Guest Essay: Six Votes

The recent dump of Supreme Court decisions represents the worst of American politics, the worst abuses of judicial power and the worst of the Republican Party. In a series of ideologically motivated and unjustifiable decisions, Donald Trump’s Republican Supreme Court supermajority on the Supreme Court has voted over and over to strip Americans of their rights and protections, to tear apart our system of due process, to return the United States to a time of rampant pollution and corporate misconduct. Above all, they have acted to place themselves, their corruption and the Republican Party above the law.

Not only has the court acted against the best interest of the American people, it has acted against decades of legal findings that have protected hundreds of millions of Americans. The transparently political motives behind the court’s decisions in tailoring the law for the Republicans’ corporate backers, in particular the overturning of the Chevron precedent — which allowed government agencies to consider expert opinions and enabled the daily functions of the federal government —  and the slow-walking of justice in response to politicians’ crimes in Trump v. US and Snyder v. US show the dire need for accountability within our court system and the long-lasting consequences of every single election.

On top of this dubious track record, in the midst of the worst court corruption scandals in history —  namely the careers of Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Samuel Alito, and Chief Justice John Roberts — the court doubled down to defend the consequence-free status quo, using Snyder v. US to sanctify Thomas’s billionaire-funded vacations while clawing power towards the court in Loper Bright v. Raimondo and blocking any potential accountability or functional ethical standards.

And these three are just the Bush judges — father and son —  consequences of the elections in 1988 and 2004. What is more concerning are the consequences of 2016 and 2024.

Trump’s own pack of hand-picked legal hacks are younger, more recent, and if anything more brazen, with Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Brett “Beer Guy” Kavanaugh seeing their debts and their property woes somehow slip away after their nominations. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, thankfully, seems to have avoided most of the “technically not bribes” that have plagued her Republican colleagues, even taking the brave step of joining the call for new ethics standards.

Unlike her colleagues, Justice Barrett is instead a member of a shady religious group under FBI investigation, in which she serves as a “Handmaid,” helping to ensure that the group’s female members display proper “obedience to authority and submission to headship” by their all-male leadership, whose board is led in part by Michael Coney, Justice Barrett’s father. And as icing on the cake of court misconduct, it turns out that even Justice Barrett hasn’t been able to isolate herself from the graft that surrounds her fellow conservatives, with reports pointing towards a link between the recent sale of her house in South Bend, Indiana, and the “Religious Liberty Clinic” at Notre Dame University, a group of conservative legal activists linked to the creation of religious schools in Oklahoma, a pile of “friend-of-the-court” briefs on legal matters facing the court, and an all-expense-paid trip for Justice Alito to give a speech to the group at a palace in the heart of Rome, Italy.

In the last month of rulings, the court has legalized its own corruption and bribery while blocking our government from prosecuting the criminals lining their pockets at every level of federal law. Now, more than ever, it is clear that the Supreme Court has been bent to the will of the private jet class and their own pocketbooks, accepting “gifts” and inventing precedents with no regard for the laws, principles, and values that provide the bedrock for the American way of life.

Democracy cannot exist without a strong and independent judiciary. While the Republican justices of the court continue to ignore the interests of the American people, flout the rule of law and reject all attempts to reign in their blatant corruption, our allegedly Supreme Court is anything but.

With every new decision, it is increasingly clear that a vote for the Republican Party and its enablers is a vote against the rule of law, against decency and against America. Corruption within our nation’s highest court cannot be defeated at the witness stand or at the jury box. It will only — and can only — be defeated at the ballot box.

Six votes criminalized homelessness. Six votes legalized bribery. Six votes put the president above the law. Six votes gave the court the power to dismantle every protection that has fought pollution, kept food safe and protected consumers for four decades. 

On Nov. 5, remember who sent these judges to Washington. Remember what the court took from you, from your family, from your friends, and from your future. Remember what they’re planning. Remember where they’re going next: clawing back student loan forgiveness, killing IVF, stripping the department of education, and reversing the Civil Rights Act.

Six votes decided Dobbs v. Jackson. Five votes killed Roe v. Wade. 

Your vote will decide the court’s future.

Don’t let them do it again.

Michael Clausen is a fourth-year student studying history, political science, conflict studies and Spanish. He is the president of the Loyola College Democrats and serves as Political Director for the Illinois College Democrats. 

Opinions expressed in guest essays do not necessarily reflect those of The Loyola Phoenix. To submit a guest essay for publication please contact [email protected] and [email protected].