Constitutional Law

Advocacy Group's Report Says High Court Increasingly Conservative, Pro-Business

U.S. Supreme Court watchers have produced more analyses of the high court’s latest term. According to People For The American Way Foundation the U.S. Supreme Court remains ideologically divided and is becoming a powerful friend of big business. The 48-page report, “Civil Rights & Civil Liberties In The Supreme Court’s 2007-08 Term,” tracks “key decisions” and finds that the Court’s sharply divided ideological rulings “reaffirm the disturbing direction of the Roberts Court.” The Court’s right-wing voting bloc, PFAWF notes, consists of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Its “moderate-to-liberal” wing is comprised, the report maintains, of Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Justice Anthony Kennedy, the report says, has “continued to provide the deciding vote in critical cases ….”

PFAWF’s report says the term that ended earlier this summer also reflects “what appears to be a growing hostility on the Roberts Court to facial challenges, and a willingness to allow a law to be implemented and create actual harm (which could include a violation of constitutional rights)” before a substantial claim is lodged. For example, the report cites the high court’s ruling in Crawford v. Marion County, which upheld Indiana’s voter ID law. The decision, PFAWF argues quickly prompted harmful consequences, citing a situation in Indiana’s primary election in the spring where some nuns were barred from voting because they did not have drivers’ licenses. The report also maintains that “Overall, the Court has grown more conservative in recent years, increasingly becoming a friend of big business and issuing decisions that protect corporate America ….” See the entire report here.

For more analyses of the high court’s work, watch ACS’s 2008 Supreme Court Term Review hosted last month at the National Press Club and obtain other ACS material on the Supreme Court here.  

Full post as published by ACS Blog on August 04, 2008 (boomark / email).