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Stitching a Different Supreme Court Nine (concluded)

We have been speculating on ways to make a less political Supreme Court and have focused on a proposal in which the president could nominate a new Supreme Court Justice every two years. This, of course, would mean that the Court could have more than nine Justices. Instead of having the entire group decide all cases, which could be unwieldy, or instead of drawing nine Justices at random, there is another possibility. The nine most recently appointed Justices would regularly render the Supreme Court decisions. The displaced Justices would move to a reserve status. Reserve judges would be available whenever one of the regular nine was unavailable for whatever reason such as illness or a conflict of interest. If one of the regular nine died or resigned, the last regularly sitting justice would become one of the regular nine again until another Justice was appointed at the scheduled time.

An obvious question arises. Would this violate the constitutional provision that federal judges have life tenure? (The Constitution actually says judges “shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour.”) I don’t think so. Judges who were appointed more than eighteen years ago and moved to the new reserve status would still hold office. Chief Justice Roberts in his nomination hearing said that he planned to judge like an umpire calling balls and strikes without his personal values affecting his decisions. Let’s stay with the baseball analogy. Nine players take the field, but the other players on the roster are available to come into the game if needed. The players on the field are in the major leagues, but those in the bullpen or in the dugout (I wanted to say “on the bench.” Ha. Ha.) are also major leaguers and remain on the team. With this proposal, the nine Judges actively sitting on the bench (Oxymoron? Actively sitting?) are Supreme Court Justices, but those back in chambers waiting to be called upon would also be Supreme Court Justices, and they can stay in that office during good behavior.

With this proposal, judges would regularly decide cases for eighteen years. That eighteen-year period has advantages. Among other things, it would move the Court to the practice that it has had for most of its history. Before 1959, the average length of tenure on the Supreme Court was thirteen or fourteen years. Since 1959, it has been about twenty-five years. Current Justices have served longer. Clarence Thomas has been serving for about thirty years; Chief Justice Roberts and Samuel Alito have been on the Court for over fifteen years and are expected to serve for another decade or more.

That eighteen-year period could also lead to an expanded pool of people to be considered for a nomination. Wanting to leave as long a legacy on the Supreme Court as possible, presidents today are not likely to appoint someone who is sixty or older. God forbid, that person might be on the Court for a mere twenty years! Find someone who is younger and expect a tenure of thirty or more years. Thus, Amy Coney Barrett, the last person appointed to the Supreme Court, went on the bench when she was forty-eight and her two immediate predecessors on the Court, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, were fifty-three and forty-nine, respectively. Fifty-five is the oldest age at which any of the present Supreme Court Justices was appointed, and Clarence Thomas was only forty-three. Knowing, however, that the most active period of judging will be “only” eighteen years, a president can consider a wider range of age and experience for a nominee.

Giving every president an appointment every two years may also reduce the partisanship of the Supreme Court and certainly should reduce the perception of partisanship. Currently it is mere chance that determines how many, if any, nominations the chief executive will have. Some presidents have a greater opportunity to pack the court with ideological bedfellows than others. With this reform all presidents would be treated equally. The appointments might be just as partisan as now, but the partisanship is more likely to be balanced and in sync with “the people” as we elect presidents.

The partisan games in which the Senate denied a consideration of Merrick Garland but forced through the confirmation of Barrett should end. Such maneuvers that strengthen the notion that the Court is not a neutral body should lessen. Similarly, the recent situation calling for the resignation of Justice Breyer so that “our side” can appoint a younger person, which also tends to treat the Court as just another partisan body, should disappear.

This reform should not put be into place immediately. Of course, Republicans would oppose it if it gave Biden two appointments in the next four years. Instead, it should start after the next presidential election with the newly-elected president getting his/her first appointment on July 1, 2025, and one every two years thereafter. Perhaps this might even lead to a more information-driven presidential campaign with candidates, knowing they will have two and only two nominations, revealing to the electorate who those candidates might be.

I am sure there are downsides to this proposal, but would it really be bad to treat all presidents equally? And why is it bad if unelected Justices decided cases for “only” eighteen years when most Justices before 1960 did not serve that long?

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First Sentences

“One winter morning several years ago, I got an email with some ridiculously exciting news.” A.J. Jacobs, The Puzzler: One Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life.

“The police decided to enter the flat, but rather than break down the door they called a locksmith, figuring that a few minutes either way were unlikely to make a difference.” The Shadow District by Arnaldur Indridason (translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb).

“At a recent lecture on the Piltdown disclosures a member of the audience remarked, ‘When I read in the paper that Piltdown man was bogus, I felt as if something had gone out of my life; I had been brought up on Piltdown man!’”  J.S. Weiner, The Piltdown Forgery.

“In my dream I was reaching right through the glass of the window on a hockshop.” Fredric Brown, The Fabulous Clipjoint.

“Magic matters.” David Copperfield, Richard Wiseman, David Britland, David Copperfield’s History of Magic.

“It is never easy to move to a new country, but in truth I was happy to be away from New York.” Katie Kitamura, Intimacies.

“A little before eight on the morning of March 21, 1829, the Duke of Wellington, England’s prime minister, arrived on horseback at a crossroads south of the Thames, about a half mile beyond Battersea Bridge.” Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen.

“It’s hard to know, ever, where a story begins.” Jennifer Haigh, Mercy Street.

“We forget that love is revolutionary.” Tiya Miles, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake.

“His cousin Freddie brought him on the heist one hot night in early June.” Colson Whitehead, Harlem Shuffle.

“The politics of inevitability is the idea that there are no ideas.” Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America.

“It wasn’t far off midnight, but it was still light.” Ragnar Jónasson, Snowblind. (translated by Quentin Bates).

“’We need every one of you,’ proclaimed an anonymous 1985 article in a major white power newspaper.” Kathleen Belew, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America.

“The dust hovers in a cloud behind the Reykjavik coach, the road is a ridged washboard and we rattle on; bend after bend, soon it becomes impossible to see through the muddy windows and, before long, the Laxdoela Saga trail will vanish into the dirt.” Auour Ava Olafsdóttir, Miss Iceland.

“Somewhere in the vast northern ocean, between Iceland and Norway, Thorsteinn Olafsson got himself involved in the biggest mystery of the middle ages by making an honest mistake: he turned his ship a few too many degrees west.” Egill Bjarnason, How Iceland Changed the World: The Big History of a Small Island.

