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An interesting day today for the Supremes, at the beginning of what promises to be a very interesting week. All of it revolves around just one man, the Honorable Anthony Kennedy, about whom I found assorted posts from recent years, from both extremes, calling for his impeachment.
When you piss off both ends of the political spectrum that badly, you must be doing something right.
The bad part first: Citizens United has been expanded into an effective pre-emption of state campaign finance limits on corporate speech. Yes, it's hideous, and makes even more poisonous chickenshit salad out of the original over-reaching of 2010. But, and I know at least one of you doesn't care, it did it on a correct ground that's subject to popular correction of the result.
First curiosity: today's decision (American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock, if you're keeping score at home) was unsigned. That means Kennedy aligned with the rest of the Reagan-Bush Mafia to support it, but neither he nor any of the others was willing to put their name to it.
Second: the opinion was all of one paragraph, saying in essence, "We saw this." It affirmed the supremacy of the prior federal decision over inconsistent state laws and preferences. Even the Clinton-Obama dissenters kept it short and sweet, because they knew the reasoning was right even if the particular result was wrong.
Most important: our fellow Americans are not stupid. They can be dragged toward stupidity, but I have an essential faith in our good nature and noses for bullshit. There is a mechanism for fixing Citizens United that involves neither this Court nor Congress; it's the state-convention option of Constitution Article V, which allows citizens to bypass both by calling for the presentation of amendments through their state processes. It's been done only once, but for just as worthy a cause- the repeal of Prohibition- and after a full election cycle of being bombarded by rich guys like the Kochsucker Brothers and Mister Freiss and their super-PAC ads and robocalls and "surveys" (I got one as I was writing this, for crysake), I see the groundswell being there to tell these assholes to put their money where the sun don't shine rather than interrupting our sporting events and dinners.
----
Kennedy was equally right about, and wrote under his signature, the next variation on the theme. Arizona v. U.S. struck down most of that state's bigoted "Papers please" immigration legislation. Right-wingut pundits will tell you that the Court's affirmance of the actual check-paper provision is a win for truth, justice and the American Gringo way. They are lying. Justice Kennedy was emphatic in affirming the authority of the federal government to enforce its laws on matters constitutionally granted to Congress, without having every finger-wagging governor imposing her or his own spins on it. All state officials can do is report suspected illegals to the federal authorities, who retain their exclusive jurisdiction over how to respond to those reports, if at all.
Anything coming from Sheriff Joe, for instance, should continue to be responded to with sad giggles.
----
Case the third: Miller v. Alafreakinbama. Written by Justice Kagan, but again with Kennedy as the decisive vote, this decision made plain that the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment was not subject to the whims and testosterone of state legislators wanting to send juvenile offenders to thegallows cold metal table just to make an example of them.
The Usual Right-Wing suspects all dissented, saying that the cruelness and unusualness of punishment should be left to the province of duly elected legislatures. It'll be interesting to see how they distinguish THAT when they try to emasculate the will of Congress later this week on the health care decision.
The only important factor is whether they can get Kennedy to join with them in doing that. And given how he sided all three times today in favor of the supremacy of federal authority in matters made clear in the Constitution to be federal, I'm seeing that as nine leather seats of bad road for the Right.
(One theory kicking around is that Chief Justice Roberts, faced with that, will fall on his sword and vote to affirm the constitutionality of the ACA, just so he can assign the opinion to himself and limit its precedential damage. Not sure if I'd take that bet, but as of this writing I'm going with Obamacare with the points.)
When you piss off both ends of the political spectrum that badly, you must be doing something right.
The bad part first: Citizens United has been expanded into an effective pre-emption of state campaign finance limits on corporate speech. Yes, it's hideous, and makes even more poisonous chickenshit salad out of the original over-reaching of 2010. But, and I know at least one of you doesn't care, it did it on a correct ground that's subject to popular correction of the result.
First curiosity: today's decision (American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock, if you're keeping score at home) was unsigned. That means Kennedy aligned with the rest of the Reagan-Bush Mafia to support it, but neither he nor any of the others was willing to put their name to it.
Second: the opinion was all of one paragraph, saying in essence, "We saw this." It affirmed the supremacy of the prior federal decision over inconsistent state laws and preferences. Even the Clinton-Obama dissenters kept it short and sweet, because they knew the reasoning was right even if the particular result was wrong.
Most important: our fellow Americans are not stupid. They can be dragged toward stupidity, but I have an essential faith in our good nature and noses for bullshit. There is a mechanism for fixing Citizens United that involves neither this Court nor Congress; it's the state-convention option of Constitution Article V, which allows citizens to bypass both by calling for the presentation of amendments through their state processes. It's been done only once, but for just as worthy a cause- the repeal of Prohibition- and after a full election cycle of being bombarded by rich guys like the Kochsucker Brothers and Mister Freiss and their super-PAC ads and robocalls and "surveys" (I got one as I was writing this, for crysake), I see the groundswell being there to tell these assholes to put their money where the sun don't shine rather than interrupting our sporting events and dinners.
----
Kennedy was equally right about, and wrote under his signature, the next variation on the theme. Arizona v. U.S. struck down most of that state's bigoted "Papers please" immigration legislation. Right-wingut pundits will tell you that the Court's affirmance of the actual check-paper provision is a win for truth, justice and the American Gringo way. They are lying. Justice Kennedy was emphatic in affirming the authority of the federal government to enforce its laws on matters constitutionally granted to Congress, without having every finger-wagging governor imposing her or his own spins on it. All state officials can do is report suspected illegals to the federal authorities, who retain their exclusive jurisdiction over how to respond to those reports, if at all.
Anything coming from Sheriff Joe, for instance, should continue to be responded to with sad giggles.
----
Case the third: Miller v. Alafreakinbama. Written by Justice Kagan, but again with Kennedy as the decisive vote, this decision made plain that the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment was not subject to the whims and testosterone of state legislators wanting to send juvenile offenders to the
The Usual Right-Wing suspects all dissented, saying that the cruelness and unusualness of punishment should be left to the province of duly elected legislatures. It'll be interesting to see how they distinguish THAT when they try to emasculate the will of Congress later this week on the health care decision.
The only important factor is whether they can get Kennedy to join with them in doing that. And given how he sided all three times today in favor of the supremacy of federal authority in matters made clear in the Constitution to be federal, I'm seeing that as nine leather seats of bad road for the Right.
(One theory kicking around is that Chief Justice Roberts, faced with that, will fall on his sword and vote to affirm the constitutionality of the ACA, just so he can assign the opinion to himself and limit its precedential damage. Not sure if I'd take that bet, but as of this writing I'm going with Obamacare with the points.)