“In A Partisan League Of His Own”: Alito, Doing Everything He Can To Be ‘A Corporation’s Best Friend’
On Monday morning, around 10 a.m. ET, much of the nation’s political and legal world turned to Scotusblog to learn the outcome of two of the year’s biggest Supreme Court cases. Moments later, the blog told us that Justice Samuel Alito was delivering both rulings.
And it was at this point that everyone immediately knew that conservatives had won both cases.
What about the possibility of a surprise? How could everyone be absolutely certain that Alito would side with the right? Was it really so inconceivable that Alito would honor precedent and play against type?
Actually, yes, it was inconceivable.
Ian Millhiser made a compelling case today that Alito is “the most partisan” justice on the bench, making it pretty clear what to expect when he’s written a ruling.
According to data by Washington University Professor Lee Epstein, Alito is more likely to cast a conservative vote than anyone else on the Court.
To be fully precise, that does not make Alito the Court’s most conservative member. That honor belongs to Justice Clarence Thomas, who is the only member of the Court who openly pines for the days when federal child labor laws were considered unconstitutional. Yet, while Alito can’t match Thomas’s radicalism, he is far and away the most partisan member of the Court.
To explain this distinction, Thomas is not a partisan. He is an ideologue. His decisions are driven by a fairly coherent judicial philosophy which would often read the Constitution in much the same way that it was understood in 1918. While this methodology typically leads him to conservative results, it does occasionally align him with the Court’s liberals…. What makes Alito a partisan is that there is no similar case where his judicial philosophy drove him to a result that put him at odds with his fellow conservatives.
To put this in perspective, note that Millhiser highlighted a striking detail: Alito is the only sitting justice who has never crossed over – in effect, breaking ranks with the usual ideological allies – in a closely divided case.
Nine years ago, you’ll recall that Alito was not George W. Bush’s first choice. Rather, the Republican president initially nominated Harriet Miers, the White House counsel at the time, for the lifetime appointment on the high court.
It was among the more foolish decisions Bush made, which ended in an embarrassing withdrawal.
Miers was obviously unqualified, but Bush’s second choice, Sam Alito, is in many ways worse.
Millhiser’s indictment on Alito’s partisanship, his activism, his reliance on a raw political perspective, his desire to be “a corporation’s best friend,” makes a persuasive case and is worth checking out.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, July 2, 2014
“About That ‘Worst President’ Poll”: A Problematic Conclusion For The Media And Republicans To Draw
I’ve thought a couple of times about writing something on that annoying Quinnipiac poll conservative gabbers are gabbing about that shows Barack Obama eclipsing past bad presidents as the “worst” president. But Sean Trende of RCP did a better job of debunking it than I could, so here’s his take:
A poll from Quinnipiac has been making the rounds of late, with the media focusing in on a question that purportedly shows Americans consider Barack Obama the worst president since World War II (he led all others with 33 percent of the responses). But that is a problematic conclusion to draw from this particular question. First, we could just as easily state that 67 percent of Americans believe that someone other than Obama is the worst postwar president.
More importantly, these sorts of “multiple choice” questions, which pop up from time to time in various contexts, tend to raise eyebrows, because partisan unity can drive the results. And what really drives this particular finding is that Republicans are much more unified in their dislike of Obama than Democrats are in their dislike of any particular GOP president. A full 63 percent of Republicans identify Obama as the worst, with Jimmy Carter lagging far behind at 14 percent, an almost 50-percentage-point differential.
Among Democrats, however, 54 percent name George W. Bush as the worst president, followed by Richard Nixon at 20 percent, a 34-point differential. Had Democrats been able to agree more on their least-favorite president, Obama might not have come in first.
Indeed, if we add up the percentages for all the Democratic and Republican presidents on the list, 49 percent of respondents named a Republican commander-in-chief, while 47 percent named a Democratic one. (Among Independents, 50 percent named a Democrat, while 43 percent named a Republican, but this probably reflects the disproportionate number of disaffected Republicans who currently consider themselves Independent).
The bottom line is that Republican presidents offer a target-rich environment for ratings of the “worst.” And that shouldn’t be anything for them to brag about.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly, Political Animal, July 3, 2014
“Hobby Lobby Decision Is Not About Religious Freedom”: One More Battleground In The Never-Ending Culture War
Why are we still arguing over contraception?
Of all the mind-blowing medical advances of the last 50 years — in-utero surgery, genetic testing, face transplants — why is it that the sale and use of convenient, reliable birth control pills and devices still sparks such controversy?
The Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision — in which the court’s conservative wing gave religious rights to corporations — is just one more battleground in the never-ending culture war. The high court ruled that the Affordable Care Act violates the religious rights of two family-held corporations whose owners objected to a requirement that they provide employees with health insurance policies that pay for a variety of contraceptives. Hobby Lobby, a crafts chain owned by Southern Baptists, and Conestoga Wood, owned by Mennonites, objected to four contraceptives that they mistakenly consider abortifacients.
If abortion were the animating issue, then liberals, conservatives and moderates would have joined forces long ago to promote more effective family planning. That would be the best way to limit abortions, which are usually the result of unintended pregnancies. Instead, the religious right continues to stand in the way of birth control.
The high court’s ruling, issued last week, hardly seems calamitous since it was limited to those four family planning methods. But the decision, by five male justices, still points to a curious sexism that pervades much of the political discussion around contraception. It’s no wonder that conservatives are accused of waging a “war on women.”
As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted in her dissent, “The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives.” In other words, the remarkable cultural transformation that has allowed women to assume leadership roles in corporations, in the military and in politics was assisted by the revolution in reliable contraception, starting with the introduction of “the pill” in 1960.
History reminds us, though, that family planning has long been political. In 1879, the state of Connecticut passed a law prohibiting the use of “any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception.” Remarkably, the Supreme Court didn’t strike down that intrusive law until 1965, nearly a hundred years later.
In the decades since, women — and men — have largely taken for granted the right to convenient and reliable birth control. That’s true even among Roman Catholics, although papal doctrine still forbids it. According to the Pew Research Center, only 15 percent of Catholics view contraceptive use as “morally wrong.”
Yet, the backlash among ultraconservatives has become more evident in recent years, especially since the mandate on contraception coverage in Obamacare. In 2012, a young Georgetown law student named Sandra Fluke incited the ire of conservatives when she insisted that her university should offer contraceptives in its health insurance policies, despite its church affiliation. Among the more memorable comments that have been directed her way, Rush Limbaugh labeled her a “slut” and a “prostitute.”
Several months ago, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a Fox News commentator still popular on the ultraconservative lecture circuit, was explicitly sexist as he blasted Democrats’ support for contraceptive coverage in the ACA, claiming they want women to think “they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido …”
Indeed, Republican politicians and their allies have showered invective on women who believe that health insurance plans should pay for a full range of reproductive services, including birth control devices and medications. Their rhetoric is full of offensive references to women’s sexuality, which tells you all you need to know about where they’re coming from.
Of course, Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, was much more circumspect in his language. Still, the majority’s outdated ideology shines through — partly because they made clear that their reasoning applies only to contraceptives and not to other medical care. There is no religious exemption for, say, a company owned by Jehovah’s Witnesses that doesn’t want its health insurance policies to pay for blood transfusions.
This ruling had little to do with religious liberty and much to do with women’s reproductive freedom.
By: Cynthia Tucker, Visiting Professor at The University of Georgia; The National Memo, July 5, 2014
“Christie Vetoes Another Gun-Safety Measure”: It’s A Real Shame To See What Some Republicans Will Do In Advance Of A GOP Primary
In early 2013, not long after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) endorsed a series of gun reforms, including a ban on .50-cabliber weapons, saying there was no need for consumers to purchase these kinds of firearms. It was a sensible point – .50-cabliber weapons fire ammunition the size of carrots, have the capacity to pierce steel plate armor from several hundred yards away, and can even shoot down airplanes.
But when New Jersey’s Democratic legislature approved a ban on .50-cabliber weapons, Christie vetoed the bill. The pandering to the Republican Party’s far-right base had begun.
It’s an ongoing exercise.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie vetoed a gun control bill on Wednesday that would have banned magazines with more than 10 rounds of ammunition.
The potential 2016 GOP presidential candidate called the restriction of the number of bullets “trivial,” and denied such a limit could prevent future mass shootings.
“Mass violence will not end by changing the number of bullets loaded into a gun,” Christie said in his veto message.
Well, no, of course not. But the point isn’t to end mass violence with one gun-safety reform; the point is to potentially reduce the number of casualties the next time a gunman goes on a rampage.
The governor must have some basic understanding of this, making his statement a classic example of willful ignorance.
I’ve never really understood why limits on high-capacity gun magazines are a problem for so many Republicans. These limits aren’t unconstitutional; they don’t affect hunters; and they don’t prevent Americans from buying firearms to protect themselves.
