It looks like the Senate will be voting Monday to seat Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court.
For liberals, it spells doom. For die-hard Trumpists, it will be a victory that will win him re-election. For realists, it means only one thing. Time to wait and see what happens.
That’s the funny thing about politics and history and, particularly, the United States Supreme Court. You never know what you’re getting until you take a good long look at the nominee after they put on a black robe.
Or, put another way, life is like a box of chocolates.
Historians and columnists will argue endlessly over just how Supreme Court nominees actually met the expectations of the Presidents who appointed them. That’s partly because those judges - who serve for life - make a lot of decisions.
Just think of poor Dwight Eisenhower, who didn’t even have a party affiliation while he was the General in charge of saving the western world from Hitler in World War II. Republicans convinced him to run for president after the war, he won a blowout election, and decided it was because he had a conservative view of politics.
So, who did he put on the Supreme Court? Two judges who were considered conservative at the time - Earl Warren and William Brennan. Too far back in the past?
How about that Presidential Tower of Conservative Republican values - at least until he fled the White House in disgrace. Yep, Richard Nixon, whose advisors helped him put Justice Harry Blackmun on the court.
Same thing. At the time, most people saw Justice Blackmun as a typical Conservative. How did that work out? Well, he wrote the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade. I’m sure you heard of that case. He ended up with the reputation of being the most liberal justice on the court.
So, what of Amy Coney Barrett? Well, at 48 years old, she could be on the court for decades to come. She has seven children, and is proud of her membership in People of Praise, a fundamentalist Pentecostal Protestant organization which is considered a cult by many mainstream Catholics.
But, at least the the People of Praise no longer call their female leaders handmaidens.
No one can say how her religious beliefs will determine her deliberation on cases that come before the Supreme Court, although she has said Roe v. Wade should not be considered established law.
So, assuming she gets appointed to the Supreme Court, we will just have to wait and see how she votes on a lot of issues. And when Newton’s Law of Politics kicks in.
Huh?
Well, Newton obviously did not write three laws of politics. He was a brilliant physicist and mathematician, and his three laws of motion are universally praised, even if they are often mis-stated.
The one that applies here is that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It explains the physical conservation of energy, and of ways to figure out how fast, how far and in what direction an object will travel when struck by another object. Use it right and you can tell just how heavy a cannonball has to be to knock down a seven foot thick brick wall.
It worked really well for lots of armies for centuries.
But, let’s not get technical. Let’s get an example. Then we can speculate on whether a Democratic president and Senate will add two or three more judges to the Supreme Court.
Even watch a cops and robbers movie made in the 1930’s? A cop picks up a criminal on the street, beats him up and tells him to confess. Standard. Used to be common.
So common, in fact, that a case worked its way through the courts until it reached the Supreme Court. It involved a man named Ernesto Miranda, who police in Phoenix said confessed to kidnaping and raping a woman. Not much other evidence, but he was picked up because he drove a car that resembled the auto the woman described.
It turned out he didn’t know that he had the right to get a lawyer. Now, every police officer who arrests someone tells them they have a right to an attorney, and that anything they say can be used against them.
Action, reaction. Police still don’t like the law, although they live with it. And, police agencies have learned to work around it a bit. Not for simple arrests, but in complex cases.
A suspected criminal is not a suspect who has specific legal rights. They are a person of interest. No need for Miranda warnings or some specific warrants until they are arrested. Action, reaction. So, what do you think will come next, when some lawyer goes to court and claims that “person of interest” is just an illegal way to avoid Miranda?
And now we will have a Supreme Court that is scheduled to look at one really interesting case, and may soon have another.
If Amy Coney Barrett is seated on the Supreme Court, the only question is whether she abstains from those cases. If not, there could well be a 4-4 deadlock, a new president, and a whole batch of other things. Let’s wait and see.
Still, it’s not too soon to look at one specific case. Be warned, it gets a little complicated.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on Nov. 10 in a lawsuit which claims the Affordable Care Act (what people call Obamacare) is illegal. A decision would probably be announced sometime next Spring.
What happened? Eighteen Republican-controlled states had their attorneys general file a lawsuit claiming that - for technical reasons - the Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional. Many issues are involved, and any decision might be limited to those 18 states.
But if they win, the court could void the whole Act. Millions of people with pre-existing conditions - everything from diabetes to old age to pregnancy - could see their health insurance rates go up so high they can’t afford it.
Then Congress would have to do something about it. Who will be running Congress next year is a little unclear. An election is coming up in two weeks, after all. Which is probably why the Republican lawsuit was scheduled for hearings a few weeks after the election.
Then there are a whole bucket of pending legal actions which could come up before the Supreme Court in the next year that could chip away or totally end abortion rights in the United States. None directly challenge Roe v. Wade, but there are other ways to kill it.
In Louisiana, June Medical Services v. Rebekah Gee is about a state law that says doctors who perform abortions must have admitting privileges at a local hospital. That would likely leave the entire state with just one doctor that was qualified.
In Mississippi, Jackson Women’s Health Organization v. Thomas Dobbs is about a state law that bans abortions after just 15 weeks. Texas wants to decide what procedures can be used to perform an abortion.
And Kentucky wants the state’s only abortion clinic to have advance agreements with ambulance services and local hospitals to provide emergency care, and would demand that before an abortion is performed, a ultrasound to detect a fetal heartbeat be conducted.
There are no guarantees any of those cases or a dozen others will come before the Supreme Court, and it is reasonable to wait and see.
But, there are consequences. Remember Isaac Newton’s action - reaction law. One that is natural, and which no court can overturn.
Let’s see. If Republicans are swept out of office, and the Supreme Court makes enough unpopular decisions, there will be millions of people who just might think that adding another justice or two to the court might balance things out a bit.
Action. Reaction.
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