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The Judge Ain’t No Umpire

          Americans believe that Supreme Court justices are biased and rule in line with their personal ideologies and preferences. There are many reasons for these conclusions. When justices such as Amy Coney Barrett tell us how unsullied they are, as she did recently, instead of just going about their judicial work, we can’t help but think about Gertrude and doth protesting too much methinks. But the American skepticism has other roots. Consider the present Chief Justice.

          John Roberts in his confirmation hearings described the job in baseball terms: “Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules; they apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules. But it is a limited role.”

          Roberts has been mocked for this statement, which revealed ignorance or disingenuousness, and since Roberts is smart, the latter is inferred. The Constitution contains numerous phrases that need interpretation, such as “direct taxes,” “the executive power,” “privileges and immunities of citizens,” “the due process of law,” and many others. Deciding cases involving such language is not the same as determining whether a batted ball is fair. Suggesting an equivalency between the umpire and the justice was an attempt to mask the inevitable values and policies that are involved in judging. While umpires do not make up the rules as the game progresses, Supreme Court justices in essence do. Issues are before the Supreme Court because they have not been decided before. If in deciding a case the Court must determine what is interstate commerce or what infringes the free exercise of religion, it is setting down that rule for the first time. It is making up the rules as it goes along.*

          The choices justices make are not inevitable. Legal scholar Sanford Levinson was correct in saying, “There are as many plausible readings of the United States Constitution as there are versions of Hamlet, even though each interpreter, like each director, might genuinely believe that he or she has stumbled onto the one best answer to the conundrums of the texts.” Thus, an interpretation will never be entirely objective. Justice Benjamin Cardozo: “There is in each of us a stream of tendency, whether you choose to call it philosophy or not, which gives coherence and direction to thoughts and actions. Judges cannot escape that current any more than other mortals. Every problem finds its setting. We may try to see things as objectively as we please. None the less, we can never see them with any eyes except our own.” Justice Louis D. Brandeis made the same point: “I believe that our judges are as honest as you can make them. But like all of the rest of us they are subject to their environment.”

          Judges are not gods. They cannot be purely objective, and like the rest of us, they cannot know everything that influences a decision. Cardozo again: “All their [judges’] lives, forces which they do not recognize and cannot name, have been tugging at them—inherited instincts, traditional beliefs, acquired convictions.” It is arrogance, chutzpah, or naïveté to proclaim objectivity for yourself and others as Barrett did, and the justice who unquestioningly believes in or promotes such objectivity is fooling herself. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., said, “It is a misfortune if a judge reads his conscious or unconscious sympathy with one side or the other prematurely into the law, and forgets that what seems to him to be first principles are believed by half of his fellow men to be wrong.”

          Justices without awareness of the limitations of their objectivity who do not practice what should be the accompanying humility are dangerous because the justices not only make up the rules, they make up the final ones. As Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes said, “We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is.” Or as the more acerbic H.L. Mencken defined: “Judge—A law student who marks his own examination papers.”

          We should be leery—no scared—when a judge pretends his job is no different from being a baseball umpire or when another proclaims, “No judge is deciding a case in order to impose a policy result.” The first is blatantly wrong; the second attempts to obscure the fact that policy choices affect us all, including—gasp—the Supreme Court. If I may borrow a term I heard frequently in law offices, the courts, and the playing fields, “Don’t give me bullshit.” On that we should all agree.

———————————————————————————————–

*         Roberts analogy was also wrong from baseball’s perspective and shows that he does not understand that endeavor either. Every fan knows that the strike zone varies in size and location depending on who is behind home plate. Some umpires have a wide zone and some a high one and so on. Perhaps whether the tennis ball landed within the service box would have been a better comparison for Roberts. Of course, now such calls are often automated and don’t require a human. I am quite confident, however, that no Supreme Court justice believes that he or she should be replaced by a machine.

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ACB Told Us So

          A week ago, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett in a speech urged those who are concerned about the Supreme Court to consider more than a case’s outcome. “It’s not just the result that matters. You can disagree with the result passionately. No judge is deciding a case in order to impose a policy result. They are trying to make their best effort to determine what the law requires.” She instructed her audience to the live-streamed event, “Read the opinion,” and asked, “Does [the decision] read like something that was purely results driven and designed to impose the policy preferences of the majority, or does this read like it actually is an honest effort and persuasive effort, even if one you ultimately don’t agree with, to determine what the Constitution and precedent requires?”

          I am one of those who has sleepless nights and troubled naps worrying about the policy decisions made by Barrett and her colleagues. I am hardly alone. A recent poll found that only one in six Americans thinks that the Court is impartial. How could I be so wrong? How could most of you be so wrong? But I can now rest assured. “No judge is deciding a case in order to impose a policy result.” The truth has been delivered. Each and every judge is unbiased. How do I know? Amy Coney Barrett has told me so. Apparently, assertion equals truth.

          It is not surprising that Barrett is especially sensitive to criticisms that her decisions are partisan. She ascended to the Court through blatant partisan maneuverings of Mitch McConnell, and of course, President Trump appointed her because he and others believed that her decisions in certain areas would be predictable. It was expected that she would favor corporations and businesses; aid to religious schools; free exercise of religion claims that would exempt the “religious” from the legal obligations that the rest of us must observe; the limitation or elimination of abortion, contraception, and sexual rights; and the expansion of gun rights.

          The setting of her speech—the Ronald Reagan Library—may have seemed partisan, but the Library over the years has invited all the justices to keynote events. On the other hand, I did not see a non-white face in the audience. That does not mean there was no diversity. Before Barrett spoke, some notables were introduced and that showed that there were white males in attendance from several different boardrooms. Ah, diversity. (These gentlemen are likely to be happy with a current Court trend. Adam Cohen in Supreme Inequality: The Supreme Court’s Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America (2020) notes a study that the Warren Court found in favor of businesses 28% of the time; the Burger Court 48% of the time; 54% for the Rehnquist Court; and 64% for the Roberts Court. Cohen also reports that Justice Scalia voted for criminal defendants in non-white-collar crimes 7% of the time, but in white collar crimes 82% of the time and that Chief Justice Rehnquist voted for defendants in non-white-collar crimes 8% of the times but in white collar crimes 62% of the time.)

