Roberts court follows law, not politics

[Valin]

The Washington Examiner

Diana Lowe Doescher
March 29, 2024

Ostensibly well-sourced reporters covering the Supreme Court seemed shocked that the highest court in the land expressed deep skepticism over the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine’s contention that the Food and Drug Administration has not properly approved the widespread dissemination of mifepristone, the drug that triggers a chemical abortion.

“In theory, this should have been catnip to the revanchist Supreme Court, which has in recent years enthusiastically taken up legal challenges meant to erode abortion access, curtail civil rights, and weaken federal agencies like the FDA,” the Guardian’s Moira Donegan wrote of the case, which was argued in front of the Supreme Court on Tuesday. “But with the court’s approval at an all-time low in the wake of Dobbs, and with a looming November election to be determined in a large part by public outrage over women’s rights, even the court’s most enthusiastic enemies of abortion access and federal regulation found themselves with limited appetite to allow plaintiffs to limit access to a safe and popular drug nationwide.”

While Donegan’s whines particularly appeal to pathos, this criticism echoes the same one lobbed at the bench in increasing volume and frequency over the past decade at least: that the pinnacle of the federal judiciary is an inherently illegitimate body composed of justices whose seats were stolen (either by George W. Bush in the 2000 election or Donald Trump with the assistance of the Russians in 2016) and one whose sole goals are political.

Of course, this axiom is fundamental to the progressive project, which cannot allow its ambitions to be curtailed by the Constitution, and increasingly, it’s the Supreme Court, not any other convention, that is the only thing standing between norm-defying partisans wishing to win at all costs and their accomplishments. It’s why the endorsement of court-packing has become a litmus test for Democratic candidates in the same way nuking the judicial filibuster became 15 years ago. Democrats think that Supreme Court justices on both sides of the metaphorical aisle are just as cynical as they are.

(Snip)