Supreme Court Shame

During the Civil Rights Movement, the court system, particularly the Supreme Court was regarded as the one branch of government that could largely be counted on to protect the rights of African-Americans when Congress and the Executive Branch were stymied by political concerns. Because of the Supreme Court schools were desegregated and basic rights were affirmed, even when lower courts at the municipal and state level ignored or shirked their responsibilities.

However, yesterday to its shame the Supreme Court affirmed and expanded the rights of wealthy individuals to unfairly influence the political system by removing all limits on the amount of money people can contribute to political campaigns. (Link to article here)  This follows the ”Citizens United” decision of 2010 , which deemed corporations to be legally considered “persons,” who then could contribute in an unrestricted way to political campaigns.  A political system that already was bought and sold to the highest bidder, now just came even more deeply entrenched in a system where the wealthy and the powerful get access that the rest of us do not.

For the last two weeks the Philadelphia Inquirer has run a special report focusing on an investigation of five local state legislators who were caught on tape receiving money or gifts from a paid informant. The value of the money or gifts was in the thousands of dollars. While I think that such actions should be brought to light, the irony was that the problem was not that they received these money and gifts; it was that they did not report them. That is, it’s okay for legislators to receive money as long as they make it known. In Sunday’s (March 30) paper just below the latest installment on this case, there was an article describing how in 2013 Comcast, one of Philadelphia’s largest employers, spent $18.8 million lobbying for its interests, and employing 107 lobbyists to do their bidding. Comcast was listed as only the seventh largest lobbying spender in the country, the largest being the U.S. Chamber of Commerce which spent $74.5 million on lobbying in 2013. This was all perfectly legal and does not include campaign contributions.( See article here) 

What is wrong with this picture? A few small time politicians take some small change and get smeared, but large corporations and wealthy individuals get to make their case in exchange for gifts and money. Now the Supreme Court has essentially blessed this process and said the sky is the limit.

We need to recognize that whatever we want to call our form of government, it is not democracy. Democracy by definition is a system that is rooted in the community and gives all persons, regardless of rank, wealth, or position, an equal voice in government. One way to view our history as a nation is to see it as a struggle to make the dream of democracy a reality for all: people of color, women, various racial/ethnic groups, the poor, and now undocumented immigrants. The slogan “One person, one vote” is the bedrock of democracy; all get a voice and no voice is of greater inherent value than another. If we are to reclaim our democracy, it must start by denouncing the lie that wealth gives one the right to greater influence, and by working to strengthen local communities and if necessary take to the streets to reject such efforts.

In Philadelphia, the interfaith network POWER is working with local unions and the City Council to pass a referendum on May 20 that would ensure that any company doing business with the city would pay its employees and subcontractors 1 ½ times the minimum wage, which at this time would mean the wage would be $10.88/hr. Fast food workers across the country have been advocating for a similar provision in their contracts.  The Immokalee Workers in Florida have been advocated for similar treatment among farmworkers. Already the corporations have pressed hard for such efforts to fail, threatening to cut jobs while fearing that their profits might not be as great. Ironically despite their rhetoric about jobs and profits they seem to have the money to put pressure on politicians. (Hmmm – ironic isn’t it?) What communities have is people. We are engaged in a war, and the issue of a living wage is only one battle in that war.

The Supreme Court’s decision has made clear that the government is up for sale. Those who believe in true democracy, and not the plutocracy we now call our government, must act with equal or even greater force.

