0 calificaciones0% encontró este documento útil (0 votos)
23 vistas6 páginas
Whoever is elected president in November is almost certainly going to choose at least one new member of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts has proven itself to be willing and eager to twist the law to favor powerful corporate interests. Over the course of the next year, the Court is poised to rule on nearly every major political issue facing the country today.
Whoever is elected president in November is almost certainly going to choose at least one new member of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts has proven itself to be willing and eager to twist the law to favor powerful corporate interests. Over the course of the next year, the Court is poised to rule on nearly every major political issue facing the country today.
Whoever is elected president in November is almost certainly going to choose at least one new member of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts has proven itself to be willing and eager to twist the law to favor powerful corporate interests. Over the course of the next year, the Court is poised to rule on nearly every major political issue facing the country today.
THE SUPREME COURT! Sept. 24, 2012 SHARE THIS INFORMATION WITH EVERYONE Number 24 FOUR THI NGS TO KEEP I N MI ND: 1 Justice Scalia is 78 2 Justice Kennedy is 78 3 Justice Breyer is 76 4 Justice Ginsburg is 81 We wish them all well, of course, but the brute fact is that whoever we elect as president in November is almost certainly going to choose at least one and maybe more new members of the Supreme Court in addition to hundreds of other life-tenured federal judges, all of whom will be making momentous decisions about our lives for decades to come. ## If you dont think it matters whether you vote or not...think again!!!!! THE 1% COURT Twisting The Law With decision after decision coming down on the side of big business, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts has proven itself to be willing and eager to twist the law to favor powerful corporate interests over everyday Americans. Shielding Big Business In just the last few years, the Court has radically rewritten laws in order to shield big business from liability, insulate corporate interests from environmental and antitrust regulation, make it easier for companies to discriminate against women and the elderly, and enable powerful interests to flood our election process with special interest dollars. Fairness has been thrown out the window. The 1% keep winning while the 99% keep losing. Over the course of the next year, the Supreme Court is poised to rule on nearly every major political issue facing the country today. Decisions to Come When it reconvenes in October, the Court will consider the constitutionality of affirmative action and is likely to accept for review cases on same sex marriage, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, abortion, indefinite detention, and campaign finance. The Courts decisions in these cases will have serious implications for the fundamental freedoms we enjoy, the equality of opportunity to which we aspire and the democracy which we have built. ## 2 WHY I T MATTERS: 1 NEW JUSTICE COULD CHANGE A LOT By Mark Sherman, Associated Press The issue With four justices in their seventies, odds are good that whoever is elected president in November will have a chance to fill at least one Supreme Court seat. The next justice could dramatically alter the direction of a court closely divided between conservatives and liberals. One new face on the bench could mean a sea change in how millions get health care, shape the rights of gay Americans, and much more. The Presidents Picks President Barack Obama already has put his stamp on the high court by appointing liberal-leaning Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, 50-somethings who could easily serve a quarter-century or more. Republican nominee Mitt Romney has promised to name justices in the mode of the courts conservatives. Why it matters Since the New Deal, Supreme Court decisions have made huge everyday differences in American lives, from seminal decisions to uphold Social Security, minimum wage laws and other Depression-era reforms to ringing endorsements of equal rights. And anything is possible with five votes, a bare majority of the nine-justice court. Decisions on many of the hot-button issues in recent years have been by 5-4 votes. These include upholding Obamas health care overhaul, favoring gun rights, limiting abortion, striking down campaign finance laws, allowing consideration of race in higher education and erecting barriers to class-action lawsuits. Vacancies Supreme Court vacancies always are a big deal. But the stakes become enormous when the president has a chance to put a like- minded justice on the court to take the place of an ideological opponent. The most recent example of what the change in a single seat can mean was President George W. Bushs selection of Samuel Alito to take the place of Sandra Day OConnor. Both justices were appointed by Republicans, but Alito is far more conservative than OConnor on such key issues as abortion, affirmative action and campaign finance. Retirement Considerations As things stand now, Anthony Kennedy, is the only justice who leans conservative but sometimes sides with the liberals on an otherwise evenly divided court. The others older than 70 are the liberal-leaning Stephen Breyer, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the conservative stalwart Antonin Scalia. No one has indicated any intention to retire soon, although Obamas re-election could tempt Breyer and Ginsburg to reconsider. Romneys election could prompt Kennedy and Scalia to change their plans since justices, at least recently, tend to retire when their replacement is likely to be of similar ideology. But what might happen if the next