As if every case the U.S. Supreme Court has decided since Citizens United wasn’t enough to make one think the Court has sold out to big business, new data published by the Constitutional Accountability Center (CAC) confirms that the Justices are continually being won by the dark side of the law. The data revealed that The Chamber of Commerce, the biggest lobbying group for big business, has won 11 of the 16 cases in which it filed briefs during this past term. That amounts to a 69 percent win rate this term and 70 percent since Chief Justice Roberts took to the bench. It is by the far the highest win rate in modern history. As a comparison, during the years when the court was led by the last chief, Justice William Rehnquist, the Chamber’s win rate was 56 percent, and under the chief before that, Warren Burger, its win rate was just 43 percent. When you consider the rise of hegemonic economic power in this country over the past 10 to 20 years the numbers are troubling, especially since Supreme Court decisions shape the country’s direction and have an unforeseen impact for many years after the decision. In other words, these decisions will do little to lessen the gap between the rich and poor in our country, and will only increase the corporate stranglehold over U.S. Citizens. While this interpretation of the statistics may seem extreme, consider the words of University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone who predicted this shift in the Court three years ago: The steady shift of the court to the right reflects broader tendencies in neoliberal/financialized American political economy and society. As the Wall Street Journal explains, contemporary Republicans use their tenure in power to select justices with a provocative philosophical profile who are dedicated to a conservative approach to legal interpretation - euphemisms for an ultranationalist, extreme pro-business, and socially reactionary posture, reflecting the shift of the party since Reagan to a unified far-right stance, eliminating Republican moderates. The Democrats, also drifting toward the right (New Democrats), keep away from candidates with a sharp liberal record, trailblazing liberals like the late Justice William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall, preferring centrist liberals like Obamas appointment Sonia Sotomayor. The result is that the court is getting this completely skewed internal debate about how to think about constitutional law, skewed to the right. This may not be a surprise to liberal thinkers, but to the people out there who think that the Court Justices actually try to maintain an err of objectivity in their decisions, think again. There is less and less of a middle ground in the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Roberts’ regime, and it will only get worse as more centrist and conservative judges are appointed to the bench.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Jul 2014 22:16:26 +0000
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