POL200 Has the current conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court served to impede or support civil liberties and civil rights? Why or why not?

My Essay

“At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.”
~ Aristotle

Query & Thesis

Research done by political scientists Segal and Spaeth show that “justices tend to vote in line with their political background.” Journalist Meghan Keneally is in agreement: “…Supreme Court picks tend to fall along the political lines of the president who nominated them to the court. What that means now is that justices picked by Republican presidents -- …Thomas, Alito, Roberts, Gorsuch … Kavanaugh -- tend to rule more conservatively than justices nominated by Democratic presidents --… Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan. “

It seems expected: a current conservative court will vote conservatively. Since the 2^nd conservative appointment under the Trump administration brings the Supreme Court Justices to conservative backed majority, the question is investigable: Has the current conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court served to impede or support civil liberties and civil rights?

Swing Voter

The reason why most recent assignee, Kavanaugh, a Trump nomination, was such a topic of ardent speculation, was that the previous Justice, Anthony Kennedy, was widely identified as being the swing vote. A swing voter oscillates between parties, as opposed to voting strictly within party lines. In other words, the Supreme Court had a relatively even association of Justices until present. Now the political leaning appears unbalanced since Kavanaugh was nominated by a very conservative and republican nominee. (Kavanaugh; sworn in on October 6^th 2018.) An unbalanced/politically skewed justice is a valid concern to civil liberties.

Data correlated by Lawyer Adam Feldman and interpreted by researcher Tessa Berenson describes that during Kavanaugh’s term as a justice, he voted liberal as often as he has voted conservative. Former US district judge for the southern district of New York, Shira A Scheindlin disagrees emphatically Scheindlin states “During his 12 years on the bench...Several cases reveal an anti-worker, anti-union or anti-immigrant bias."

Voting/Courts

Current Supreme Court has not seen most of cases brought to the courts. They haven’t even gotten past the lower courts to be judged by the Supreme. “With a few exceptions… the high court has shown no inclination to rush to Trump’s aid. Most cases never reach the Supreme Court. And while Trump has filled numerous vacancies in the lower courts, appointees of Democratic presidents still account for more than 55 percent of active federal judges”, according to Indiana University’s dean of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, John D. Graham.

Institute for Policy Integrity by the New York School of Law has tracked the outcomes of litigation. Specifically, the Trump government’s “use of agencies to deregulate as well as to implement its other policy priorities.”

Policy Integrity has on record 70 cases, of which 66 were unsuccessful and only 4 were successful. That is just a 6% success rate for the Trump Administration. Beings that the supreme court justices usually vote alongside the lines of the political party that nominated them, let’s look at the cases filtered by Judge Appointment. Democratic appointments yielded 40 of the 70 cases. There was 38 unsuccessful and 2 successful cases; that’s just 5% of cases successful. Republican appointments made up 12 cases; 10 to 2 for a 20% success rate, the highest success rate of all appointments. Mixed appointments were just 1 for 0% success. Also N/A appointments numbered 17 and all 17 unsuccessful, also a 0% success rate. It is interesting to note that N/A cases are when the action was withdrawn before a court could determine the lawfulness of said action.

(With a small sample size, it is a cautionary advisement to not jump to conclusions about whether the Republican appointments show a bias towards proving our hypothesis or not.)

Blind Justice?

Thomas Patterson reminds us that “Federal judges are unelected officials with lifetime appointments, which places them beyond the reach of voters.”

That is the reason why terms are set for life: so Justices are not affected by any political affiliation. Supposedly. Founding framer and 2^nd president John Adams is quoted saying “"A government of laws, and not of men." I, personally, don’t believe that a Justice could be blind to current politics. Do they not strive for happiness in their lives with their families, just as we do? They live in today’s world with our thoughts and emotions from incoming evidence and hearsay and, also importantly, the schema with which they were raised.

Affect Public Opinion & Closing

Further concern is Micheal F Salamone’s insinuation, Supreme court sways general population’s belief on matters of great importance. Is it okay that a conservative Justices’ judgement are influencing an entire society to their conservative ways? Or is that how today’s society will function smoother, regardless of whether the society initially wished for it or not.

In closing, I could say the jury is still out whether there is solid evidence the Justices are rolling back civil rights, however the court is still in session.

Bibliography

Berenson, Tessa. Inside Brett Kavanaugh's First Term on the Supreme Court. 28 Jun 2019. 20 Feb 2020. <https://time.com/longform/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-first-term/>.

Feldman, Adam. Supreme Court of the United States Blog. n.d. 20 Feb 2020. <https://www.scotusblog.com/statistics/>.

Graham, John. The Trump administration has lost in court at least 63 times. Here’s why. 20 Mar 2019. The Washington Post. 20 Feb 2020. <https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/03/19/the-trump-administration-often-loses-in-court-heres-why/>.

Institute for Policy Integrity. "Roundup: Trump-Era Agency Policy in the Courts." 2020. <https://policyintegrity.org/trump-court-roundup>.

Keneally, Meghan. Their pay, age, political leanings and more: 6 Supreme Court questions answered. 1 Oct 2018. 20 Feb 2020. <https://abcnews.go.com/US/pay-age-political-leanings-supreme-court-questions-answered/story?id=58204713>.

Patterson, Thomas. We The People. 13th. New York: McGraw, 2019. pages 449 & 454.

Salamone, Michael F. Perceptions of a Polarized Court:. Temple University Press, 2018.

Scheindlin, Shira A. Should Brett Kavanaugh occupy the swing vote seat? His judicial record says no . 31 Aug 2018. 20 Feb 2020. <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/31/kavanaugh-swing-vote-supreme-court>.

Requirement 600-800: Actual word count 792. not including the headers, intro quote or works cited.