          Barrett insists that it is not just the result that matters. Perhaps she is right, but if so, only barely. For most of us, the outcome is what we care about, not how the decision is reached. See post of April 4, 202: Search Results for “Originalism?” – AJ’s Dad (ajsdad.blog). But in trying to reassure us that the results come not from the justice’s personal preferences, Justice Barrett said something troubling. She urged reading the opinion and asked if it reads “like something that was purely results driven.” Purely! I should be sanguine if it is only 80% or 23% results driven? She goes on and asks us if a Justice’s opinion reads as if “designed to impose the policy preferences of the majority, or does this read like it actually is an honest effort and persuasive effort, even if one you ultimately don’t agree with, to determine what the Constitution and precedent requires?” If it reads as that honest effort, I should stop my negative thinking.

          Lawyers are results driven. An attorney is supposed to find a compelling legal path to the outcome the client wants. The lawyer is trying to present a persuasive effort that the client’s desired result is what the Constitution, precedent, or statute requires. I would like to think the Supreme Court Justices would at least make adequate attorneys, and it would be shocking if they could not make apparently good arguments to justify their decisions even if they were results driven. (Barrett, however, did not have much of a career as an attorney; it lasted only a couple years.)

          Some people are convinced by mere preaching from on high, but others believe–cliché alert–that actions speak louder than words. Opinions justifying results that fit with the perceived policy choices of the justices are unlikely to convince the majority of us who are skeptical about the neutrality of the justices. If Barrett rules to overturn Roe v. Wade, I among many are likely to think it was a predetermined result that stems from her conservative and religious views no matter what “legal” reasoning she gives for the outcome. What might convince us that precedent and the Constitution drive justices’ votes would be decisions in which justices have gone against the preconceptions we have of them. Interestingly and all too tellingly, Barrett in her speech provided no such evidence of such an event.

          Her word is supposed to be good enough, but what do you think when someone tells you how honest or disinterested they are? A Supreme Court Justice telling me how pure in thought and motive all the justices are brings a similar skeptical reaction. Justices would be better off not making such pronouncements. If they are going to make speeches, perhaps they should just tell anecdotes—I might feel better about the Court if I found out, for example, that two of its members have argued about what has been the best heavy metal band—and not make what is really a policy statement about how divorced the justices are from making policy pronouncements.

          Even so, before condemning a decision as results-oriented, there is merit to her injunction to read the opinion first, advice that would be easier to follow if justices were forbidden from writing their opinions in more than double-digit pages, something, I assure you, will not happen. Nevertheless, reading the opinion is a good idea. So I was surprised when two days—I repeat, two days—after Barrett’s speech, the Supreme Court rendered a five-to-four decision with vigorous dissents. The decision, upon the request of Louisiana, other states, and companies in the gas and oil industry, reinstated a Trump-era rule that limited the ability of states to block projects that could pollute waterways. The decision fit my preconception of how the conservatives would rule on an environmental case, but I was taking Barrett to heart and went to read the opinion before coming to any conclusions. Guess what? There was no opinion. This came out of what is known as the “shadow docket” of the Court. The majority did not give reasons for its ruling. “Read the opinion”?!?

          I don’t know if Amy Coney Barrett has a good sense of humor. But I do know that she can be ironic.

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To Recuse or Not to Recuse? Let’s Make the Question Easier

Messages from Ginni Thomas to Trump administration officials indicate she believes that the last election was stolen from the former president. This has brought calls that her husband Clarence Thomas recuse himself from any Supreme Court case that might involve that 2020 election.

I leave the merits of whether his recusal is appropriate to others or for another day. Instead, I have been struck by some of the commentary that says that Justice Thomas should refuse to recuse and refers to the well-known opinion (in certain nerd circles) when Antonin Scalia refused to recuse himself.

In that case, Vice-President Dick Cheney was a named party, and an opposing party moved that Scalia recuse himself because Cheney and Scalia for years had gone on a hunting vacation together. Before launching into the twenty pages defending his non-recusal decision, Scalia pointed out that the motion suggested that Scalia “resolve any doubts in favor of recusal.” Scalia responded: “That might be sound advice if I were sitting on a Court of Appeals. There, my place would be taken by another judge, and the case would proceed normally. On the Supreme Court, however, the consequence is different: The Court proceeds with eight Justices, raising the possibility that, by reason of a tie vote, it will find itself unable to resolve the significant legal issue presented by the case.”

Of course, Scalia was right that a recusal on a lower court is different from one on the Supreme Court. Throughout the country, we generally have three levels of courts. The lowest is often called a trial court where a legal matter originates. The proceedings are presided over by a single judge, but there are other trial judges in the jurisdiction. If a judge steps aside, another trial judge gets the matter, and the legal matter proceeds in the same fashion as if there had been no recusal.

An intermediate appellate court sitting above the trial courts decides cases with panels of judges—three in the federal Courts of Appeals. These appeals courts, however, retain more than three judges. The panel to decide a case is drawn from the greater number. For example, the federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals has thirteen fully active judges, but normally only three decide a case. As Scalia indicated, if a judge assigned to a case is recused, then another appellate court judge steps in and the same sized panel still decides the case.

The Supreme Court is different. Nine justices decide a case and the Supreme Court has only nine justices. If a justice steps aside, the matter will be decided by the remaining justices, or if the justices split evenly, no decision is rendered. (A tie vote means the intermediate appellate court decision stands.) Scalia used the possibility of a four-four split as a justification to stay on the case, and it is now also cited as a reason why Clarence Thomas should not recuse himself.

While lower court judges may be expected to err on the side of recusal and step off a case when there is a reasonable chance that there is a conflict of interest or the perception of a conflict, Scalia’s approach was that a Supreme Court Justice should err on the side of non-recusal. More unfairness may result, and an increased perception of unfairness seems inevitable. The unavailability of a justice to replace a recused justice, however, is remediable, and reforms should be considered.

The Constitution neither defines the number of Supreme Court Justices nor does it define how many Justices should decide a case. It merely says: “The judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” Although the Constitution never expressly gives it the authority, Congress sets the size, which has varied from its original six until after the Civil War when it was set at nine, where it has stayed since. That number has seemed sacrosanct after FDR’s failed attempt to expand the Court in 1937.

Nine remains sacred because proposals to change the size seem partisan. Recent suggestions of enlarging the Court came because that body is firmly conservative and because Republican partisan activities insured a firm majority of rightist Justices. However, there are proposals that would lead to more than nine Justices that could make the Court appear, and perhaps be, less partisan. The reforms could lead to better Justices and make the nomination and approval process less partisan.

The core of the proposal is that each president gets to appoint a Supreme Court Justice every two years, say on the July 1 after the presidential term begins. Presidents would make another appointment every two years thereafter. Of course, since Justices can sit on the Supreme Court until death or resignation, the Court could have an increasing number of judges, which could become unwieldy if all of them decided each case. Instead, nine Justices would be picked at random from all the Supreme Court judges to hear a matter.

