Republican judges on the Court have decided -- over the loud objections of their colleagues -- that the Constitution limits:
-- the ability of workers to strike or form unions,
-- the right of women to get an abortion,
-- the right of states and cities to regulate weapons of war and their carriage in public,
-- the right of citizens to equal representation in Congress without the influence of gerrymanders,
-- the right corporations to hide crimes from prosecutors,
-- the right of corporations and the morbidly rich to purchase both legislation and legislators,
-- and dozens of other equally egregious forms of now-Court-sanctioned corruption.
To recap, the Supreme Court primarily makes two types of decisions.
The first is acting as the court of final appeals. You sue me and win, I appeal and I win, you appeal my appeal and you win: eventually some court must have the final say and decide once and for all -- on the merits of the case -- who won.
The second form of decision involves interpreting laws in the context of the powers and authorities granted by the Constitution. This form of judicial review is the most powerful, as it can often only be overturned by amending the Constitution itself, something that's only been done 27 times in our history and requires a 2/3rds vote in the House and Senate and ratification by 3/4ths of the states.
That is what I'm proposing should be only available to the Supreme Court when their decision is done by consensus -- by unanimous vote -- rather than by simple majority.
Congress has the power to make this into law under Article III, Section 2.
While it would have the effect of freezing some truly toxic all-Republican decisions into law (Citizens United and gutting the Voting Rights Act, among others), if there was enough agreement among Congress members to take this step there would probably also be sufficient agreement to set about reversing some of the previous partisan decisions.
There would be no more 6-3 or 5-4 decisions with the Republican-appointees lined up on one side and Democratic-appointees on the other side. Every decision that becomes law based on the Constitution would be 9-0.
This would give tremendous legitimacy to such Supreme Court decisions and rapidly increase the popularity and thus credibility of the Court.
And it would put America in line with multiple other advanced democracies around the world, which have all found consensus decisions by their supreme courts around constitutional issues work better than mere partisan majority decisions. This process eliminates partisanship.
Public outrage is building: the Court's approval rating is now around 38 percent, an historic low. Congress needs to act as soon as its able: it's time to de-throne the self-appointed kings and queens of America and strip the partisanship out of their decision-making power.
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