Win One, Lose One .... and a Disturbing Trend

This past week the U.S. Supreme Court rendered two momentous decisions that seem to move in opposite directions when it comes to human rights. On Tuesday, the Court essentially gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 effectively freeing nine Southern states from having to submit changes in their election laws to the federal government. This law had been a source of hope for many people of color, especially African Americans, when so many states with Republican majorities in their state legislatures passed Voter ID laws which covertly, and in a couple cases overtly, were designed to make it more difficult for poor people and people of color to vote, thereby making it easier for Republicans to win elections. Also many of those same states have so gerrymandered elections districts that these communities have been further politically marginalized. ( To see full article on this decision go to this link)

Then on the Thursday, these same judges declared the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to be unconstitutional, thereby allowing gay/lesbian couples the right to have the same legal protections and benefits as heterosexual couples. Until this ruling gay couples were defenseless when it came to inheritance law, tax benefits, spousal insurance protection and so on. (For full article on this decision see this link)

On the surface these two decisions seem to contradict one another. The first stripped a group of marginalized people of protections and rights, while the second gave a group of marginalized people rights that had been previously denied. I wondered: what is the underlying logic that ties these two decisions together? While I can’t be certain, it seems that a common thread is a focus on state’s rights. In both cases the decision went against the primacy of federal law in favor of allowing states to legislate on matters in ways they see fit. So in the Voting Rights decision, the Court removed federal restrictions on state actions, whereas in the second it returned state sovereignty from something that had been regulated at a federal level. Even though I am glad for the DOMA decision, I am troubled by this underlying logic.

When we look back at the Civil Rights Movement, significant changes in the social and political status of African-Americans in the South would not have occurred had not the federal government stepped in. African-Americans were beaten, lynched and killed with impunity while the perpetrators got away scott-free. Jim Crow laws institutionalized huge disparities between the races and despite the rhetoric of “separate but equal” provided far lesser quality for African-American when it came to education, health care, parks and the like. African Americans could be (& were) arrested for minor infractions; it was the process of getting arrested in large numbers that finally got the federal government’s attention, along with the violence that came with it. On the issue of voting rights itself, thousands of people were threatened and beaten, and some killed simply trying to exercise (or help people exercise) their constitutional right to vote. Even though the federal government was timid and slow to intervene in most cases, there would have been no Voting Rights Act of 1965 if Presidents Kennedy and Johnson had not forced the Southern states to amend their laws and practices so as to treat all people of all races as equal under the law.

However, now the Supreme Court is saying that the federal government can’t intervene in state matters. Had this court been around in 1865, slavery would not have been abolished. Had this court been around in 1954, segregation of schools (and by extension all areas of American life) would not have been ruled unconstitutional. Had this court been around in 1965, the Voting Rights Bill would have been struck down in short order.

Underlying the Court’s decision is a shift in understanding of the role of government. Political theorist John Rawls saw a primary role of the government as providing for and protecting society’s most vulnerable; no one was to fall below what was minimally required for meeting their basic human needs. By contrast Robert Nozick focused primarily on individual liberty; an individual’s rights took precedence over the regulatory action of government, those regulations that assured that the basic needs of all people in society were being provided for and protected. Nozick went so far as to say taxes (the main means by which wealth is redistributed) were “forced labor.” The eras of Kennedy and Johnson tilted (inadequately in my view) toward a Rawlsian view, whereas today we are moving significantly toward Nozick’s view.

Increasingly our state governments don’t care about the most vulnerable, be it around civil rights, health care, education or essential services. Not only can this focus on rights be seen in these recent Court decisions but also in the Court's ruling on the Second Amendment making the right to own a gun on a par with the right to free speech and religious liberty. It can also be seen in the ruling that allows corporations to be seen as individuals when it comes to political contributions. The rights of the powerful against the vulnerable, the dominant class against the marginalized, the rich against the poor are allowed to run amok, free of any constraint that might be put upon them by the federal government.

Altogether I see the Court’s decision as signifying a troubling trend that moves us further and further away from any concept of the "common good," and more and more toward everyone fighting for themselves and their rights.  U.S. society is degenerating and devolving so that the poor and the marginalized can not look to their government for assistance; government is  now the protector of the rights of the few over against the needs and suffering of the many. I am pleased for those gay and lesbian couples who now can enjoy the benefits denied them by DOMA; however I worry about the rationale that may underlie that decision and what it says about where we are going as a society.