There are obvious advantages to this scheme. First, of course, there would be replacements for recused justices, and there would be no possibility of an equal split among the justices. The decision to recuse can then concentrate solely on conflicts of interests.

Another advantage is that the enlarged Court could take on more cases than it does now. If, for example, the Supreme Court had fourteen justices and nine decided each case, then the Court should be able to accept fifty percent more cases than it does now. Fewer Court of Appeals decisions, which are sometimes inconsistent from circuit to circuit, would stand as the result in a litigation. This would give more certainty, uniformity, and finality to the law than we have now.

Drawing nine from a broader roster of justices also would have the advantage of dampening lawyerly gamesmanship. Attorneys now try to predict how each of the nine justices might decide a particular issue and seek review only when they assess the Supreme Court lineup as favorable to their position. That gamesmanship was evident with Amy Coney Barrett’s ascension to the Court. Conservative legal organizations now see a solid Supreme Court majority favoring certain kinds of religious claims, Second Amendment expansion, and the limitation or elimination of the right to abortion and are seeking to get Supreme Court review of cases containing such issues before a Court they see as especially favorable to their viewpoints.

That lawyerly calculus would change, however, if the nine Justices who heard a case were drawn from a larger pool, and the attorneys seeking review did not know who those nine would be. The addition of a single Justice to the Court would not be the momentous event it now often is. I don’t know for certain what result this would have on Supreme Court decisions and the perceptions of those decisions, but perhaps there would be more public focus on the issues and less on the judges. That would be a good thing.

(concluded April 8)

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Partisan Hacks, Comprised of

Before the ink was dry on her nomination to the Supreme Court, right-wing news articles and fundraising emails attacked Ketanji Brown Jackson. One said that she had “taken radical, liberal positions throughout her career” without giving even a hint as to what those positions were. A different writer labeled her “a politician in robes.”

The writings did not contain a glimpse of irony or even the slightest acknowledgement that only recently conservative Supreme Court Justices have themselves been criticized as partisans. This criticism came as a result of issuing opinions with scanty or no reasoning that followed their own political predilections and that of their patrons; allowing unconstitutional laws to be enforced; and bending judicial norms to hear cases that have political overtones.

The conservative justices had to know that their actions would look political and produce vehement criticisms, but you might expect them to simply ignore the critics. When I was a baseball umpire, I expected disagreement with some of my calls. I knew that I should not umpire if I could not handle criticism. If you take a judgeship, you should not be surprised by criticism. And if anyone should feel secure from critics, it would be an insular band of people who have both power and life tenure.

However, the comments about the Court made some justices feel like paper flowers in the rain.* Ignoring the fact that defensiveness often gives greater credence to the critics, several justices made replies. The most quotable “defense” came from Amy Coney Barrett who announced that the Supreme Court “is not comprised of partisan hacks.” Of course, it would have been even more newsworthy if Barrett had said that the Court was filled with partisan hacks, but, nevertheless, the whine indicated how touchy some members of the Supreme Court are.

Now, if you are looking for self-conscious irony, don’t go to the conservatives on the Supreme Court. Whether or not she is a partisan, she is sitting on the Court because of naked partisan power, and she made her statement in a place that honors a person no one would ever sanely label as nonpartisan, Mitch McConnell. And yes, if she has an ounce of gratitude, she should be indebted to him for his partisanship.

If Barrett, for unfathomable reasons, thought her ex cathedra-like statement would end discussion of the topic, she was undercut by her colleague Justice Samuel Alito. A month or so after Barrett announced the absence of judicial partisanship, Alito made a speech to the Federalist Society, a group not widely known for its even-handed policies. Many sources concluded that this speech was so highly partisan that it should have raised ethical concerns for a judge. However, Supreme Court justices are not bound by the ethical standards set for other judges—disturbing yet true.  So, on the one hand, we have Barrett’s assertion, not supported by any evidence or reasoning, about the lack of partisanship on the Court, and then we have the stark evidence of a partisan speech by a Justice. Chicolini’s classic comeback in Duck Soup comes to mind: “Well, who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?”

But maybe, I thought, I was being unfair to Barrett. Perhaps her statement was more limited than I had first believed. Reports say that she is smart and a meticulous judge. She, no doubt, tries to use words precisely. She asserted that the Court “is not comprised of partisan hacks.” I went to H.W. Fowler’s classic A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. In it he discusses the difference between include and comprise: “[T]he distinction seems to be that comprise is appropriate when what is in question is the content of the whole, and include when it is the admission or presence of an item. With include, there is no presumption that all or even most of the components are mentioned; with comprise, the whole of them are understood to be in the list.” With her use of comprise, then, Barrett was only telling me that not all the Supreme Court Justices were partisan hacks. However, she might be signaling–with lawyerly precision–that it includes some. Or perhaps she is conveying that some justices are partisan but not hacks or hacks but not partisan? Alito comes to mind again. Many commentators, citing several examples, say that Alito is a partisan. They almost never label him a hack; instead, they almost always refer to how smart he is.

Of course, I may be giving Barrett too much credit for using words precisely. After all, she did use the phrase comprised of, a definite grammatical no-no. The prickly Fowler believes that the English language might be better off with the banishment of comprise: “This lamentably common use of comprise as a synonym of compose or constitute is a wanton and indefensible weakening of our vocabulary.” Perhaps when it comes to words, Barrett is not a conservative standard bearer. Even if that might be laudable, comprised of is not to be praised, at least according to Benjamin Dreyer who writes about comprise in the immodestly titled Dreyer’s English: “I confess: I can barely remember which is the right way to use this word.” He says that he looks it up each time he is tempted to use it. Dreyer tells us that it is correct to say, “The English alphabet comprises twenty-six letters.” And this, too, is right: “Twenty-six letters compose the English alphabet.” But it is wrong to write, “The English alphabet is comprised of twenty-six letters.” Dreyer writes, “As soon as you’re about to attach ‘of’ to the word ‘comprise,’ raise your hands to the sky and edit yourself.”

Of course, you might tell me to lighten up. Don’t parse her words so closely. C’mon; you get the gist of her meaning. Don’t take her so literally. It’s not a big deal if she was imprecise. But, my friends, she is a Supreme Court justice, and when she writes an opinion, no matter how loose its reasoning, no matter how imprecise it may be, it will have important consequences. Barrett may be making decisions that control us for the next thirty or forty years. And precision should matter for a Justice. As Fred R. Shapiro writes in The Oxford Dictionary of American Legal Quotations, “Law is the intersection of language and power.”

