The Birthright Citizenship Decision Is More Evidence for Court Reform

As you’ve seen, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of birthright citizenship by a 6 — or perhaps 5 1/2 — vote margin. See Kate Riga’s report on the majority decision and Josh Kovensky’s piece on the dissenters’ goal of doing away with birthright citizenship. I repeat my point from yesterday which is that the occasional non-corrupt decision doesn’t make the Court any less corrupt or in need of reform. In this case, in a sane world, the dissents from Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas would on their own be sufficient basis for impeachment and removal from office. One might as well believe or pretend to believe that the federal senate is unconstitutional despite its being unambiguously written into the structure of the document itself. The level of abuse of power that is the basis of these dissents can only be seen as criminal in nature and grows from the culture of corruption and impunity that now reigns on the Court.