A Good Year at the Supreme Court ?!?

As a conservative, I know how it feels to have an awful year at the Supreme Court.  Off the top of my head, 2015 comes to mind as a year where the Court relied on liberal judicial activism when making rulings in the most politically polarizing decisions.  That year, 6 out of the 9 justices voted to uphold Obamacare while five of the nine justices decided that same-sex marriage bans violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. Reading the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s blistering dissents provided conservatives the only source of entertainment and happiness during a time that Senator Ted Cruz referred to as “some of the darkest 24 hours in our nation’s history.” 

This year, on the other hand, conservatives have a lot to celebrate as a result of Supreme Court decisions.  The Supreme Court often plays a major role in the ongoing culture war that has engulfed the United States of America and industrialized nations in general for the past half century.  Keep in mind that many of these decisions would have come down the other way if the Never-Trumpers had their way and Hillary Clinton sat in the oval office.    

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission demonstrated a hostility toward the religious beliefs of baker Jack Phillips who cited his faith when refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding.  Three weeks later, the Supreme Court granted the request of Barronelle Stutzman for a writ of certiorari.  Stutzman, a florist based in Washington State faced a lawsuit for refusing to provide flowers for a same-sex wedding because she has actually decided to stick by her religious beliefs that enshrine marriage as a sacred union between one man and one woman while many of her fellow Americans have decided to abandon this principle in favor of political correctness.  The Supreme Court of Washington, increasingly becoming one of the most liberal states in the union, unanimously rejected Stutzman’s argument that she had a right to refuse to provide the flowers because of her religious beliefs, leaving the fines she had to pay in place.  The Supreme Court ordered the Washington Supreme Court to rehear the case in light of their ruling in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the case involving Jack Phillips.    

The Supreme Court refused to take a side in a series of gerrymandering cases that came across its desk; with Democrats complaining that the Wisconsin State Legislature’s map of districts unfairly benefits Republicans while Republicans complained about the distribution of United States House seats in Maryland, which The Washington Post described as the least compact in the nation.  Eric Holder and friends had hoped that the court would issue a ruling that would put a stop to nation-wide “partisan map-rigging” but the High Court decided to instead punt the issue back to the lower courts. 

This week, the Supreme Court finished its term by upholding President Trump’s third travel ban on a series of terror-prone countries with failed governments; many of which also happen to have Muslim majorities.  Also, the High Court struck down a law in California that required crisis pregnancy centers to inform women about the options available to them at state-sponsored clinics including abortion; failing to realize that crisis pregnancy centers, many of them faith-based, exist solely to provide women with other options besides abortion.

 

The Supreme Court dealt a major blow to organized labor when they ruled that public sector unions, a major Constituency of the Democratic Party, cannot force non-union members to pay fees for collective bargaining.  In three of the five cases discussed here, Justice Anthony Kennedy provided the swing vote.  Will liberals start showing up at Anthony Kennedy’s house now?  If anything, liberals will start showing up at Neil Gorsuch’s house.  When complaining about the Supreme Court decisions on CNN, Rep. Keith Ellison referred to Gorsuch’s seat as a “stolen” seat, still bitter about the Republican Senate Majority’s decision not to hold hearings for Merrick Garland, whom President Obama nominated to the Supreme Court in March 2016 following the unexpected death of beloved originalist Justice Antonin Scalia.  Republicans decided to use the precedent set by the “Biden rule,” where then-Senator Joe Biden said that they would not consider any Supreme Court nominees put forward by President George H.W. Bush in 1992, a Presidential election year.  Chuck Schumer made a similar argument in 2007, one year before the 2008 Presidential election, suggesting that the President chosen by the American people in the 2008 election should have the power to fill any Supreme Court vacancies that would occur in the next year.    

