Justice Should Be Blind

On Friday, July 23 the Supreme Court, for the second time in recent months, sided with a Governor's pandemic safety order over the objection of a church.  In this case a Nevada church was asking to be allowed to have 90 worshipers at a time to conduct services instead of being limited to 50 at a time.  This restriction is much stricter than that of casinos who can operate at a higher rate of capacity.  This case follows another court decisions weeks ago where a southern California church challenged a shut down orders that would not allow in-person services at houses of worshipers.  Now in the California case the suit brought was nonsense, at the height of a pandemic there are broad powers to stop mass gatherings and of course there were other ways the or church to serve the congregants.  The Nevada case was trickier because, on its face, the discrimination against Houses of Worship seemed more clear.  In the decent, Justice Gorsuch called into question the ability of a theater with 10 screens to house 500 people, but a church that is large and can distance and use masks can't have more than 50 worshipers at a time.  Beyond that the casinos can be fairly packed and people gathering close by many without masks.  But the decisions of the court not to change a lower court's ruling on this said that those industries are highly regulated and easier to totally shutdown and punish over Houses of Worship.  In both these cases Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the so-called liberal wing of the court.  

Now for me I think the Nevada case could have gone either way and I would have been fine with the ruling.  While a general shutdown of large gatherings is something I think I am comfortable with in crisis situations, the idea that we make separate rules for Houses of Worship and other businesses needs to be carefully watched.  However, it appears the court has decided to give a good deal of power to local officials on public health and keep the court out of it.  Now if the church itself was forced to his number while synagogues or mosques were allowed more worshipers I would assume the court would have ruled 9-0 in favor of the church. I hope that as a culture we never get to that.  But what was amazing was the reaction not only of the right wing noise machine and the ignorant masses, but of elected officials to Robert's vote.

Senator Ted Cruz, once thought of as a potential Supreme Court Justice, tweeted that Roberts was a traitor.  When asked to what he didn't respond.  But that message was echoed around the internet and escalated to calling for his impeachment and that he must be a Democrat or part of the Deep State or some Q-Anon fever dream or such.  It is a terrible thing to see this.  There have always been people who don't understand how government works, recent calls to impeach Nancy Pelosi are a sign of that.  (you don't impeach a member of the House of Representatives).   But this kind of talk about a traitor on the court begs the question of a traitor to what?  The Constitution?  Certainly not in this case, a well reasoned argument shows that there is no infringement on worship and that in fact it protects the church in this case from a much more severe situation if they were to become an epicenter of spread.  So one can only assume that the conservative voices calling the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court a traitor meant that he was a traitor to their ideology.  That is a dangerous thing for the average person to think, SCOTUS (The Supreme Court of the United States) should never be partisan.  But when it comes from elected officials, including the President, that is in fact bordering on a Constitutional crisis. 

The Right Wing has tried and recently have succeeded at creating a Federal court system that is highly partisan.  Senator McConnell held up many appointees of President Obama including maybe the most qualified person in the country to serve on SCOTUS, Merrick Garland.  Then when President Trump was in office pushed through many nominees, including some so woefully unqualified that in a few cases it was laughable even for Republican members of the Senate.  For them they want to have their conservative positions validated beyond what the Constitution says or even implies.  Members of Congress or the Executive challenging the faithfulness of a Justice is just not what we value in this country.  It is scary.  But in recent years these kinds of things have become so common that not a lot is said about it.  

Throughout the history of the court SCOTUS members have voted in favor of the Constitution even if it goes against the ideology of the person who appointed them.  In fact if they never did that would be a clear sign that they might not have been the best pick for the country.  Even the most conservative Justice of my lifetime, the late Anton Scalia, was criticized by some on the right for following his vision of the Constitution which sometimes butted up against the right wing desires.  

The normal structure of American government is crumbling and we don't have the time to focus on every thing that is in trouble.  Today the Attorney General will be questioned in a Congressional Committee about his role in the administration and his influence on various investigations into people close to the President and circumventing justice in cases that have already been to court.  The President went on a Twitter rampage last night attacking the one person the country trusts on Covid.  The President has lied about simple things and big things.  We are easily distracted.  But we must keep an eye on the courts and those who want to twist it toward their political positions instead of the Constitution.  This is where the battle will continue even after President Trump leaves office, even after the Republicans lose their Senate majority, even after most of the government returns to normal.  Call this out.  Remember the one thing that can keep us a Democratic-Republic is a fair and free judiciary.  Keep your eyes open.