Repealing the 20th Century

[marmar]

from The American Prospect:



Repealing the 20th Century

While everyone focuses on its abortion decisions, the Roberts Court is merrily revoking a century of legislation protecting citizens, consumers, workers, and minorities against business.

Simon Lazarus | December 12, 2007



When most Americans think about the Supreme Court's effect on the life of their nation, they think about such cultural hot-buttons as abortion, or due process for terrorists, or free speech and pornography. They don't think about the Court's effect on the issues that most directly affect the majority of them on a daily basis -- health and retirement security, workplace fairness and equal opportunity, consumer protection and product safety.

Since these pocketbook matters do not roil culture-war sensitivities or raise constitutional questions, the press, public, and politicians pay little or no heed when they come before the Court. Nor, with few exceptions, do liberal advocacy groups -- even though landmark laws they fought to enact are at risk, and even though constituencies they purport to represent have much reason to care about how those laws will fare in the hands of the Roberts Court. Indeed, while right-wing groups still make political hay by railing at "liberal activist" judges, progressive groups often pay scant attention to the conservative-activist threat to judicially repeal the economic protections that Congress and state legislatures have enacted since the New Deal.

The current Supreme Court term, however, could yield some historic decisions that do just that. For the past two decades the Rehnquist Court narrowed the scope of economic-security safeguards, insulated federal and state officials from accountability for maladministration of those laws, and obstructed citizens' access to legislatively guaranteed benefits and protections. Earlier this year, in its notorious May 2007 Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber decision, a 5-4 majority on the Roberts Court gutted the 1964 Civil Rights Act guarantee of equal pay opportunity. Now, cases to be decided during the Court's new term will provide clues as to whether the Roberts Court intends to launch an even more aggressive campaign to dismantle 20th-century progressive reforms and abort similar 21st-century initiatives.

The weightiest such items on the Court's 2007–2008 agenda are two cases affecting legal guarantees of health and retirement security. These cases, one already docketed and one the subject of an as-yet unanswered petition for review, will test whether the Roberts Court will expand Rehnquist Court doctrines that have stripped workers and retirees of remedies for abuse by employers, health maintenance organizations (HMOs), and entities that administer their health and retirement plans. These doctrines have provoked outrage from legions of scholars and lower-court federal judges, who have complained that they mandate unjust decisions and grotesquely misconstrue the landmark federal Employee Retirement and Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). This is not an abstract or isolated problem; over 130 million Americans currently count on employer-sponsored plans for retirement and health-care protection. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=repealing_the_20th_century

[Demeter]

1. Because You Can Never Be Too Rich or Too Thin

yeah, sure, whatever. Just wait for your reward, roberts.

[AX10]

2. Roberts is a lying bastard.

[silverweb]

3. In other words...

The "Roberts Court" is doing exactly what it was appointed to do.

"No difference between the Democrats and Republicans" ... remember that one?

:grr:

[abq e streeter]

4. Yes I do, thank god the Dem leadership refused to confirm Roberts and Alito-

no, wait...

[nealmhughes]

5. Repealing the 20th Century? Too late a time -- they want to repeal all back to pre-Enlightenment.

To a time where a ruler made decisions for one, questioning was heresy and that was treason, and treason meant a slow death after lengthy torture.

Damn that Voltaire! All of his sarcasm and scoffing at the concept of God's ordained ruling our bodies, minds and souls!

[reprobate]

6. There's a simple answer. A large Dem majority could impeach Scalia and Thomas

for their personal financial reasons for finding for Bush in the 2000 election debacle. Then an Dem President could appoint liberals in their place.

A Dem president could also add Justices to the court. Nowhere does the Constitution specify the number of Justices that make up the court. It leaves that entirely in the hands of the president.

And with the right shift in the court and it's decisions against the benefit of the mass of the population, this would be quite possible.

But both actions would take Democrats in congress with testicles and vertebrae, and where ya gonna find them?

[flashl]

7. Kicked

sorry can not rec