Two years ago, women lost their reproductive rights across various states due to the political agenda of people we did not elect and the public had no say in their presence or legislation.
This year, those same people decided bribery, in terms of gifts as reward for political action, is legal. Term limits, or forms of recall, must be put in place so judges on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) can be held accountable. There are not enough checks and balances on the Supreme Court. The judges appointed have virtual immunity and, through their actions, give off the impression they find themselves infallible.
The Supreme Court is meant to be the final, impartial judge that ensures all laws follow the Constitution. The key word is impartial. Unfortunately, in the past decade, the increasingly conservative court has decided to forgo its duties and push through unpopular legislations and decisions that follow the judge’s biases and political agendas. The American public has no way of dealing with these corrupt judges. We can’t impeach or recall them. That needs to change, they need to be electable by the people, not nominated by a president.
According to the Pew Research Center, Chief Judge John Roberts’ court currently holds the lowest favorability ratings in the past 30 years. Three of the judges appointed to the court – Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – were approved by Donald Trump, a president who only won due to the electoral college, another archaic practice, not by the people’s will. Even though none of us chose them, we will have to deal with each of them until they die off.
Following an investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, Trump was accused of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. This year, the court, 33% of whom he nominated, ruled that any president cannot be prosecuted for actions done with the core Constitutional powers of their office. The decision was 6-3, with the liberal bloc (Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor) dissenting. For the other six, this was an obvious attempt at protecting the president that put half of them there.
Former President Richard Nixon must be rolling in his grave hearing about this. He missed out on a golden goose of corrupt courts.
The repeal of Roe v. Wade was massively unpopular when it occurred two years ago. According to the Pew Research Center, 62 percent of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. The belief was reflected in the 14th Amendment, which guaranteed a right to privacy for American citizens. However, the judges believed otherwise and used their personal biases to build a case for overturning it. Citizens, unfortunately, cannot recall these unpopular decisions or return the national rights offered to them through Roe.
Though, this was intentional. The system was created so that popular sovereignty and the public’s mass hysteria could not affect the courts. However, the idea that biases would not enter the court was both blatantly unrealistic and an idealization of the judicial system. The judges are not infallible, they are people, and people are biased, especially when someone is providing thousands of dollars worth of vacations. But that’s not bribery anymore, it’s a gift.
This year, in Snyder v. United States, in a 6-3 vote, with three dissents from the liberal bloc, the court ruled that gifts and payments as rewards for actions taken by state and local officials should not be considered bribery. This ruling occurs one year after the ProPublica investigation into Judge Clarence Thomas’ undisclosed lavish gifts, including 38 destination vacations, from many generous donors, such as billionaire and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow. Thomas ruled on the case, obviously voting that gifts should not count as bribery, as did Justice Samuel Alito, who did not disclose a luxury trip in 2008 with hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer until a report by ProPublica in 2023 revealed it for him.
Thomas’ bribes went as far back as 1991 when he was appointed to the court. That’s 33 years of lying and deceiving the American public. As of now, he has received no legal punishment for this. Neither has Alito.
The American public must have a right to appoint these judges and the right to recall them. There’s precedent for changing the Constitution to make certain officials electable: Just look at the 17th Amendment, which made senators electable. We must do the same to the Supreme Court because as of now, they are infested with corruption and will be until the end of the current court’s days. The American public has no say in their actions, leading to massively unpopular decisions that benefit only a small minority of radicals.