president had an unexpected opportunity to change the courts direction? Obamas Choices Obama has voiced his disagreement with the Citizens United decision in 2010 that has contributed to ever-freer campaign spending. Of his two appointees, Sotomayor was on the losing side of the Citizens United case while Kagan argued the case for the administration in her previous job. On health care, both justices voted to uphold Obamas health care law. Romney already has called on the court to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision from 1973 that first established a womans right to an abortion. Romney has said he would appoint justices like Alito, Scalia, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas. He described them as men who follow the text of the Constitution, not their personal policy preferences. But the health care case is a reminder that justices who generally vote a certain way do not always vote in a predictable fashion. Roberts, after all, was the decisive - and lone conservative - vote to uphold the health care law. ## 3 ROBERT BORK: MI TT ROMNEYS CORPORATE-POWER TOOL Jamie Raskin, The Huffington Post Unrestrained Corporations The last thing America needs is more Supreme Court justices who think that corporations can do no wrong. Were still reeling from the misdeeds of AIG and Wall Street, BP Oil, Massey Coal, JP Morgan and Haliburton just a few of the corporations that have recently inflicted terrible losses on families across America and society as a whole after capturing regulatory agencies, corrupting public officials, and flouting the law. See No Evil But the Roberts Court majority sees no evil, handing out victories by the bushel to big business. Without even being asked to do so, five Justices in 2010 overrode their colleagues in the Citizens United case and bestowed upon the CEOs the power to spend trillions of dollars from corporate treasuries promoting compliant politicians to the public in campaign season. Corporations Can Do No Wrong Yet, just when it looked like things couldnt get any worse, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney selected as his top legal adviser Robert Bork, a conservative polemicist whose career has been devoted to the proposition that corporations can basically do no wrong, the courts should faithfully serve the corporate agenda, and democratic government should step out of the way. Strange Philosophy While Bork is an authoritarian statist when it comes to the rights of individual Americans to obtain birth control or read books, have sex or watch movies that Bork disapproves of (see Borking America: What Robert Bork Will Mean for the Supreme Court and American Justice), he is a laissez-faire libertarian when it comes to the rights of large corporations to ditch environmental regulation, fire pro-union workers and generally have their way with the rest of us without regulatory restraint. He seeks hierarchical discipline for natural persons but maximum freedom for big businesses to merge with one another, purge their workers, and splurge on pet politicians. The Bor k Rul e: Cor por at e Power Over Gover nment , Cor por at e Gover nment Over Peopl e The key to seeing what Borks hand-picked judges would do on the bench is analyzing Borks own record as a judge on the United States Circuit Court for the District of Columbia. Borks Record In August 1987, during the controversy over President Ronald Reagans nomination of Judge Bork to the United States Supreme Court, the Public Citizen Litigation Group published an exhaustive and devastating report on Borks record as a judge. Identify The Parties The authors could find no consistent application of judicial restraint or any other judicial philosophy in Borks work on the Court. Rather, by focusing on split decisions, where judicial ideology is made most plain, Public Citizen found that one can predict [Judge Borks] vote with almost complete accuracy simply by identifying the parties in the case. [Continued on page 4, Bor k] 4 When the government litigated against a business corporation, Judge Bork voted for the business interest 100 percent of the time. However, when government acted in the interest of corporations and was challenged for it in court by workers, environmentalists and consumers, Bork voted nearly 100 percent of the time for the government. Borks Rule Thus, what we can think of as the Bork Rule, a rule that now suffuses conservative judicial activism: Corporations over government, corporate government over people. In the crucial field of administrative law, for example, Judge Bork adhered to an extreme form of judicial restraint if the case was brought by public interest organizations against a government regulation or policy. His vote favored the government in every one of the split decisions in which public interest organizations challenged regulations issued by federal agencies. In these cases, Judge Bork defended, for example, the Reagan administrations corporate-friendly rules relating to the environment, the regulation of carcinogenic colors in food, drugs and cosmetics, and the regulation of companies with television and radio licenses, as well as privacy rules in family planning clinics. Bork tends to vote to uphold government policy when corporations like it and consumers, environmentalists, and workers are on the other side. In the eight split decisions where a corporate interest challenged the governments regulatory policy or ruling, Judge Bork voted straight down the line against the government and for business every single time. Bor k s Resul t Or i ent at i on: Wor ker s Lose, Pol l ut er s Wi n What the Bork Rule means is that there is no formal integrity to his legal reasoning. The way to figure out who is going to win in a case is simply by identifying the parties. The reasoning flows out of his choice of favorites appearing before him, and this is a style of judging that is