I wonder if Barrett will continue to suggest how nonpartisan the Court is if Ketanji Brown Jackson ascends the Court. Conservatives of all stripes are accusing her (Jackson) of being partisan. What kind of hypocrisy is this? Well, we can rest in the assurance from Barrett that she, at least in her own opinion, is not a political hack. Or can we?

*“Only paper flowers are afraid of the rain.” Konstantin Dankevich.

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Originalism? Living Constitutionalism? Who Cares?

Conservatives are ecstatic to have Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court, but have you considered what makes a judge “conservative”? Is it the results they reach or the methods they use to make a decision? Conservative judges promise that they are wedded to a process of constitutional and statutory interpretation and follow that process to the outcome no matter what that outcome is. They maintain that they would never, ever, start from wanting a certain result and work backwards from it seeking reasons for that favored result. No, no. They merely use neutral legal interpretive tools in a consistent manner to reach their decisions about the constitution and the laws. They apply originalism, original public meaning, textualism or some other text-based method to tell us what the constitution and laws allow or forbid. (I have written about methods of legal interpretation several times including on August 22, 2018, Originally it was not Originalism – AJ’s Dad (ajsdad.blog), and on March 24, 2017 Originalism to Textualism – AJ’s Dad (ajsdad.blog).)

          I suspect that most of us, however, don’t give a hoot about the analytic methods used by the Court. Few of us could explain the methodologies. We are concerned with the results. I thought of this a few years ago when the Supreme Court held that firing a gay or transgender employee violated a federal statute that prohibits employment discrimination “because of . . . sex.” The opinion was written by Neil Gorsuch, a conservative favorite. Gorsuch’s analysis relied on what is called textualism, a method championed by Antonin Scalia and other conservative jurists. I am simplifying somewhat, but the method basically says that the statutory words should be applied as written. So, Gorsuch reasoned that if a man is fired for having sex with a man when a woman would not be dismissed for having sex with a man, then the firing is discrimination based on sex. If a woman were fired from a job when a man would not be, it is sexual discrimination. Thus, if a man is fired from a job when a woman would not, that is also sexual discrimination. Gorsuch reasoned that the dismissal of a man because he has sex with another man when a woman would not lose her job for having sex with a man violated the statute.

          A conservative outcry ensued. Some conservatives discussed Gorsuch’s methodology and concluded that he had misapplied textualism, but many others merely decried the outcome without discussing the majority’s analytical method. They felt that a result that furthered the so-called “homosexual agenda” had to be wrong no matter how the decision was reached. They cared about the outcome, not the methodology. But I think that liberals were similar. They cheered the outcome but did not care about the method used to reach it.

          I thought of this again when the recent Supreme Court term ended. The Court rendered two decisions on its last day. Almost immediately I received an email from a right-wing group praising one of the decisions: “Today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an important decision in Americans for Prosperity v. Bonta, a donor disclosure case with direct implications for religious liberty. In its 6-3 ruling, the Court held that a California law requiring the disclosure of donor names is unconstitutional.” The notice from this religious group continued, “Forcing charities to hand over and make their donor information public is unconstitutional—and it’s also very dangerous. Coupled with the toxic ‘cancel culture’ that’s all around us, government having at its fingertips a compiled list of religious people and/or those who support faith-based groups is a recipe for disaster. The ability to associate with others of like mind is indispensable to freedom. We’re very pleased that the Court recognized the disclosure of names and addresses of citizens simply for donating to a cause is chilling to the freedom of association—including the freedom to associate with, join and donate to the faith-based organizations that are near and dear to us.” (This group was clearly wrong when it thanked me “for generously supporting” it and labeled me a “courageous” supporter. I am on their email list only because I requested a free copy of the Constitution from them, which they generously supplied.)

          The point here is not to discuss whether the Supreme Court decision was correct but rather to emphasize that these words of praise are for the outcome of the case, not for the methodology that led to the result. There was no mention of the conservative buzzwords of originalism, original public meaning, or textualism.

          On the same day, the Supreme Court also decided that changes to Arizona voting laws that made it more difficult for some voters to cast a ballot did not violate the Voting Rights Act even though the Arizona measures had a disproportionate effect on minorities. I have read some good commentaries contending that the conservative majority was not properly reading the text of the statute, but was, in effect, rewriting the law which forbids all changes in voting law with a disparate impact on minorities, while the Court decided that the disparate effects were so small that under the Voting Rights Acts they did not matter  Others, however, without addressing the Court’s methodology, simply placed a Jim Crow label on the decision.

          I felt something similar when I watched a documentary about Ruth Bader Ginsburg a few years ago. The movie presented her inspiring life story and claimed that as a lawyer and judge, she helped move the law in directions that many approve of. But the film did not begin to explain her analytic methods or how her methodology may have been the appropriate way to examine constitutional questions. She was a heroine to many not because of her methodology but because of the results that she reached.

          In short, many on both the right and the left have little interest in the analytic methods the Supreme Court uses. They are concerned only with the outcomes.

Posted on by rjonakait

Stitching a New Nine this Time

President Biden has put together a commission to examine the size of the Supreme Court. A bill was introduced in Congress to expand the Supreme Court from nine to thirteen justices. In response, a Republican congressman said the Democrats’ plan is to do as much harm to “our democracy” as possible. I wondered about his definition of democracy for, while the Supreme Court is an important American institution, it is one of our least democratic features.

The Supreme Court, of course, is not an elected body; the Justices are neither voted in nor answerable to “the people.” Since Justices may sit for thirty or more years, they make decisions for decades after the officials who appointed and confirmed them have left office. This can also be long after many  Americans were even eligible to vote for the president and senators who appointed and confirmed them. The Supreme Court is not a democratic body. Indeed, in finding validly enacted laws unconstitutional, it is often acting anti-democratically.

Furthermore, many do not see the Supreme Court as a neutral, thoughtful legal body, but a political one. Such a notion finds traction any time a presidential candidate pledges to appoint Justices not just for their legal acumen or wisdom but also for their perceived views. We know that the backgrounds of possible Supreme Court nominees are analyzed to foretell their ruling on important issues.

