Justice Kennedy: The Man Running The Supreme Court?
The Article: Does The Supreme Court Rely On One Man’s Decision? by Benjamin Siegel in The Speckled Axe.
The Text: The fate of President Obama’s crowning achievement of his first term — the passing of the healthcare reform law — seemingly rests on the shoulders of one Supreme Court Justice. After repeated 5-4 rulings decided recent cases, what initially seemed to be mere suspicions of a court neatly divided along party lines has become something of a known fact. Divided between four staunchly conservative and four staunchly liberal justices, Anthony Kennedy has become the one and only swing vote on the Supreme Court.
Dialogue-shifting decisions that have painted a picture of a bench divided along liberal/conservative lines include 2010’s Berghuis v. Thompkins ruling, in which the court essentially ruled to loosen an arrested citizen’s Miranda rights. That same year, the Supreme Court ruled on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, where they determined that political spending is protected under the First Amendment. This year brought the decision on Florence v. Burlington County, in which the court ruled that police may strip search anyone arrested for any offense, even if there is no reason to suspect contraband.
In each of the above Supreme Court decisions, Justice Anthony Kennedy was the deciding factor. Siding with the conservative wing of the court (Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Chief Justice John Roberts), Kennedy was able to swing cases with significant impact on how the Constitution is interpreted and enforced.
While the Supreme Court bears the bold declaration above its main doors of “Equal Justice Under the Law,” it appears to be bogging itself down in a type of justice that is far from blind. In fact, the very idea of having one man consistently deciding on cases seems to be driven by a brand of justice that has its eyes wide open, inspired by and desiring to imitate the petty arguments that have become such a stumbling block to Congressional productivity. And as a Gallup Poll from February of this year painfully pointed out, the current Congress is sitting on a comfortable 10% American approval rating.
Another poll showed that after the three-day hearing on Obamacare, the Supreme Court’s public approval rating jumped. This is a good thing, right? Doesn’t this mean that people are beginning to believe that the decision on Obamacare might usher in a new age of a Supreme Court that is once again guided by a studious, intellectual grasp of the law? Unlikely. Maybe it is just cynicism prevailing, but perhaps it’s not that the public has become more optimistic about the court. Maybe it’s just that the Court has morphed itself into exactly what people crave in their political news feeds: partisan, polarizing, and disagreeable politics.
When the Court rules on Obamacare, the Justices’ statements will be nothing short of captivating to court watchers. If the law is upheld, the President will see it as a triumphant political victory and he will ride it well into the peak of election season. Ifit is overturned, conservative lawmakers and opposing judges will claim it as their prize. They will assert that the law failed the vital test of judicial review and the President was merely name-calling when he accused the court of activism. Either way, the court’s decision will be where the buck stops, at least for a while in terms of political rhetoric.
However, how the Justices back up their decision is almost as important as the court’s decision itself. If, in the majority opinion, we find yet another vaguely worded 5-4 call that reeks of political side-taking, both sides lose. Because if that’s the case, the only branch of government supposed to be able to lift itself above Washington’s political roughhousing will be rolling up its sleeves and trading political haymakers right there with them.
