...~*Attention please*~...anyone interested in preserving
that document as it was written...these scumbags think
they can actually get away with this...and they will
unless/until we address SCOTUS reform...
***
Republicans have pulled off a coup against an entire
branch of government, and nobody seems to have noticed.
But if you pay attention, it’s shocking.
Sometimes you can learn as much from attending to what
Republicans suddenly stop saying as from what they are
talking about. In this case, it’s their half-century-long
obsession with convening a constitutional convention to
rewrite the US Constitution. Under Article V of our
Constitution, when two-thirds of the states formally call
for a “con-con” to rewrite our nation’s founding
document, it officially comes into being.
They can then make small changes like enshrining the
right of billionaires and corporations to bribe judges
and politicians, or insert the doctrine of corporate
personhood into the document, or simply throw the whole
thing out and start over. Many on the right are hoping to
insert a national ban on abortion into a new
constitution; others want to end the right of women to
vote, do away with all antidiscrimination laws, outlaw
labor unions, or return the selection of senators to the
states.
So far, 19 Republican-controlled states have signed on to
a call for for a convention under Article V. The project,
heavily funded by rightwing billionaires, even has its
own website: conventionofstates.com. Consider just a
sampling of recent GOP supporters of the project:
— Senator Marco Rubio: “One of the things I’m going to do
on my first day in office is I will put the prestige and
power of the presidency behind a constitutional
convention of the states.”
— Governor Greg Abbott: “We need a Convention of States
to restore the rule of law in America.”
— Governor Ron DeSantis: “An Article V Convention of
States is the best way to bring power back to the states
and the people.”
— Congressman Jodey Arrington: “We need to go back to our
founding document, back to our Constitution, and put the
restraints on Congress that our founders intended.”
— Senator Ted Cruz: “An Article V Convention of States is
a powerful tool given to us by the Founders to rein in
the federal government.”
— Senator Rand Paul: “I’m a big fan of the Convention of
States project. I think it’s the solution to Washington’s
overreach.”
But over the past year, Republicans have suddenly fallen
silent on the issue. Project 2025, for example, the all-
encompassing wish-list for the GOP and its billionaire
owners, lacks even one single mention of a constitutional
convention.
Why would this be?
The simple and obvious answer is that Republicans are
rewriting the Constitution right now, this year and last,
through their proxies among the six corrupt Republicans
on the US Supreme Court.
Having succeeded in seizing the Court, the GOP has been
able to relax about their plan to call a convention. So
far, just in the past two years, Republicans on the Court
have taken an ax to the Constitution. They have:
— Turned presidents who are inclined to break the law
into kings or monarchs who are no longer accountable to
police, courts, or juries, essentially rewriting Article
II, Section 2 of the Constitution.
— Ended the constitutional rights of women to their own
bodies, ignoring or rewriting the 1st, 4th, 9th, and 14th
Amendments to the Constitution.
— Gutted the power of federal agencies to protect
consumers and our environment, essentially rewriting
Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution.
— Fully legalized the bribery of politicians so long as
the bribes are paid after the deed is done (making it a
“tip”) rather than before (which the Court said would
still be a bribe) overriding multiple constitutional
prohibitions on bribery.
— Overturned parts of the 14th Amendment to the
Constitution and the Voting Rights Act to legalize
racially discriminatory gerrymandering where it benefits
Republicans.
— Rewritten the Second Amendment and legalized bump
stocks to put functionally fully-automatic weapons of war
on our streets.
And, it appears, they’re just getting warmed up. Next
year could see an end to gay marriage, contraception for
single people, the abortion pill, the right to possess
pornography (which they get to define) or read “banned”
books, any meaningful regulation of billionaire-owned
social media, further gutting of union rights, and the
insertion of religion into schools nationwide…among other
things.
