US Supreme Court

 This is Joseph

The US Supreme Court has been a source of odd thinking, lately 

Josh Marshall has a post about how a reader suspects that John Roberts might decide to retire from the supreme court in order to preserve institutional legitimacy. I think this shows just how deranged the thinking about the supreme court has come. Is there anything that makes people think that judges voluntarily give up power?  

He is 65, way younger than Sandra Day O'Connor (around 78) or Anthony Kennedy (around 82). It just makes no sense that he'd give up influence on the court and the ability to advocate for legitimacy unless there was an external reason. 

Similarly, there is an odd sense of ownership of Supreme Court seats. People seem to think we should honor Ruth Bader Ginsberg's wish that her seat not be filled until after the election. There are a ton of very good reasons to not fill the seat quickly: recent past precedent (Scalia's replacement), lack of time to do a thorough vetting, and an ongoing pandemic creating the need for focusing on helping economic and medical victims all come immediately to mind. The idea that the seat is a feudal inheritance that the current occupant has any control over how it is filled in the future is not a good thing for the health of the republic.

Finally, the fact that covering pre-existing conditions is coming back up to the court, one more time, suggests that judicial rulings are becoming deeply unserious. The US has an insurance system that is based on churn as people change jobs many times over their careers, often without a whole lot of choice. Prices are opaque and systematically higher for people without insurance (the system is not set up for negotiation). Covering pre-existing conditions is simply a prerequisite for having the system function at all. That a seat flipping could credibly threaten this act, twelve years after it passed and after repeated judicial review, is . . . well, hard to credit is the nice way to say this.

Another easy litmus test. As a Canadian, I cannot name a single Supreme Court justice. I kind of remember the chief justice if I really think about it. I can name every single US justice, and give a quick summary of their politics. I worry that the politicization of the court will end in tears. 

Another sign of the process being broken is noted here. 

Amy Barrett is a former law professor and sitting judge. She does not have any idea about whether Medicare and social security are constitutional? Not hedging and saying that she is unaware of any grounds on which they could be. What is the point of the hearing if the justice is completely ignorant (or pretends to be ignorant) on law and policy? Not even to comment on the grounds on which these laws are currently based? What did she teach students? There are laws and nobody can tell if they are compatible with the constitution nor have I read any precedent?