Despite all the fearmongering from leftists and wishful thinking from conservatives, the Supreme Court and its three newest justices continue to prove everyone wrong.
The bench has issued a shocking number of unanimous opinions this term, plus some often surprising majority coalitions. In one of its most recent cases illustrating the latter, for example, “conservative” Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the court’s leftist Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan and its Chief Appeaser John Roberts to uphold the federal government’s coronavirus-related tenant-eviction moratorium.
In another ruling issued this week, Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Kagan in a dissent regarding a pipeline in New Jersey, deciding whether the federal government has the power to strip states of their sovereign immunity in eminent domain cases. Barrett argued the government does not have that right, while Justices Samuel Alito, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kavanaugh, and Roberts ruled that it does.
A still more surprising opinion last week came from Thomas, the bench’s most reliable conservative, who joined the liberal justices in a dissent to argue against a decision limiting the standing of the majority of people in a high-profile class-action lawsuit.
And on the unanimity front, all nine justice agreed that Philadelphia could not forbid Catholic Social Services from partnering with the city’s foster care program, and that the NCAA’s ban on certain forms of compensation for student-athletes is a violation of antitrust laws. Indeed, of the 65 decisions in the 2020-2021 term, 29 have been unanimous.
All of this goes to show that the court is taking its constitutional responsibility seriously despite partisan efforts to turn it into a political weapon. The justices are having serious debates about serious constitutional issues and finding that their legal agreements and disagreements with each other transcend the public perceptions of their ideological differences. At least one branch of government is capable of avoiding toxic polarization.
Continue reading story at: msn.com
