sworn in at The White House, instead of The Supreme Court, by Clarence Thomas, rather than Chief Justice Roberts. The symbolism was not subtle. It was grotesquely fitting that the self-loathing, sexual harasser who replaced civil rights giant, Thurgood Marshall, administered the oath to the retrograde, repressive handmaid eager to erase all of the gains for women won by her predecessor, the Notorious RBG. With her installation, the Supreme Court now has three justices from the Republican legal team in Bush v. Gore, solidifying a supermajority with hostility to voting rights.
After all, even an 8 member Supreme Court has been working overtime to disenfranchise Americans who aren’t Republican. Last week, the Supreme Court was only one vote shy of a majority that would have overruled a decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court interpreting Pennsylvania state law. Justices Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Thomas “would have required Pennsylvania to stop accepting absentee ballots when the polls close on November 3rd,” (Source: “High Court allows 3 day extension for Pennsylvania ballots,” by Mark Sherman and Marc Levy, APnews.com, 10/20/20). Given the absence of any opinion accompanying their votes, it is impossible to know their rationale.
Before anyone could lionize Roberts as a champion of democracy, last night, he joined the conservatives in a 5-3 decision upholding the 7th Circuit’s reinstatement of a hard Election Day deadline for the receipt of absentee ballots in Wisconsin, another critical battleground state, (Source: “Supreme Court Won’t Extend Wisconsin’s Deadline for Mailed Ballots,” by Adam Liptak, The New York Times, 10/26/20). Although no opinion accompanied the order, three of the justices in the majority wrote concurring opinions and Justice Elena Kagan wrote a withering dissent joined by Justices Sotomayor and Breyer. As Mark Joseph Stern details here, Justice Kavanaugh’s opinion was both alarmingly extreme and intellectually dishonest. Kavanaugh cited the Rehnquist concurring opinion in Bush v. Gore as if it were the majority opinion and cited as support for a hard deadline of Election Day, an article by Richard Pildes that directly contradicted the point (Source: ibid).
As record numbers of Americans flock to the polls, the desperate determination of those on the right to enshrine permanent minority rule is palpable. The spate of vote suppressing Supreme Court rulings is an obvious effort to game the results for the Republicans, and Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation at breakneck speed is their insurance policy if that gambit fails.
We should recognize what these moves represent — fear. Deep down, these unprincipled sophists in black robes know that we the people have the ability to stop their authoritarian power grab. We’re fools if we don’t use it. We must vote in numbers to give Biden/Harris an Electoral College landslide, and once they’re in office, press them to reclaim real democracy. After all, our country’s creed is, “liberty and justice for all.” We have seven days.
#VOTE
#WisconsinDemocraticParty
#Endminorityrule