The Supreme Court Is Making Itself the Only Branch That Matters

[In It to Win It]

The Supreme Court wrapped its term and headed off on summer vacation this week with a pair of opinions in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency and Biden v. Texas. Together, these cases establish that executive agencies CANNOT do anything meaningful about the climate crisis (or anything else the Republican justices don’t care about), but also, that Donald Trump is NOT an emperor-god-king whose trademark brand of zombified xenophobia will dictate U.S. immigration policy forevermore. Incredibly, for anyone to the left of, say, Mitt Romney, the Court’s last day of school falls somewhere on the spectrum between “not bad” and “actually kind of encouraging, if you think about it, I guess.”

West Virginia is a case about the scope of the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, which, as you may recall, are in the process of choking the planet to death. Using its authority under the Clean Air Act to set emissions limits using the “best system of emission reduction” available, the EPA under President Barack Obama rolled out a rule known as the Clean Power Plan in 2015. This rule, among other things, required fossil fuels-burning power plants to do their part to reduce emissions by cutting production, investing in renewable energy, or offsetting their pollution via cap-and-trade.

Alas, the Clean Power Plan never took effect: The Supreme Court stayed the rule in 2016, and the Trump administration replaced it with a (much weaker, of course) rule of its own. This rule also never took effect: In January 2021, a federal appeals court decided that Trump’s rule and his rescission of the Clean Power Plan were unlawful, too. When President Joe Biden took office, he quite sensibly concluded that he wanted no part of this mess. His administration is working on its own emissions-related rule, hopeful that it can find some kind of Goldilocks approach to climate regulation that judges won’t immediately stuff in the trash.

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[dalton99a]

1. Yep, we now have radical extremists legislating from the bench

[empedocles]

2. Yep

[Javaman]

3. one thing about the supreme court that has always mystified me.

if all the branches of government are equal, why then does the supreme court get the final say?

why doesn't their decision get kicked back to congress?

[Hortensis]

5. Congress can rewrite laws SCOTUS finds grounds to interfere with. SOP.

And of course it's not the only branch that matters. It is using its turn to run the board right now.

[In It to Win It]

7. As post #5 mentions Congress can rewrite laws that the Court 'misinterprets'

Last edited Fri Jul 1, 2022, 09:41 PM - Edit history (1)

Congress has the full ability to basically say "no, Supreme Court, you got this one wrong. You interpreted this law incorrectly and you have applied it incorrectly. Therefore, we will pass new law clarifying this, therefore, overruling your wrong interpretation."

But Congress can't really function that well to actually perform that duty.

Congress also has the ability to regulate the appellate jurisdiction of the Court, which is just about every case they decide. The Court doesn't perform much, if any, of its original jurisdiction. However, jurisdiction stripping is kind of dangerous because someone needs to be able to review laws and strike them down if they go too far. Checking a legislature with judicial review has become a very important part of our system (e.g. abortion ban or voter suppression laws being struck down by a judge).

The Supreme Court doesn't have to have the final say. However, Congress can't function so the Supreme Court has become the de facto final decision maker.

[Javaman]

8. Thanks for the very detailed explanation

So in essence the right wing is taking full advantage of our disfunctional Congress.

[In It to Win It]

9. Rather than taking advantage, I think a dysfunctional Congress is their goal

They know their shitty agenda isn't popular. Conservatives, for all of their bitching, will not like their agenda once it's implemented so the only way to do the popular things they want to do is to have to unelected judges do it. Then their are kinda clean when its time for elections.

[sop]

4. Women, minorities, LGTBQ, secularism, the environment, civil rights, voting rights, union rights,

economic justice and pretty much anything that doesn't benefit mega-corporations and please white conservative christians are always left holding the shit end of the stick in today's Supreme Court.

It's uncanny. One might almost think the Court isn't impartial, maybe even rigged.

[VMA131Marine]

6. This was not the Founders' intent, at all.

We have 6 activist judges on the court.