We, here at Republic Retooled, have been calling for federal (U.S.) Supreme Court (SCOTUS) reform legislation since we discovered a book (published about ten years ago?) by Rob Hager (Harvard Law graduate, public-interest litigator and international consultant on anti-corruption policy), which chronicled the Court’s jurisprudence regarding campaign finance law that dismantled nearly all of this law -- some of it going back more than 100 years (see Note 1, below [mention in this Note that we are uncertain re the year Hager’s book was published cuz the year is 2023 (?) on the SSRN (?) website…] ). It took the Court, first the “Nixon Court” and later the “Roberts Court,” decades to achieve this goal. But, the Court, mostly during the reign of Chief anti-Justice Roberts in case after case over the years -- via the “Buckley line of cases,” which was initiated with Buckley v. Valeo (1976) -- was finally able to “enact” (legislating from the bench) this “judicially-legalized corruption” that was the end result of all this jurisprudence and American democracy has been fighting for its life under the boot (on our necks) of this tyranny (a.k.a. money in politics) ever since.
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NOTE 1: Rob Hager describes this period of time this way… “Now again, in the second Gilded Age, by a series of cases [which Hager refers to as the “Buckley line of cases”]… the [Supreme] Court has created, without any plausible legal justification, a constitutional right for people with enough money to use it for buying elections and corrupting the politicians who they finance.” (See: Rob Hager, Strategy for Democracy -- from Systemic Corruption to… (long title truncated here), Introduction, B. Judicial Supremacy (last few paragraphs of this section), p. 62) (this ebook is available, free, on the internet (SSRN website), here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2904722 ).
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With this feather in his cap (dismantling nearly all of 100 years of campaign finance law), the Chief anti-Justice (Roberts) upped the ante on his willingness to push the Court to the (we say extreme) right when the Court majority decided Shelby County v. Holder (2013) and Brnovich v. D.N.C. (2021) (which, together, gutted the Voting Rights Act (1965) ) and Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022) (overturning Roe v. Wade (1973), which ended the federal protection of women’s access to reproductive healthcare services) and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (2023) (overruling Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), which “severely limited, if not effectively ended, the use of affirmative action in college admissions,” according to Amy Howe in SCOTUSblog (see: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action programs in college admissions, SCOTUSblog (Jun. 29, 2023, 12:31 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2023/06/supreme-court-strikes-down-affirmative-action-programs-in-college-admissions/ ) ) and many more unconscionable rulings that we will not take the time (your time) to mention here.
Now, the atrocities (committed by SCOTUS) are coming every year and increasing in quantity and, frighteningly, in their effectiveness in destroying much of our progress, which has been achieved in the last half dozen decades, regarding social/economic/environmental… justice (and much more, as we mentioned above). This year, right at the end of the term in June, as usual, SCOTUS overwhelmed us with yet another expected barrage of atrocious rulings: striking down the D.O.J. ban on bump stocks (the upgrade that turns an automatic rifle into a machine gun -- see Note 2, below, and the two videos on our You Tube channel for more info), overturning the “Chevron doctrine” (the “landmark 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, which gave rise to the doctrine known as the Chevron doctrine… Under that doctrine, if Congress has not directly addressed the question at the center of a dispute, a court was required to uphold the [federal] agency’s interpretation of the statute as long as it was reasonable” -- see Note 3, below, for more information) and, on the last day of the Court’s term (July 1), in this day’s “dump” of rulings, we received the most egregious, probably, of this term’s rulings: the Court’s presidential immunity ruling (Trump v. U.S.).
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NOTE 2: Please see our two YouTube videos, here: https://youtu.be/2ZjqALuhtVA and https://youtu.be/Xcr7LTSGD98 .
NOTE 3: As reported by Amy Howe (for SCOTUSblog), “Kagan, who read a summary of her dissent from the bench, was sharply critical of the decision to overrule the Chevron doctrine. Congress often enacts regulatory laws that contain ambiguities and gaps, she [Justice Kagan] observed, which agencies must then interpret. The question, as she [Kagan] framed it, is ‘[w]ho decides which of the possible readings’ of those laws should prevail? For 40 years, she stressed, the answer to that question has generally been ‘the [federal regulatory] agency’s,’ with good reason: Agencies are more likely to have the technical and scientific expertise to make such decisions. She emphasized the deep roots that Chevron has had in the U.S. legal system for decades. ‘It has been applied in thousands of judicial decisions. It has become part of the warp and woof of modern government, supporting regulatory efforts of all kinds — to name a few, keeping air and water clean, food and drugs safe, and financial markets honest.’” (See: Amy Howe, Supreme Court strikes down Chevron, curtailing power of federal agencies, SCOTUSblog (Jun. 28, 2024, 12:37 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-strikes-down-chevron-curtailing-power-of-federal-agencies/ ).