If the Court was to be expanded, Biden would be expected by many to nominate people who would rule in a “liberal” fashion, which means that the Republicans will oppose any expansion of the Supreme Court. Unless changes are made to the anti-democratic filibuster rules, a larger Supreme Court is unlikely. Even so, that should not end considerations for reforming the process even if a larger Court resulted. The Supreme Court is an important institution but not a perfect one, and perhaps it can be made even better. What is clear, however, is that a change in its size and the timing of who will be on the Court will not destroy or harm democracy.

The Constitution does not define the number of Supreme Court Justices. It merely says: “The judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” Although the Constitution never expressly gives it the authority, Congress sets the size, which has varied from its original six until after the Civil War when it was set at nine, where it has stayed since. That number has seemed sacrosanct since FDR’s failed attempt to expand the Court in 1937.

The Court had found many pieces of New Deal legislation unconstitutional. As Jeff Shesol reports in Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court (2010), the Supreme Court between 1933 and 1936 overturned congressional acts at ten times the historic rate often using long neglected doctrines and breathing new life into obscure clauses of the Constitution to do so. Roosevelt then sought an expansion of the Court. Although Roosevelt gave varying nonpolitical reasons for his plan (What a shock! A politician being disingenuous!), the assumption was that he wanted more Justices so that he could appoint sympathetic people, who would uphold legislation passed by Congress and signed by the president. Or as one might put it, accept democratically enacted laws.

Roosevelt’s proposal was soundly defeated after much rhetoric about his threat to our constitutional government. While FDR’s plan failed by a resounding vote, ultimately he was the winner, and the Supreme Court and conservatives the losers. Here’s why. Soon after the proposal to enlarge the Court was presented, the Court began to uphold New Deal legislation with logic that seemed inconsistent with its previous holdings. To many the Court seemed to be bending to political winds, and the perception of it as a partisan institution increased. The proposal to enlarge the Supreme Court did not put Roosevelt in a good light. However, it also put the Court in a­ bad a light when its questionable constitutional interpretations became recognized as being the overreach of biased judges reacting to legislation they did not favor.

Any suggestion since then to expand the Court has met with outcries that our constitutional way of life will be overthrown. Adding Justices only seems to be a partisan power play and not something that could improve justice, the Court, or the perception of the Court. Something like this passage from an email I have just received from a conservative institution will be repeated many times:

Political elites on the radical Left have officially taken the first step in their plot to overthrow the U.S. Supreme Court. With the Biden Administration’s recent announcement of their new Supreme Court “reform” commission, there’s no mistaking it any longer: the extreme Left set its sights on permanently turning our independent judiciary into a tool of raw political power. And now taking it even further, Democrats have filed a bill to add 4 seats to the U.S. Supreme Court. Let’s call it what it is: a coup.

Liberals, on the other hand, have seen the Republican denial of the Merrick Garland nomination and the subsequent approval of Amy Coney Barrett as exercises of raw political power. These moves are seen not as a coup, but as a means of transforming the judiciary into a more partisan institution. A Democratic congressional candidate in the last election, when asked about court packing, said what many others think:

Sure, let’s talk about packing the court. Let’s talk about how Republicans have won the popular vote only 1 of last 7 Presidential elections but have nominated 14 of last 19 SCOTUS picks. Let’s talk about how Mitch McConnell denied President Obama’s appointments of 110 Federal judges, and a SCOTUS appointment. Those 110 appointments were then appointed by President Trump with conservative judges, and the SCOTUS pick denied to Obama was given to Trump. And now, going back on their own rule to not appoint SCOTUS justices in an election year, the GOP wants to appoint a justice in an election year. You can’t accuse Democrats of a hypothetical event that never happened while ignoring the actual court packing done by Republicans.

It seems inevitable that those holding this latter view want to use present Democratic political power to balance the partisan Republican actions. Our country is harmed the more that Supreme Court rulings are seen not as neutral constitutional and statutory rulings but as merely the imposition of personal, political, and increasingly religious views of the judges and those who placed them on the bench. An expanded Court might bring us a more balanced Court now, but ultimately, just as the Republicans have damaged the Supreme Court by their actions, the Democrats may do the same in the name of balance. The functioning of our constitutional government is harmed if we all believe as Roy Cohn did when he said, “I don’t want to know what the law is, I want to know who the judge is.” The Republican actions foster that feeling, and actions to counterbalance them by expanding the Court can do the same.

We can’t remove politics from Supreme Court decisions. On some level, all government decisions are political, and the Court is not immune. Writing about a famous case, legal scholar Fred Rodell said, “Both the plaudits and the deference, like the decision itself, and like every significant Supreme Court decision since, were and are rooted in politics, not in law. This only the ignorant would deny and only the naïve deplore.” This may be so, but that does not mean that we should just throw up our hands and accept an overly partisan Court. Instead, in examining proposals for reforming the Supreme Court, we should be seeking ways to make it look, and perhaps be, less politically partisan and more politically neutral.

Many reforms have been proposed including adding Justices now, which, of course, will be seen as and would be a partisan move even if it is warranted by Republican actions. Expansion would apparently be a one-shot deal, but of course, Republicans would be urged to do something comparable when they have the opportunity.

Other proposals, however, offer institutional changes in the timing of Supreme Court nominations that, even though they would lead to a larger body, could make the Court appear, and perhaps be, less partisan. I have not studied them all, but one has intrigued me. But now my embarrassment. I know that I read this proposal, or one much like it, somewhere. It was online, and I did not save it. I have looked for it, but so far have not found it again. I apologize for not giving proper credit, which I hope to correct.

The core of this unique proposal is that each president gets to appoint a Supreme Court Justice every two years, say on the July 1 after the presidential term begins. Presidents would make another appointment every two years thereafter. Of course, since Justices can sit on the Supreme Court until death or resignation, the Court could have an increasing number of judges, which could become unwieldy. Instead, in this scenario nine Justices would be picked at random from all the Supreme Court judges to decide a case. Many courts already operate this way. Intermediate appellate courts, such as the federal Courts of Appeals, have panels of three judges deciding a case but have more than that number sitting on that court. From the panoply of judges, the requisite number are selected to resolve a case. For example, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has thirteen fully active judges, but normally only three decide a case. The court can, therefore, take on more cases and decide them more quickly. Similarly, a Supreme Court that had more than nine judges could consider more cases than it does now. If, for example, the Supreme Court had fourteen justices and nine decided each case, then the Court should be able to accept for review fifty percent more cases than it does now. Fewer Court of Appeals decisions, which are sometimes inconsistent from circuit to circuit, would stand as the final result in a litigation. This could give more certainty, uniformity, and finality to the law.