now pervasive throughout the federal circuit courts. We can fully expect a Bork-infused Supreme Court and federal judiciary to continue promoting the basic infallibility of corporate power. With Bork at the helm, we will see more impunity and more unaccountability in corporate structures that are too big to fail and too big to jail. ## No matter how many ads they run or how many lies they tell , dont vote for the people who are buying our elections. HOW TO TALK REPUBLI CAN HOW TO TALK DEMOCRATI C A brief, oversimplified guide to the differences in language between the Republican and Democratic conventions: DEMOCRATS We do it together and government helps us all. REPUBLICANS We do it alone and government gets in the way. George Lakoff, Truthout [Continued from page 3, Bor k] 5 ROMNEY AND CHOI CE Romney says that a womans right to choose an abortion even in cases of rape and incest isnt up to him. Romney: This is the decision that will be made by the Supreme Court. But Romney has promised to appoint Supreme Court Justices who would overturn Roe v Wade. As his chief judicial advisor he chose Robert Bork, a man with a long record of hostility to womens rights. Mitt Romney: Too extreme for women. Too extreme for America. THE ONE-PERCENT COURT The 2011-12 U.S. Supreme Court term will be best remembered for the Courts landmark ruling on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). While the Court upheld the constitutionality of the Act, it did so by opening the door to placing future limits on Congress ability to regulate interstate commerce and to impose conditions on federal grants to the states. That decision, however, was far from the only ruling of major significance this term. The Court issued a number of important decisions that reflect its continuing bias in favor of corporate interests and against the rights of everyday Americans, demonstrating that Chief Justice John Roberts One-Percent Court was once again open for business. With decision after decision coming down on the side of big business, the Supreme Court has proven itself to be willing and eager to twist the law to favor powerful corporate interests over average Americans. Under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court has radically rewritten laws in order to shield big business from liability, insulate corporate interests from environmental and antitrust regulation, make it easier for companies to discriminate against women and the elderly, and enable powerful interests to flood our election process with special interest dollars. Fairness has been thrown out the window. The powerful keep winning while everyday Americans keep losing. [Continued on page 6, One Per cent] Senator Bernie Sanders puts it this way: What the Supreme Court did in Citizens United is to say to the billionaires and the corporations they control: You own and control the economy; you own Wall Street; you own the coal companies; you own the oil companies. Now, for a very small percentage of your wealth, were going to give you the opportunity to own the United States government. And if you dont vote, you are giving them that opportunity. Is that what you want? 6 Authorized and Paid for by The Palm Beach County Democratic Party Elections 2012 Mark Your 2012 Calendar! Gener al El ec t i on Deadline to register: October 9, 2012 Early Voting: October 27, 2012November 3, 2012 General Election Day: Tuesday, November 6, 2012 www.PBCDemocraticParty.org To Subscribe, please send an email request to: SubscribeDemVoter@gmail.com with the word Subscribe in the subject line. Edi t or : Dan I saac son Assistant Editors: Robin Blanchard, Allen Robbins, Nancy Morse, Debra Oberlander Research: Roger Messenger An educ at i onal new sl et t er t o keep you up-t o-dat e on vot er i ssues. Shar e The Democ r at i c Vot er w i t h f r i ends and have t hem subsc r i be t oday! Take act ion! Join t he Democrat ic Par t y! Call: 561-340-1486 Ever y Dol l ar Count s! All donat ions appreciat ed, Thank you! Send your Cont ribut ions t o: Palm Beach Count y Democrat ic Part y 8401 Lake Wort h Road #132 Lake Wort h, FL 33467 [To unsubscribe, send an email request with Unsubscribein the Subject line to: SubscribeDemVoter@gmail.com] Absent ee Bal l ot Request s Made Bef or e J anuar y 1, 2011 Have Now Ex pi r ed To get your absent ee bal l ot : By Phone: Right now, before you forget,call your Florida Supervisor of Elections at 1-866-308-6739 and request an absentee ballot for all the elections through 2014. Your vote is important! RESOURCES Well-informed voters are our greatest voting asset. Several public interest organizations and grassroots groups are challenging the corporatization of the Court. For information and action, check out these: Brennan Center for Justice: www.brennancenter.org Common Cause: www.commoncause.org Free Speech for People: www.freespeechforpeople.org Move to Amend: www.movetoamend.org People for the American Way: www.pfaw.org Public Campaign: www.publicampaign.org Public Citizen: www.citizen.org Think Progress: www.thinkprogess.org The Rational Majority: TheRationalMajority.org The Cor por at e Cour t Shi el ds Cor por at i ons f r om Li abi l i t y In Riegel v. Medtronic, Inc. (2008), the Court ruled that a consumer who has been seriously injured by a defective medical device cannot sue the manufacturer if the product was approved by federal government regulators, even if the company knew the product was dangerous. In Exxon Shipping v. Baker (2008), after 19 years of legal battles, the Court allowed Exxon to escape full financial liability for the damage done by the Exxon-Valdez oil spill to communities and the environment, leaving over 30,000 people whose livelihoods and community were destroyed by the disaster with only a tenth of the original jury award for punitive damagesa sum completely inadequate to make up for their loss. ## [One Per cent, continued from page 5]