It’s lucky that the Supreme Court left town this morning. It doesn’t have many fans on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Both Democrats and Republicans are heaping criticism on the Court. And both sides are targeting “activism” and “5-4 decisions”–but they have different lists,
For Democrats, the Citizens United decision striking down campaign finance limitations is the big target. But they also are pointing to a recent decision limiting the federal government’s environmental powers, and rulings against plaintiffs in discrimination cases (including the Ledbetter case, in which the Court’s ruling was reversed by subsequent legislation). Some mention the Court’s decisions holding that the Second Amendment gives individuals a right to bear arms–one last year limiting the power of the federal government and one this morning limiting the authority of the States.
For Republicans, much of the concern about activism is abstract, because the conservative position prevails in most Supreme Court cases these days. A notable exception is the recent decision invalidating as cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment a life sentence for a juvenile convicted of a non-homicide crime. And that came in for criticism today.
