Today is a sad day in American politics. The Supreme Court as a bastion of liberalism and as a last hope for progressives is gone. Today, they ruled on a 5-4 decision in Rapanos v. U.S. that the government's interpretation of the Clean Water Act was too broad and that the land under question was not navigable waters. NYT Article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/...
What this means on the flip
The first and most obvious blow comes to the environmental movement. The Clean Water Act, as was said in the dissent by Breyer, Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg is key to protecting our nation's waterways and it makes sense to protect the wetlands that flow into our navigable waters to keep those clean. The majority opinion, authored by Scalia and joined by Roberts, Thomas, and Alito said that their interpretation was ridiculous. Kennedy officially joined in with the majority, but authored a seperate, less restrictive opinion that leaves much of the issue with other judges on how to interpret the law.
The bigger blow is what this new Supreme Court will now be able to do. Make no mistakes about it, this is a very conservative court. Rulings in favor of property rights and against major environmental legistlation has been a goal for a while of conservative judicial groups. The bigger point is that their years of efforts and focusing on the judiciary is finally beginning to pay off. For all of their rhetoric about activist judges, they are now going to be able to use the judiciary to accomplish long cherished conservative ideas like the banning of affirmative action and the gutting of the Clean Air and Water Act that would never pass through Congress.
Thus, when the next court appointment roles around, we need to remember what it is really about. The Supreme Court does a hell of a lot more than just abortion jurispudence and a comprehensive strategy, pulling together every progressive idea must come forth as a highly conservative judiciary hurts every idea, as seen today.