This would also dampen lawyerly gamesmanship. Deadlines are in place to seek Supreme Court review. If they are not met, the lower court decision becomes final. If a party has been ordered to pay $1million or to serve a twenty-year sentence, the money must be paid or the imprisonment served if the petition for Supreme Court review is not timely filed. The party cannot wait for a change in Court Justices hoping that they will receive a more favorable chance in front of a newly-constituted Supreme Court.

Unlike individuals, some institutions are able to wait for Supreme Court review until the time seems propitious. For example, assume the government has lost a tax case concerning some new scheme to avoid taxes. Government attorneys may believe that if they get Supreme Court review, they will lose the case before an existing Supreme Court thereby allowing a precedent being set that allows the scheme to be used by other taxpayers indefinitely. Instead, the government may decide not to seek review in hopes that the makeup of a future Court may be more amenable to its contentions. It may be better for the government to let that individual taxpayer keep the contested moneys to avoid a bad precedent and instead seek review with some other future taxpayer when the Court makeup is different. The government can take the longer view than an individual litigant.

Other institutional groups also try to time Supreme Court review. These institutions represent a cause more than an individual client. Prime examples are the NAACP or the ACLU, but they have been joined by a host of conservative organizations. These advocacy groups often seek review only on issues when they assess the Supreme Court lineup as favorable to their position. We can expect to see that gamesmanship being played repeatedly in the coming years. With Barrett’s ascension to the Court, conservative legal organization see a solid majority favoring certain kinds of religious claims, Second Amendment expansion, and claims limiting or perhaps eliminating the right to abortion, and they will seek to get Supreme Court review of cases containing such issues.

Such gamesmanship only furthers the notion that it is not truly the Constitution or the law that determines an issue, but the personal predilections of the Justices. The intrinsic merits of a legal argument may stay the same, but the likelihood of an outcome can vary depending on the timing of Supreme Court review.

That lawyerly calculus would change, however, if the nine Justices who heard a case were drawn from a larger pool, and the attorneys seeking review did not know who those nine would be. The addition of a single Justice to the Court would not be the momentous event it now often is. I don’t know for certain what result this would have on Supreme Court decisions and the perceptions of those decisions, but perhaps there would be more focus on the issues and less on the judges.

I also saw another option if we had a new Justice every two years, and we had a Supreme Court larger than nine. It is the one I find most interesting.

If every two years the president could nominate a new person to the Supreme Court Justice, the Court could have more than nine Justices. Instead of having the entire group decide all cases, which could be unwieldy, or instead of drawing nine from all the Justices, there is another intriguing possibility. The nine most recently appointed Justices would regularly render the Supreme Court decisions. The displaced Justices would move to a reserve status. That judge would be available whenever one of the regular nine was unavailable for whatever reason such as illness or a conflict of interest. If one of the regular nine died or resigned, the last regularly sitting justice would become one of the regular nine again until another Justice was appointed at the scheduled time.

An obvious question arises. Would this violate the constitutional provision that federal judges have life tenure? (The Constitution actually says judges “shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour.”) I don’t think so. Judges who were appointed more than eighteen years ago and moved to the new reserve status would still hold office. Chief Justice Roberts in his nomination hearing said that he planned to judge like an umpire calling balls and strikes without his personal values affecting his decisions. Let’s stay with the baseball analogy. Nine players take the field, but the other players on the roster are available to come into the game if needed. The players on the field are in the major leagues, but those in the bullpen or in the dugout (I wanted to say “on the bench.” Ha. Ha.) are major leaguers and are on the team, too. With this proposal, the nine Judges actively sitting on the bench (Oxymoron? Actively sitting?) are Supreme Court Justices, but those back in chambers waiting to be called upon would also be Supreme Court Justices, and they can stay in that office during good behavior.

With this proposal, judges would regularly decide cases for eighteen years. That eighteen-year period has advantages. Among other things, it would move the Court to the practice that it has had for most of its history. Before 1959, the average length of tenure on the Supreme Court was thirteen or fourteen years. Since 1959, it has been about twenty-five years. Current Justices have served longer. Clarence Thomas has been serving for twenty-nine years and Stephen Breyer for twenty-six. Chief Justice Roberts and Samuel Alito have been on the Court for fifteen years while the other Justices have been sitting for shorter periods.

That eighteen-year period could also lead to an expanded pool of people to be considered for a nomination. Wanting to leave as long a legacy on the Supreme Court as possible, presidents today are not likely to appoint someone who is sixty or older. God forbid, that person might be on the Court for a mere twenty years! Find someone who is younger and expect a tenure of thirty or more years. Thus, Amy Coney Barrett, the last person appointed to the Supreme Court, went on the bench when she was forty-eight and her two immediate predecessors on the Court, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, were fifty-three and forty-nine, respectively. Fifty-five is the oldest age at which any of the present Supreme Court Justices was appointed, and Clarence Thomas was only forty-three. Knowing, however, that the most active period of judging will be “only” eighteen years, a president can consider a wider range of age and experience for a nominee.

Giving every president an appointment every two years may also reduce the partisanship of the Supreme Court and certainly should reduce the perception of partisanship. Currently it is mere chance that determines how many, if any, nominations the chief executive will have. Some presidents have a greater opportunity to pack the court with ideological bedfellows than others. With this reform all presidents would be treated equally. The appointments might be just as partisan as now, but the partisanship is more likely to be balanced and in sync with “the people” as we elect presidents.

The partisan games we have just witnessed during which the Senate denied a consideration of Merrick Garland but forced through the confirmation of Barrett would end. Such maneuvers that strengthen the notion that the Court is not a neutral body might end. Similarly, the present situation calling for the resignation of Justice Breyer so that “our side” can appoint a younger person, which also tends to treat the Court as just another partisan body, should disappear.

This reform should not put be into place immediately. Of course, Republicans would oppose it if it gave Biden two appointments in the next four years. Instead, it should start after the next presidential election with the newly-elected president getting his/her first appointment on July 1, 2025, and one every two years thereafter. Perhaps this might even lead to a more information-driven presidential campaign with candidates, knowing they will have two and only two nominations, revealing to the electorate who those candidates might be.

I am sure there are downsides to this proposal, but would it really be bad to treat all presidents equally? And why is it bad if unelected Justices decided cases for “only” eighteen years when most Justices before 1960 did not serve that long?

