Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin says of earlier decisions in Supreme Court history that "it is not a simple thing to define and apply terms like 'the freedom of speech,' or 'equal protection of the laws,' much less explain how much process is 'due.' Still, the Justices, in their best moments, have explicated these terms in ways that ennobled the lives of millions."
Thanks to a party that, since the mid-seventies, has seen its stature and its appointees shrivel before our eyes, we are stuck with a gaggle of conservative justices who hardly "ennobling." For many Americans, they are an embarrassment. Toobin writes of this Court:
This week, the Court will hear arguments in a momentous case, King v. Burwell, a challenge to a central feature of the Affordable Care Act. But, in contrast to other landmarks in Supreme Court history, the King case is notable mostly for the cynicism at its heart. Instead of grandeur, there is a smallness about this lawsuit in every way except in the stakes riding on its outcome. ...Toobin,NewYorker
"Smallness" is about right. Remove the robes and there's nothing to inspire awe or even confidence.
Worse, the "fix" that the ACA needs, in some views, is a minor matter that should (and would, in earlier days) be taken care of by Congress. But Congressional majority these days is no less "small" in stature than the five blindered cynics on the Court who seem determined to strand America in the "B-minus-minus at the very most" category among banana democracies.
In a more civilized era—even the nineteen-nineties—Congress routinely passed technical fixes to major laws, in order to remove minor ambiguities, like the one that is arguably present in the A.C.A. For example, in 1999, with little controversy or notice, Congress made small changes in the Children’s Health Insurance Program, two years after its original passage. But that largeness of spirit has vanished from Congress, so it falls once again to the Supreme Court to determine the future of the A.C.A. The Justices all have well-developed views about the Constitution, and strong preferences about how our understanding of it should evolve. But their decision in the mean-spirited lawsuit that is King v. Burwell will reflect little on the interpretive schools to which they belong. The Court will have many more chances to define the Constitution for the ages. In this case, though, the Justices’ choice is a simple one: life or death. ...Toobin,NewYorker
