One of the key issues that I am considering in the upcoming primary contest is the control of the SCOTUS. The recent 5 to 4 decisions that came down last week and the week before show how important the SCOTUS is ad the control of the SCOTUS will be determined by the 2016 election. http://theweek.com/articles/564891/why-2016-supreme-court-election
And in the next term, there are positive signs for the right. The justices have already agreed to hear a case that could put the final nail in affirmative action's coffin, as well as one that could cripple public sector unions. The justices are also likely to take one or more cases on restrictions at abortion clinics, and if they rule the way conservatives want, it could make abortions almost impossible to obtain in large swaths of the country.
All that is unlikely to banish the memory of the last couple of weeks from Republicans' minds, and you can bet that the GOP presidential candidates are going to have to promise primary voters that they'll deliver more Supreme Court justices like Alito, and fewer like Anthony Kennedy or even Roberts. If Democrats care about their own agenda, they ought to be no less motivated to vote by the prospect of changes in the court....
While it's possible that they all might decide to hold out until there's a president of their own party to replace them, infirmity or illness may make that impossible. And it's been an awfully long time since a president had the opportunity to change the court's course. The last time a Republican managed it was when George H.W. Bush appointed Clarence Thomas to replace the retiring Thurgood Marshall. And Democrats? Believe it or not, it's been over six decades since a Democratic president had the opportunity to replace a conservative justice; the last one to do it was John F. Kennedy, who appointed Byron White to a seat when Charles Evans Whittaker, who had been appointed by President Eisenhower, resigned in 1962.
If the next president gets that chance, no matter which party he or she comes from, it will profoundly affect the court's direction. If a Republican could appoint someone to replace Ginsburg or Breyer, it would mean a 6-3 conservative majority, which means that Kennedy would no longer be the swing vote and there would be a margin for error in every case. If a Democratic president were to replace Scalia or Kennedy, then the court would go from 5-4 in favor of the conservatives to 5-4 in favor of the liberals.
Those two outcomes would produce two radically different Supreme Courts, with implications that would shape American life for decades. If you think the court has been handling controversial and consequential cases lately, just you wait.
I remember when GHWBush replaced Thurgood Marshal with that idiot Clarence Thomas which started the shift of the court towards being far more conservative. If the GOP gets to pick the replacements for Breyer and RBG, then the court will tilted to the right for a very very long time. By the same measure, if a Democratic President gets to select Kennedy's or Scalia's replacment, then we will not have to worry about the gutting of the right to privacy or Roe v. Wade.
All but a couple of the abortion clinics in Texas were scheduled to be shut down on July 1 and these clinics are still open due to a 5 to 4 decision. Affirmative action, one man one vote and a host of important issues will be decided next year and I would hate to see the SCOTUS shift to being a 6 to 3 court in favor of the conservatives.
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