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The immediate reaction to the Court’s immunity ruling included this response from Judge J. Michael Luttig, (former Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit): “[In] Trump v. U.S., the Supreme Court cut the heart and soul out of America's democracy and the rule of law". (See Note 4, below)
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NOTE 4: See interview of Judge Luttig (video on our YouTube channel), here: https://youtu.be/oUGF0IIwVAU . Also, please see reactions to Trump v. U.S. from Professor Lawrence Tribe (Harvard Law) and Professor Melissa Murray (NYU Law), here (video (podcast – audio only) on our YouTube channel): https://youtu.be/ck7mv27vA18 ).
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This Trump v. U.S. ruling caused such turmoil with Democrats in Congress that the Senate Judiciary Committee recently conducted a hearing, September 24, on this SCOTUS ruling and asked legal experts to provide testimony. The hearing was properly titled, “‘When the President Does It, that Means It’s Not Illegal’: The Supreme Court’s Unprecedented Immunity Decision.” (Note: The quote in the title is a rather well-known proclamation by former President Richard Nixon.)
One of the legal experts who provided testimony in this hearing was Professor Mary McCord (Executive Director, Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection and a Visiting Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law School). The following are some excerpts from her written testimony that she submitted to the subcommittee…
“[T]he majority holds that the allegations that former President Trump attempted to leverage the Department of Justice to announce sham investigations into election fraud and pressure certain states to replace their legitimate electors with fraudulent Trump electors are within this core constitutional power. For this and all other exercises of core constitutional power, the President’s authority is ‘conclusive and preclusive,’ meaning that Congress is disabled from acting upon it, nor may the courts examine it…”
“Consider first the Department of Justice. If the President’s authority is ‘conclusive and preclusive,’ is Congress now disabled… [f]rom conducting oversight… because the investigation and prosecution of crimes is an exclusive executive function? The potential for abuse is enormous. By disabling Congress from using its Article I powers, and the courts from reviewing a President’s ‘conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials,’ there is nothing stopping a President from directing the investigation of his political enemies, journalists, or activists, even where there is no basis for doing so. The majority said, after all, that ‘[t]he indictment’s allegations [by Special Counsel, Jack Smith] that the requested investigations were ‘sham[s]’ or proposed for an improper purpose do not divest the President of exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the Justice Department and its officials.’”
“[McCord then posits…] Could that sham investigation include directing the FBI to engage in unlawful surveillance? Or to bypass seeking a warrant to search a home or workplace? Or to target individuals or groups based on race or religion? Although the victim of such unlawful measures might have legal recourse, especially if prosecuted, the President would be protected from liability by the cloak of absolute immunity. And there would be nothing stopping the President from pardoning any officials who were involved in the misconduct.”
“…The majority’s decision itself explicitly immunizes former President Trump for actions he took to pressure officials within the Department of Justice to take measures to overturn his election loss and allow him to unlawfully maintain power.” (Note: Which, of course, would have disenfranchised millions of Americans by nullifying their votes.)
We feel compelled to editorialize here… This all seems to us to be Chief anti-Justice Roberts ushering America into SCOTUS’ new era of the imperial presidency (that we are going to name, the “When the President Does It, that Means It’s Not Illegal” era) -- designed especially for Donald Trump in a second term, or someone like Donald Trump in the future (e.g,, Ron DeSantis, or (House Speaker) “MAGA Mike” Johnson, or Lt. Governor (North Carolina) Mark Robinson, or…). And, we are compelled to ask you, the reader: Are you OK with this ruling by our corrupt, captured, politicized and illegitimate SCOTUS? Are you OK with SCOTUS’ creating this immunity for Trump, so he can walk away from many of Jack Smith’s federal, criminal indictments (associated with January 6, 2021 and Trump’s other crimes against the American people)?
We invite you to answer these questions, if you want to do so, in our ProBoards discussion forum, here: https://republicretooled.freeforums.net/ . (Note: You will be prompted to “register” in order to login to our discussion board, which will require you to enter your email address and other information and then you will receive an email with a link to activate your account. Once you are in the forum, click on the “Expand the Court” board name in the “General” category area, which will put you in the Expand the Court board (after you enter the password: scbatlact) where you can click the “Create Thread” button (top, right corner of the board) and share your answers to our questions that we presented above. Please use the following for the “Subject” line: Wix blog post re SCOTUS immunity ruling.) Then, just click the “Create Thread” button again (bottom, right corner) to post your thread. We greatly appreciate your sharing, in our forum, any reaction you have to this latest abomination (immunity ruling) of our illegitimate Supreme Court.
Brenda and I (John) (co-founders of Republic Retooled) thank you for your time.
Expand the Court!
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