Given how radical and willing they are to overturn
established law, constitutional doctrine, and to create
new law or constitutional doctrine out of thin air, it’s
easy to see why Republicans would shift their efforts
away from trying to rewrite the Constitution and toward
supporting their shills on the Court.
This has not gone unnoticed by President Biden and his
Democratic colleagues. Last month, when the six corrupt
Republicans on the Supreme Court ruled that presidents
can commit crimes without consequences if they call them
“official acts,” President Biden spoke out with an
uncharacteristic ferocity:
“This decision today has continued the Court’s attack in
recent years on a wide range of long-established legal
principles in our nation, from gutting voting rights and
civil rights to taking away a woman’s right to choose to
today’s decision that undermines the rule of law of this
nation.”
Two weeks later, The Washington Post reported:
“President Biden is finalizing plans to endorse major
changes to the Supreme Court in the coming weeks,
including proposals for legislation to establish term
limits for the justices and an enforceable ethics code,
according to two people briefed on the plans.”
With Vice President Harris having replaced President
Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket, and the House
still under the control of extremist Republicans under
Mike Johnson, it appears that President Biden’s Supreme
Court agenda has receded into the background.
But Vice President Harris and Governor Walz should be
(and almost certainly are) putting considerable attention
and work into how to restrain the Supreme Court from
doing further violence to our constitutional system of
government once they’re in office.
It must be, in fact, their first order of business, for
two major reasons.
The first is that several of the rulings by Republicans
on the Court have had the effect of amplifying and
solidifying Republican control over the nation. By
single-handedly overturning the voting rights act and
legalizing bribery by billionaires, they’ve created a
political imbalance that fails to represent the people of
our country and instead just does what their favorite
billionaires and giant corporations want.
As Michael Moore reports, multiple polls have found in
recent years:
— 90% of Americans want stronger gun control laws
— 89% want an end to partisan and racial gerrymandering
— 84% want free pre-kindergarten
— 79% want the morbidly rich and corporations to pay
their damn taxes
— 76% want a higher minimum wage
— 73% want an end to student debt and free college
— 72% want action on the climate crisis and money out of
politics
— 71% want an end to union-busting
— 70% want marijuana legalized nationwide
— 69% want to maintain gay marriage and abortion rights
— 65% want to end the electoral college and put term
limits on SCOTUS justices
None of these things are happening because of the
Republican lock on the Supreme Court, the third and
unelected branch of government which is today only
beholden to whichever billionaire offers individual
members the best gifts, goodies, and expensive vacations.
Had the actual winners of the national vote become
president in 2000 and 2016, the only Republican on the
Court today would be Clarence Thomas, and America would
be a very different nation.
Instead, we’ve had two illegitimate Republican presidents
who essentially packed the Court. Sandra Day O’Connor was
clear about why she cast the tie-breaking vote to hand
the presidency to Bush in 2000: she told friends she
didn’t want her replacement to be chosen by Al Gore. And,
of course, Trump would never have become president
without help from Vladimir Putin.
These Republicans on the Supreme Court, five of the six
appointed by presidents who lost the national vote, are
the main reason why Americans can’t have nice things —
from a national healthcare system to free college to a
functioning democracy that does what the majority of its
citizens want — like every other democracy in the world.
The second reason Harris and Walz should be preparing to
act immediately after they’re sworn into office on
January 20th of next year (G-d willing!) is that a
president’s power is at its peak the moment she takes
office. After that, it’s largely downhill, as opposition
politicians and the press pile on and even members of
their own party begin to highlight cracks in the new
administration’s policy chops.
This is why FDR, LBJ, Reagan, Obama, and Bidenall got so
much done in their first 100 days. If they hadn’t started
out with their top and most controversial priorities,
they never would have been able to get to them.
And, because the cancer at the heart of our democracy is
currently centered in the Supreme Court, it’s why
President Harris and Governor Walt must focus their
energy and political capital on taking on this out-of-
control Supreme Court’s power as soon as they take
office.
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