People who write about the Supreme Court usually refer to it by the last name of the Chief Justice: the Warren Court, the Burger Court, Rehnquist Court, etc. By this method, the current Court would be the Roberts Court. Not so – the most descriptive shorthand to identify the current outfit: the Leo Court.
The what court? Who/what on earth is Leo? The big wheel in the Federalist Society, one Leonard Leo, who is virtually the architect of the current majority conservative court which exists today. Unknown to, I’m sure, the vast majority of Americans, Leonard Leo has painstakingly assembled the 6-3 majority: Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Bret Kavanaugh,and Amy Coney Barrett. Along with holdovers Clarence Thomas and the nominal Chief, John Roberts. Recommended by the Federalist Society, headed by Leo.
The Washington Post recently ran a column by Ruth Marcus, a respected interpretor of SCOTUS, who had a different take. Her thesis is that Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is the main culprit in the current tilt rightward for the Court. Fundamentally, I agree with her. McConnell certainly performed the manipulations which enabled the seating of at least three Justices. He refused to schedule a hearing, never mind a vote, for Merrick Garland. Later on, with only days before the election of 2020, he rammed through the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. Nevertheless,the names of these nominees was almost certainly contributed by Leonard Leo.
Throughout our history, the Court has deferred to concepts such as “settled law”. As the TV ads state, I’m a non-attorney spokesperson, so to speak. Also, I’m a chemist by training, not a historian. However, it seems to me that we were founded as a non-sectarian republic, not a Christian nation. Although I am not naive enough to believe this in our current circumstances, we were founded as an experiment in a truly novel concept-the majority of the citizenry rules. How does the nation’s largest voting bloc – women- feel about the overturning of the settled law Roe v Wade?
Meanwhile, kingmaker/fixer Leo has facilitated various goodies to some of our “justices”, in the form of hunting and fishing trips to faraway places with strange sounding names, to borrow from a (very old) song lyric. Were any of these junkets listed on disclosure forms required of all Federal judges except the Supremes? You’ve got to be kidding. If we should be referring to this crew as the Roberts Court, maybe the Chief should be lending his efforts to come up with disclosure requirements for SCOTUS justices. They appear to need some. Also, last I heard, the federal minmum wage in the USA is $7.25 per hour, which would amount to about $17K for a year’ work. Justices earn $274.2K. While allowing for their education, not to mention their exalted place in our society, is this enough? Probably not, it would seem.
Elections have consequences, some of which should be removal of the Republican facilitators of a lot of this mischief. Unfortunately, money talks or, in the words of an old friend, money screams in elections. Operatives like Leonard Leo are unbelievably adept at fundraising. I wish some of this dark money could be used to feed, clothe, shelter and educate desperately poor children, which is, truly, God’s work.
Rogernarc 