On Friday’s Hardball, Chris Matthews spoke to The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein and The New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin, author of The Oath, about the Supreme Court—a particularly underreported topic that weighs in the balance of the November election.
Matthews explained there’s much more at stake than just the presidency, simply because four of the current justices are "getting up there" in years: liberals Breyer, 74, and Ginsburg, 79; swing voter Kennedy, 76; and conservative Scalia, 76. The next president will likely be appointing Supreme Court justices who will have a strong hand in shaping federal policy for years to come.
Matthews asked Stein to name some of the issues at stake, and it wasn’t a short list: campaign spending regulations, separation of church and state, whether universities can use race in admissions, and Roe v. Wade. Stein said civil rights issues, especially gay rights, will probably be front and center:
“One of the cases that could be considered is the Voting Rights Act, that could be overturned. Obviously, affirmative action is going to be on the docket, that’s a very complicated issue. But it works both ways – there’s a very high chance that this court will hear an appeal to DOMA. It could be the first court that establishes at least some progressivity with respect to gay rights and that could make it a sort of a historic court in some sense, even if the politics suggest otherwise. So you know, it works both ways. And it’s going to be curious to see not only which cases they pick up but in what manner and how they do it and And how the arguments play out. DOMA could come up, but so could Prop. 8 which is a different section of the gay rights debate, so I’m curious to see how it plays out.”
Appointing a justice is one of the most consequential decisions a president can make; Matthews pointed out they even had the last word on the 2000 election. He asked Toobin how much power the next president would have to swing it to the left or right; to take a seat occupied by a conservative and give it to a liberal, or vice versa. Toobin said it’s tricky business, with huge implications:
“The fact is most Supreme Court nominations get through…but we have not seen a liberal replace a conservative in a very long time, maybe 1993 when Byron White was replaced by Ruth Ginsburg. But if, for example, the conservative – one of the conservative justices leaves in a second Obama term, that will be the World War III of all time because the conservative movement in this country has embraced their version of the Constitution as a fundamental aspect of what they believe in. More than Democrats have, frankly. Republicans talk about the Constitution more than the Democrats do these days, and if the balance could go from 5 to 4 Republican to 5 to 4 Democrat, the implications would be earth shaking.”
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President Obama will probably get reelected this November. He could have at least two Supreme Court judges that could retire. It could possibly be three judges this next term. Justices Ginsburg, Kennedy, Breyer, and Scalia are all in their 70's. The Supreme Court gets the last word on a lot of issues. These are some of the most important decisions presidents make during their whole administration that will last for a generation. So reelecting President Obama is not only important its critical for civil liberties, affirmative action, women's right to choose, and a whole range of issues relating to state governments versus federal power. Reelecting President Obama is important to make sure the right winged Supreme Court gets pulled back into the mainstream of American society which is trending more liberal and tolerant on a whole range of issues in the 21st century.
The Gore/Bush election and subsequent selection has always galled me. The Constitution mandated that issue should have gone to the US Senate, not the US Supreme Court. I a law of that stature and consequence could be manipulated what chance do we have any other lessor law will not be treated the same? And just look what Bush did and where it has left us, still in the Middle East and losing American lives almost daily a decade later in countries that don't want us or democracy. So what have we accomplished other than making the leaders of these nations rich and richer while destroying our own economy. Bin Laden is dead, time to get out and take care of our own.