Thomas Jipping Contributor of The Daily Signal
Democrats in Congress, together with their allies among left-wing groups and in the media, are attempting a hostile takeover of the Supreme Court. Their current tactics demonstrate what “by any means necessary” really means.
In the system of government America’s Founders gave us, limits on government are necessary to achieve its purpose of protecting liberty. Those limits include the separation of powers, federalism, a written Constitution, and a judiciary that will follow—rather than control—that Constitution.
Limits like those help keep too much power from ending up in too few hands.
The Left, however, is after power rather than liberty and, therefore, sees limits on government as obstacles to be overcome. They especially want to control the Supreme Court because it’s the final interpreter of the Constitution, the “supreme law of the land.”
Controlling what the Constitution means is controlling what the Constitution is, no matter what it says.
The Left’s campaign to control the Supreme Court has three parts.
First, they push the idea that the current justices are deciding cases politically, rather than impartially. In other words, the justices are twisting and shaping the Constitution’s meaning to reach results that advance certain political interests.
This tactic appears to be working. In a March poll, 62% of respondents said that justices often decide cases based on “their own personal or political views,” rather than “legal analysis.”
Second, the Left attacks Supreme Court decisions, and individual justices, that do not reliably advance liberal political interests, as partisan, corrupt, or unethical.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., for example, claims that the Republican-appointed justices have “delivered rulings that advantage the big corporate and special interests that are, in turn, the political lifeblood of the Republican Party.”
Whitehouse doesn’t even try to argue that the decisions he doesn’t like were legally incorrect, or applied the law improperly, only that they advanced the wrong political interests.
The Left’s personal attacks on certain justices follow the same pattern. Their agenda is obvious from the way they try to smear justices they don’t like and give a pass to the ones they do.
Most Americans know nothing about the laws and guidelines that justices follow in making decisions about such things as financial disclosures, recusing themselves from individual cases, or following general standards of judicial conduct.