Posted on by rjonakait

Stitching a New Nine this Time (concluded)

If every two years the president could nominate a new person to the Supreme Court Justice, the Court could have more than nine Justices. Instead of having the entire group decide all cases, which could be unwieldy, or instead of drawing nine from all the Justices, there is another intriguing possibility. The nine most recently appointed Justices would regularly render the Supreme Court decisions. The displaced Justices would move to a reserve status. That judge would be available whenever one of the regular nine was unavailable for whatever reason such as illness or a conflict of interest. If one of the regular nine died or resigned, the last regularly sitting justice would become one of the regular nine again until another Justice was appointed at the scheduled time.

An obvious question arises. Would this violate the constitutional provision that federal judges have life tenure? (The Constitution actually says judges “shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour.”) I don’t think so. Judges who were appointed more than eighteen years ago and moved to the new reserve status would still hold office. Chief Justice Roberts in his nomination hearing said that he planned to judge like an umpire calling balls and strikes without his personal values affecting his decisions. Let’s stay with the baseball analogy. Nine players take the field, but the other players on the roster are available to come into the game if needed. The players on the field are in the major leagues, but those in the bullpen or in the dugout (I wanted to say “on the bench.” Ha. Ha.) are major leaguers and are on the team, too. With this proposal, the nine Judges actively sitting on the bench (Oxymoron? Actively sitting?) are Supreme Court Justices, but those back in chambers waiting to be called upon would also be Supreme Court Justices, and they can stay in that office during good behavior.

With this proposal, judges would regularly decide cases for eighteen years. That eighteen-year period has advantages. Among other things, it would move the Court to the practice that it has had for most of its history. Before 1959, the average length of tenure on the Supreme Court was thirteen or fourteen years. Since 1959, it has been about twenty-five years. Current Justices have served longer. Clarence Thomas has been serving for twenty-nine years and Stephen Breyer for twenty-six. Chief Justice Roberts and Samuel Alito have been on the Court for fifteen years while the other Justices have been sitting for shorter periods.

That eighteen-year period could also lead to an expanded pool of people to be considered for a nomination. Wanting to leave as long a legacy on the Supreme Court as possible, presidents today are not likely to appoint someone who is sixty or older. God forbid, that person might be on the Court for a mere twenty years! Find someone who is younger and expect a tenure of thirty or more years. Thus, Amy Coney Barrett, the last person appointed to the Supreme Court, went on the bench when she was forty-eight and her two immediate predecessors on the Court, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, were fifty-three and forty-nine, respectively. Fifty-five is the oldest age at which any of the present Supreme Court Justices was appointed, and Clarence Thomas was only forty-three. Knowing, however, that the most active period of judging will be “only” eighteen years, a president can consider a wider range of age and experience for a nominee.

Giving every president an appointment every two years may also reduce the partisanship of the Supreme Court and certainly should reduce the perception of partisanship. Currently it is mere chance that determines how many, if any, nominations the chief executive will have. Some presidents have a greater opportunity to pack the court with ideological bedfellows than others. With this reform all presidents would be treated equally. The appointments might be just as partisan as now, but the partisanship is more likely to be balanced and in sync with “the people” as we elect presidents.

The partisan games we have just witnessed during which the Senate denied a consideration of Merrick Garland but forced through the confirmation of Barrett would end. Such maneuvers that strengthen the notion that the Court is not a neutral body might end. Similarly, the present situation calling for the resignation of Justice Breyer so that “our side” can appoint a younger person, which also tends to treat the Court as just another partisan body, should disappear.

This reform should not put be into place immediately. Of course, Republicans would oppose it if it gave Biden two appointments in the next four years. Instead, it should start after the next presidential election with the newly-elected president getting his/her first appointment on July 1, 2025, and one every two years thereafter. Perhaps this might even lead to a more information-driven presidential campaign with candidates, knowing they will have two and only two nominations, revealing to the electorate who those candidates might be.

I am sure there are downsides to this proposal, but would it really be bad to treat all presidents equally? And why is it bad if unelected Justices decided cases for “only” eighteen years when most Justices before 1960 did not serve that long?

(This essay will be posted in order on Monday May 3)

Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

I was waiting for an angiogram in a room divided into cubicles by curtains. I could hear the guy next to me chattering, not to me, but to the nurse, who was taking his history. When the guy learned that the nurse was a Filipino, he became more voluble because his sister-in-law was a nurse born in the Philippines. I and anyone else in the room learned how his sister-in-law had worked in New York City at Bellevue Hospital but that she now worked at Stony Brook Hospital on Long Island. She had married into an Italian-American family, and she loved cooking Italian food. He exclaimed proudly, “You wouldn’t believe the spread she puts out on New Year’s Eve. We all go to her house. The food is so beautiful, and she makes so many dishes.” When he went off for his procedure, I was left in relative silence for an hour or more before I was wheeled off, but my neighbor-patient’s comments continued to ring in my ear. They made me feel better about America.

          New York City, along with several other jurisdictions, was named an “anarchistic jurisdiction” by the Trump administration in an effort to withhold federal funds. But I also hear from conservatives that NYC has confiscatory taxes to support its oppressively big government.  Anarchy, big government . . . if words have meanings, both terms can’t apply. Pick one epithet, not both.

          The controversy over the elevation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court brought about hopes and concerns about the future of Roe v. Wade as well as the future of same-sex marriage and other LGBTQ rights. The future of the Affordable Care Act also hangs in the balance. This has given me pause. I know that the Supreme Court will be considering a case about the ACA, but even though I have some understanding of constitutional law, I do not know the reasons that suggest that Obamacare is unconstitutional? Do you? I don’t believe many people do, but I know that many desire its end. Why? Nearly all the complaints lodged against the healthcare law are not true. (You can check them out! Go online.) I assume that nearly all of the Republican and conservative elites know that the attacks on the ACA are canards, but they still act as if the foundations of society are crumbling because of the law. Why the adamant opposition? A recent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office may reveal why the Republican establishment wants the end of the Affordable Care Act. Tax increases designed to fund Obamacare are concentrated on the top one percent, but its benefits are spread widely among the bottom 40% of income earners. Thus, the ACA produced an income increase of 3.6% in the bottom income quintile and a 3.2% income increase in next higher income quintile. The middle quintile saw a 0.5% income increase with minor income increases up the income scale until we get to the top 1% where there was an income drop of 1.2%. Perhaps, such income redistribution above all else, explains why Paul Ryan, Trump, Mitch McConnell, and others wish to rid our country of that pernicious Affordable Care Act.

Real Americans I know have taken their six-year-old trick-or-treating. Real Americans I know have at least tried to carve a Jack-O-Lantern with their kids. And Donald J. Trump?