Lockstep

In the last Pew polling (2019) Americans supported the right to an abortion in all or most cases by 61%. 38% said it should be illegal in all or most cases. This was the highest plurality recorded in over two decades. 

Today, Justices Thomas and Alito railed against Obergefell, the case that allowed same sex marriage. An even greater percentage of Americans view Same Sex marriage as a positive step, 61 to 37%. "Religious Liberty" is a new code word designed to undo all of the societal advancement and equality we have achieved in this country since Dred Scott.

Hillary Clinton won 2.9 million more votes in the last Presidential election than did her opponent Donald J. Trump. Al Gore received over 543,000 more votes than his opponent George Bush in 2000. But they both lost. Because the GOP has this thing wired up tighter than a drum and will not stop at thwarting the will of the American people.

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Many are looking at opposition to Amy Barrett as an anti Catholic vendetta. My opposition has nothing to do with her religion, in fact the man I am voting for for President is a Catholic. My problem is with her conservative ideology. Five to three conservatives will soon be six to three thanks to the utter malignant gamesmanship of Mitch McConnell in the Merrick Garland nomination and the hypocrisy of the GOP after the death of Justice Ginsburg.

This ideological balance does not represent the makeup of our country. As a liberal I believe the court should at least roughly represent the values of our country's population. A conservative friend suggested that the court have four liberals and four conservatives and let them work it out. I have no problem with that. 

But the current hyper partisan lockstep of Thomas, Gorsuch, Alito and Kavanaugh is nauseating. Breyer and Kagen will go the other way and join the right on occasion, the conservative "originalists" or "textualists" or whatever bullshit moniker they are using this week, never do. They recite straight Federalist Society pablum and lack an iota of intellectual integrity. Corporations over people, and big business interests always trump the environment. Bought and paid for. All the horseshit about adjudicating and not legislating total b.s., they are activists of the worst order looking for a predetermined end result that rarely if ever belies their conservative instincts.

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The balance is totally out of whack. Minority rules and has expertly baked in their dominion. The rural and evangelical heartland has the coasts and urban America by the shorthairs. Their vote counts six of my votes. I don't believe our founders ever envisaged a system where a small but entrenched minority ran roughshod over the rest of us.

Pack the courts, kill the electoral college, institute term limits for SCOTUS, do whatever you have to do to provide equal representation and follow the will of the American people. It is called democracy. Continue to thumb your nose at what the majority of this country believe and you will not like the result whatsoever.

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Interesting article at Politico: For the Supreme Court, 8 Justices Would be Better than 9

As it happens, an even-numbered Supreme Court was good enough for the Founders and the first Congress. The Constitution does not specify how many justices should serve on the Supreme Court; it is up to Congress to determine the number. The very first Congress created a six-person court (one chief justice and five associate justices) when it passed the Judiciary Act of 1789.

The court’s path from six justices to nine was not a straight one. Two years after the nation’s first Judiciary Act, President John Adams and his Federalist allies shifted the court from six justices to five. Soon after, President Thomas Jefferson and Republicans returned the court’s size to six justices. Congress added a seventh justice in 1807. Congress again expanded the size of the court to nine justices 30 years later and to 10 justices during the Civil War. After the war, Congress reduced the court’s size to nine justices—where it stands today.