Speaking of Anthony Kennedy, it looks like the 81-year-old Supreme Court Justice, appointed by President Reagan in early 1988, has decided not to take the advice of Ruth Marcus and announced his intention to retire from the Supreme Court, effective July 31.  Thanks to the wise decision of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to abolish the filibuster rule for Supreme Court nominations, the Democrats effectively have no power to block President Trump’s nominee to succeed Kennedy.  Currently, Republicans hold a slim 51-49 majority in the upper chamber.  The Democrats can whine and scream all they want to.   Even though President Trump and the Republicans will more likely than not end up holding more Senate seats after the 2018 midterms, it looks like the Republicans will try and hold confirmation hearings for whoever President Trump decides to nominate as Kennedy’s replacement before the 2018 midterms. 

All of the Republicans currently serving in the Senate, even the most moderate ones, have consistently voted for Republican Supreme Court justices and some of the Democratic Senators up for re-election in red states voted for President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee and many of the nominees to serve on the lower courts.  The red state Democrats face increasing pressure to distance themselves from the radical left leadership of their party, especially Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, as Election Day 2018 gets closer.  Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia said he regretted supporting Hillary Clinton in 2016 and would consider supporting President Trump in 2020 while North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp bragged about voting with President Trump 55 percent of the time in an effort to hang onto her Senate seat.  Both Manchin and Heitkamp voted for President Trump’s first Supreme Court Nominee Neil Gorsuch, in addition to Indiana Senator Joe Donnelly.  All three Senators face re-election this year in states that President Trump carried by double digits.  President Trump has already held rallies on behalf of the Republican opponents of Senators Donnelly and Heitkamp.   

Kennedy, appointed by a Republican President, disappointed conservatives on more than a few occasions; especially when it came to implementing GLAAD’s agenda on a national scale.  Perhaps the fact that he hails from San Francisco explains his views on the subject.  Kennedy also voted with the liberal justices on the Supreme Court in the case Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which essentially upheld the precedent set by Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that uprooted the Democratic process by legalizing abortion in all fifty states.

When picking Justice Kennedy’s replacement, President Trump will almost certainly pick from a list of candidates released in November 2017.  President Trump initially issued a list of 11 possible Supreme Court picks in May 2016, shortly after becoming the presumptive Republican nominee, in order to placate concerns from Never-Trumpers that he was not a true conservative and remind the American people the stakes of the 2016 Presidential Election.  He released an updated list that included ten additional candidates later in 2016; a list that included Gorsuch.  The most recent list eliminated Gorsuch and added four more names.  Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro suggested that President Trump appoint him to the Supreme Court, tweeting out “Just a reminder @realdonaldtrump – I’m only 34.  I could be on the court for 60 years!  Just saying!”     

The Democrats depend on control of the Courts in order to pass through their agenda.  As Ann Coulter pointed out, “liberals see the Supreme Court as their backup legislature, giving them all the laws Democrats can’t pass themselves because they’d be voted out of office if they did.  Can’t get Americans to approve of abortion?  Get the Supreme Court to do it!”  Coulter also pointed out that “Democrats treat judicial nominations like war – while Republicans keep being gracious, hoping that Democrats will learn by example.  It’s been nearly a quarter century!  They’re not learning by example.”  The old adage “nice guys finish last” definitely applies to politics.   

Republicans have finally grown a spine (at least on this issue) and Democrats can’t stand it.  Compared to Democrats, the Republicans have treated the Democrats’ Supreme Court Nominees with kid gloves.  The Senate easily confirmed both of President Clinton’s Supreme Court nominees; with Stephen Breyer receiving the support of 87 Senators and Ruth Bader Ginsburg receiving 96 votes, indicating that many Republicans voted to support them despite the fact that they probably did not agree with them politically.  Republican Supreme Court nominees on the other hand, often never come to close to receiving the same level of support from Senate Democrats; especially the recent ones.  Only four Senate Democrats voted for Justice Sam Alito in 2006, only three of the 48 Senate Democrats voted in favor of confirming Neil Gorsuch just last year.          

Assuming that President Trump picks his next Supreme Court justice wisely, the phrase “a good year at the Supreme Court” will describe the next several years.  Republicans, especially those who opposed President Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election, should owe him a debt of gratitude for stopping the Cultural Marxists’ use of the judicial branch to impose their radical agenda on the American people.