Throughout most of our history the Supreme Court has been accorded a special place as a fair and impartial arbiter of legal issues. Sometimes the Court has failed in this role, but, for the most part it has been an important force in the unity of the nation because seemed to deserved respect.
The current Supreme Court majority has become so partisan that it is systematically undermining the principle of law and injecting in its place a radical corporate elitism that threatens our political stability by undergirding extreme economic inequality.
As advocacy groups consider the possibility that the Supreme Court might invalidate all or part of the Affordable Care Act, they need to consider that the present court seems more sharply pro-corporation than any in history. This gives their rulings an emerging partisan tone. Start with the ruling in the case Bush v Gore which reached into the Florida vote count to give the Presidency to George Bush.
The other enormously alarming decision is the one called Citizens United that gives corporations the right to throw secret and unlimited money into political campaigns. But there is much, much more:
- The power of corporations to force employees and customers to sign away rights to sue.
- Immunization of corporations from class action law suits.
- The decisions that made it nearly impossible for women and older workers to fight unequal pay and age discrimination.
And, coming right along behind the Affordable Care Act, is a case on the right of the State of Arizona to racially profile immigrants.
Ethan Rome, the Director of Health Care for America Now recently published an excellent essay on how the Court has been incorporated into the radical corporate elite. You can read the full essay on Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ethan-rome/the-corporate-court-supre_b_1411951.html
We are already too polarized in this country. There already is too much inequality. What happens to the ability of our diverse nation to have a common political life when the Supremes hit the Extremes?