Basic Grammar, Guns and the Supreme Court

In recent years colleges and employers have bemoaned the apparent decline in U.S. children’s ability to read and write. As a college professor who often teaches first year students and adults returning to college, I can attest to the often abysmal state of student writing these days. Experts attribute the decline in basic literacy to several causes: email/instant messaging, television, lower academic standards and the like. I would like to add another culprit to the list: The U.S. Supreme Court.

This past week the court ruled that the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees an individual’s right to own a gun. Now, while I admit to being a supporter of gun control laws and background checks, I have no problem with hunters, collectors and law enforcement personnel owning guns. While I don’t think it is particularly safe or wise to keep a gun in one’s home (since most murders are crimes of passion committed by people who know each other), I don’t even object to someone legally owning a gun.

But let’s be honest: the Supreme Court notwithstanding, a clear and simple reading of the 2nd amendment in no way gives a blanket right for anyone to own a gun. Here’s what the 2nd Amendment says:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

While the nature of the English language has changed somewhat in 232 years, there is a clear link between the phrase “the right of the People to keep and bear arms” and “a well regulated militia.” Grammatically speaking, the right to keep and bear arms is a dependent clause that relates to the presence of a well regulated militia. The plain sense of the sentence simply means that the right to own a gun only applies when the person is part of a local militia. If a student interpreted the sentence any other way, they would get it wrong on their English 101 test. I guess the five justices who voted for the majority need to take an English refresher course.

The 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with a blanket right to own a gun; rather it was established so that communities on the frontier could protect themselves from would-be invaders. Individuals kept guns around so as to be ready to answer the call, much like volunteers in the local volunteer fire department stand ready to respond when the fire alarm sounds. In other words, owning a gun had to do with civil defense not personal rights. An understanding of the basic rules of grammar and sentence structure makes that clear.

I would not be so concerned if this was not such a grave issue. First, the issue of guns and what to do with them is a major crisis in this country. Much like the gambling industry, the gun industry operates a shadow market beneath the legal market. The looser the laws are for legal gun owners, the easier it is for illegal gun sales to go on. The gun manufacturers and their political front, the National Rifle Association (NRA), know this, and so block any effort, however rational, to control or regulate the sales of firearms. The gun industry’s “growth market” are the straw buyers and illegal gun dealers whose products flood urban city streets. By enshrining the right to own a gun in the Constitution, the Court has now made it much more difficult to have a needed conversation on what to do about gun violence in this country. Laws alone will not stem the epidemic of gun violence in our cities, schools and elsewhere, but they can help.

Secondly, the Court made it that much more difficult for communities like Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia, who are trying to address their violence problems with stricter gun control laws. Such communities are decried for not addressing their problems while not being given the tools to do so. Justice Scalia writing for the majority said “gun violence is a serious problem” but “the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table;” in other words, we feel your pain (wink), but we are not going to help you.

We need to have a healthy dialogue about what to do about the violence in our cities and schools, but the court has just made dialogue that much more difficult by giving the NRA the cover of the Constitution. As long as the NRA is lining the pockets of politicians at local, state and federal levels, Democrat and Republican, we won’t be able to truly address this issue without becoming polarized. What we need is to have a sensible conversation that finds common ground between lawful gun owners and those who want to control the sales of guns. It can be done.

A couple years ago Hilary Clinton proposed common ground with pro-lifers by saying while we may disagree on abortion, let us agree on reducing the need for and instances of abortions. Some prolifers, including me, were willing to meet her at that point. We need that kind of dialogue on guns as well. The 2nd amendment no more guarantees one’s right to have a gun than the 1st amendment guarantees a woman’s right to abortion. Both are complex and deep moral issues where we need to have extensive dialogue in order to find some common ground.

The justices supporting this latest opinion need to review the basic rules of grammar. Otherwise, America’s children might get the idea that words even at the highest level mean nothing and you can make any sentence, even a sentence in the Constitution, say anything you damn well please. This week the justices not only made a mockery of the Constitution, they also perverted the English language, and in the process made it more difficult for the kind of rational conversation that needs to occur on the issue of guns and violence in our society.