Conservative members of the Supreme Court have recently faced a barrage of attacks from press outlets working in conjunction with left-leaning interest groups over the past month. They have attacked Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and John Roberts’ wife. Every single story has omitted key details or gotten basic facts wrong. For example, stories misrepresented Neil Gorsuch’s sale of property to turn a non-scandal into scandal. They also confused an LLC for an LLP and claimed Clarence Thomas had not filed paperwork that he had filed. Each of these attacks is not just revenge for the Court getting rid of Roe. They are trying to rough up the Justices by scaring them into restraint.
Back in the late thirties, Franklin Roosevelt threatened to pack the Supreme Court because the Court kept defeating his New Deal legislation. But, what historians called “the switch in time that saved nine” happened as FDR pushed legislation to expand the Court beyond nine members. Members of the Court who’d voted against FDR suddenly flipped votes and FDR dropped the Court packing. Progressives are trying the same now with the ongoing character assassination attempts.
Look no further than Looper Bright v. Raimondo, which the Supreme Court is taking up. That case could upend the progressive bureaucracy’s power. In the 1980’s, the Supreme Court ruled in Chevron v. NRDC that the federal courts must accept a federal agency’s interpretation of unclear statutes. This has allowed federal agencies to expand their power over time as courts must rely on bureaucratic interpretation of vague statutes. In this case, the NOAA is forcing fishermen to pay federal monitors to be on their boats to the tune of $700 a day. The NOAA justifies it by creatively reading a vague federal law related to preservation of fisheries.
If the Court kills Chevron, it kills the greatest weapon progressives have deployed inside the federal bureaucracy. And now the Courts’ willingness to take Loper Bright suggests that day is coming. Progressives have nothing to lose by trying to destroy the Court.
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