The Week Ahead

Good morning, and happy Sunday! Here are some of the stories I am tracking in the news.

Justices under scrutiny. So, it turns out it wasn’t just Justice Clarence Thomas we should be concerned about. Separate news stories broke about two of the other conservative male justices, putting further downward pressure on public trust of the entire institution.

• Politico reported that Justice Neil Gorsuch, just days before his 2017 confirmation, sold a property which had not moved for two years to someone named Brian Duffy, who was the head of a huge law firm that often appeared before the Court—22 times since Gorsuch was confirmed, in fact. And while Gorsuch reported the sale, he left the name of the buyer blank. Hmmm.

• Chief Justice John Roberts also has some ‘splainin to do. A whistleblower alleges that the Chief Justice’s wife, Jane Roberts, was paid more than $10 million in recruiting fees from top law firms that had business before the Court. One firm argued a case before the Court after paying his wife hundreds of thousands of dollars.

There may not be anything illegal or even officially unethical about the above, depending on what the facts are. And that says a lot about our lack of ethical oversight laws and regulations when it comes to the Supreme Court. Also, these stories are fairly new, so we don’t know the full details. But they certainly have the appearance of impropriety, and thus are a further blow to a Court already under heavy doubt and scrutiny. For a branch of government whose only real power is its legitimacy, that’s a big problem, both for it and our nation.

North Carolina gerrymander. After two left-leaning justices on North Carolina’s Supreme Court lost their seats to conservatives, the new court decided to re-hear an already-decided case about how the district maps in the state had been drawn. Nothing about the maps, the facts or the parties had changed. The conservative majority simply wanted a new ruling, and they delivered one—further eroding public confidence in the neutrality of the courts. The state Supreme Court decided that it did not have the power to interfere with the map drawing purpose, even when it is driven by purely partisan interests. That will likely mean redrawn maps that strip four Congressional House seats away from the Democrats in 2024. The state is in desperate need of political reform, including independent map drawing similar to what Michigan passed in 2018.

Abortion bans a bridge too far in two states. Even while some states such as North Dakota and Idaho pass some of the most draconian anti-abortion measures possible, two new proposed bans went down to legislative defeat, to the dismay of extremist anti-abortionists.

• In Nebraska, abortion is currently banned after 20 weeks of pregnancy, but an effort to ban it after the sixth week fell a single vote short of breaking a filibuster. Per AP reporting, cheers erupted outside the chamber as the last vote was cast, with opponents of the bill waving signs and chanting, “Whose house? Our house!”

• In South Carolina, a split within the Republican caucus resulted in a near-total ban on abortion being shelved for the rest of the year. The measure again failed by only a single vote, 22-21. Republican Sen. Sandy Senn criticized the Republican leadership for repeatedly “taking us off a cliff on abortion.” She added, per AP, “The only thing that we can do when you all, you men in the chamber, metaphorically keep slapping women by raising abortion again and again and again, is for us to slap you back with our words.”

Anti-trans bills. In addition to laws regulating uteruses, Republican-led legislatures have continued to pass bills banning gender affirming care for trans youth and limiting bathroom use by trans people. Some of the laws literally define trans people out of the law by rejecting, contrary to the science, any notion that there might be more than two genders beyond male and female. There are now 15 states that ban gender affirming care despite overwhelming evidence backed by every major medical association that such care is essential for transgender youth.

• In Montana, the legislature voted to expel Rep. Zooey Zephyr, the state’s only trans legislature on “decorum” grounds (evoking similar actions against the Tennessee Three for protesting about gun safety). Rep. Zephyr had stated that the lawmakers would have “blood on their hands” and that removing gender affirming care was “tantamount to torture.” The bill banning gender affirming care nevertheless passed the legislature and was signed into law by the governor, over the objections and pleas of his own non-binary son.

• In Kansas, the legislature overrode the veto of Democratic governor Laura Kelly to pass the most sweeping anti-trans bathroom bill in the country. It defines men and women based upon their sex organs at birth and forces conformity to that designation in athletic settings, domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, jails and prisons. This leads to absurdities because these legislators obviously don’t actually know any real trans people. Do they really wanted male-presenting, bearded, muscled trans men using women’s bathrooms simply because their birth certificate once identified them as female?

These above stories carry a common theme. Radical Republican-led courts and legislatures are increasingly out of step with what the American people want from their government, especially in the area of private medical decisions and something as personal as gender identity. There is strong agreement, irrespective of political party, that decisions such as abortion and gender affirming care ought to be made among patients, families and doctors. Politicians and judges have no business interfering with these decisions.

There is also a growing consensus that the political attacks upon reproductive rights and the avalanche of anti-trans hatred is a big problem. Even a recent Fox poll showed that 57 percent of respondents think political attacks on families with transgender children is a “major problem.”

On top of this, GOP-controlled courts, including our highest one, along with multiple Republican state leaders have shown themselves to be corrupt. That isn’t surprising given that politics and power are their primary interests, rather than public service, justice and democracy. As these judicial and legislative civic leaders continue to lose legitimacy in scandal after scandal, the pushback is growing stronger, even from within their own party.

In some cases, less-extreme members of the GOP are now aligning with Democrats to try and stop the worst laws from passing. They understand that these social issues are losers for the GOP, and they don’t want to get dragged down with them.

There is much hope to be found. With help from the political center, Democrats have retaken control of some states and hold new trifectas in Michigan and Minnesota, which are finally passing much-needed protections and reforms. Voters have elected Democratic governors in states like Wisconsin, Kentucky, and Kansas, where gerrymandering has otherwise given the GOP a lock on the legislature.

And if the GOP actually nominates Donald Trump as its presidential candidate for 2024, despite his multiple indictments and a history of helping the GOP lose recent elections, the party could implode in that election, particularly if Democrats act effectively to seize the moment and the momentum.

We’ll keep a close eye on these developments. But from where I stand, the GOP is already entering a kind of death spiral, one that is both dangerous and inevitable. More on that soon.

Have a great weekend!

Jay