They might, however, help take the “mass” out of “mass shootings.” So what’s the problem? Other than the NRA telling Republicans that all reforms are bad reforms?
There’s some evidence that the shooter in Newtown paused to reload during the massacre. Nicole Hockley, whose six-year-old son Dylan was killed, said last year, “We have learned that in the time it took him to reload in one of the classrooms, 11 children were able to escape. We ask ourselves every day – every minute – if those magazines had held 10 rounds, forcing the shooter to reload at least six more times, would our children be alive today?”
It’s against this backdrop that Chris Christie vetoed a measure to limit magazine capacity, saying, “I will not support such a trivial approach to the sanctity of human life, because this is not governing.”
I haven’t the foggiest idea what that even means. What’s “trivial” about limiting magazine capacity in an attempt to save lives? If it’s “not governing,” what is it?
It’s a real shame to see what some Republicans have to do in advance of a GOP primary.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, July 3, 2014
“Calling The Shots”: Who If Not Tea Folk Control GOP Agenda?
We’re now in the less fertile summer plain of primary elections, with no contests this month other than the unfinished business of runoffs in Alabama and North Carolina on July 15 and Georgia on July 22. So it’s a good time to look back on what Republicans in particular hath wrought, and at TPMCafe Harvard’s expert on (among other things) the Tea Party, Theda Skocpol, suggests we should be looking at Congress rather than the primary outcomes for a sense of where things stand inside the GOP.
An obsession with toting up wins and losses in primaries completely misreads how Tea Party forces work, how they have moved the governing agendas of the Republican Party ever further right and maintained a stranglehold on federal government action….
Tea Party clout in and upon Republican officials, officeholders, and candidates is actually maximized by the dynamic interplay of top-down and bottom-up forces, both pushing for absolute opposition to President Barack Obama and obstruction of Congressional action involving compromises with Democrats. Tea Party forces are neither inside nor outside, neither for nor against the Republican Party in any simple sense, because they are sets of organizations and activists seeking leverage over the choices and actions of Republican leaders and candidates.
This dynamic long preceded the inauguration of Obama and the formal launching of the Tea Party Movement, but has surely intensified since 2009.
To see that the Tea Party remains supremely effective, just look at what Congressional Republicans are doing, or not doing. Eric Cantor’s sudden defeat sealed the GOP House’s determination to block immigration reform, but that reform was already effectively dead even before that one primary election happened. Republicans have pulled away from decades-old compromises to fund transportation systems, to support agricultural subsidies along with Food Stamps, to renew the Export-Import Bank that most U.S. business interests want continued. House and Senate Republicans are spending their time mainly on obstruction and media-focused investigations, anything to challenge and humiliate President Obama. In state houses, Tea Party-pushed Republicans are mainly passing anti-abortion restrictions and blocking the expansion of Medicaid favored by hospitals and businesses.
What do primary elections have to do with such effective agenda control? Not nearly as much as the basketball finals approach to tallying total wins and losses implies. In a way, unpredictable and somewhat random victories against fairly safe Republican power-brokers are the most effective outcomes for Tea Party voters and funders. Sure, the big Tea Party funders would like to have gotten a win for Chris McDaniel, their guy in Mississippi, and they are furious that they did not. But backing up and looking at the big picture, does anyone really imagine that nervous GOP officeholders are reassured that the Tea Party is dead or “under control” following a scenario in which old timer Thad Cochran had to raise millions for what should have been a taken-for-granted primary victory, and his allies had to orchestrate an all-out voter mobilization effort that even reached out to some African American Democrats? Cochran’s near-death sends a powerful message that loudly hewing hard-right on policy issues and obstruction is the way to go. Similarly, Eric Cantor’s huge defeat is even more frightening to many Republican politicians because it happened without big-money backing from the likes of Heritage Action.
Another way to put it is to ask whether there’s any issue on which the GOP has decisively pushed back on the Tea Party agenda? Yes, there was the decision to abandon the government shutdown last year, but even the Tea Folk understood that couldn’t go on forever. Other than that, it’s hard to see where and how the alleged “Establishment” primary victories are going to make any actual difference. Look at the Common Core educational standards issue, supposedly a huge priority for the business community that has given so generously to the Establishment cause. Chamber of Commerce beneficiaries Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Joni Ernst of Iowa and Jack Kingston of Georgia have all come out against Common Core. Who’s really calling the shots in the GOP, if not the radicalized conservative movement we call the Tea Party?
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, July 4, 2014
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