<
https://fortune.com/2024/08/30/supreme-court-reform-term-limits-ethics-standard/>
"The U.S. Supreme Court has changed from a once venerated institution and third
pillar of our democracy to an ideologically driven, partisan, and
intellectually dishonest creator of minority rule. Undisclosed gifts to Justice
Clarence Thomas, unacknowledged conflicts of interest in the January 6 case,
and a failure to live up to an ethics standard that every other judge in the
country must adhere to have driven Americans’ confidence in the institution to
new lows.
Seventy percent of Americans think the court now puts ideology over
impartiality and I am part of that overwhelming majority. These dire straits
have driven me to commit $30 million to the Brennan Center for Justice to
require term limits and an enforceable standard of ethics requiring recusal in
conflicts of interest.
Starting with
Citizens United, which equated money with speech, to
Shelby,
which weakened the Voting Rights Act, through the repeal of
Roe and to the
latest immunity ruling, the Court has consistently favored the powerful, the
wealthy, and ideologues over the working class and the American people. In
short, it has rigged the system to make it harder to vote, made every single
vote less important than wealthy contributors, and made it easier to
gerrymander districts to keep corrupt parties in power and unaccountable to the
electorate.
The six conservative justices that make up the majority on the Court exploit
originalism and textualism to hide the true political nature of their rulings,
basing decisions on ideology rather than objectivity and the law. In every one
of their sworn testimony before the Senate, each swore allegiance to
stare
decisis—then promptly ignored their own sworn testimony.
I am not a political actor or activist. I have voted for both Republican and
Democratic presidents. And these critical reforms are not designed to help one
party over the other. Each president should get a pick for the Supreme Court,
thereby making it accountable to the will of the citizens of this country.
We are at a critical juncture; if we allow this court to rule unimpeded it will
reverse 60 years of jurisprudence trying to level the playing field away from
the moneyed ideologically driven elites and the corporate interests that have
so much sway over our politics through lobbying and fundraising.
We must not allow this to happen. We must do what we can. We must find ways to
reverse the reactionary drift of the judicial system. We must not allow the
Federalist Society to continue to be the gatekeeper of the Supreme Court and
continue to corrupt the judiciary. Never has a private institution been allowed
to influence the Court in this way."
Via libramoon.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
