Much about the political activity I have half-heartedly engaged in seems futile in the wake of this week's election results. Having given to no Democratic Senators prior to Tuesday, I gave $145 to Mary Landrieu yesterday. As much as we would like to retreat into the darkness and lick our wounds, there are still battles to be fought.
The effort to lobby Supreme Court Justices in the way we do the political branches will seem quixotic to some, but it beats hell out of doing nothing when the greatest American achievement of the last half decade is once again threatened. This issue is sufficiently important to me that I have decided to forfeit the anonymity I have heretofore enjoyed on this site by giving my real name, as I did in the letter I am mailing momentarily. Indeed, the full text of the letter is displayed below.
November 7, 2014
Dear Chief Justice Roberts,
My name is Jason Galbraith and I have been a lawyer for eight years now. I was in law school when you were put on the Supreme Court, over which you are now presiding for a tenth term.
I am writing this letter to you today because I was urged to do so by a diary on the Democratic website Daily Kos accusing Democrats of doing nothing to save the Affordable Care Act. Obviously you are not a Democrat and would not be moved to save the Affordable Care Act for a second time on that basis. I suppose I am asking merely that you let whatever moved you to save the Act on that occasion, move you again.
Of all the opinions you have written as a judge, your opinion in King v. Burwell is the only one with the potential to be more consequential than your opinion in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius. These are the opinions that will be studied in law schools when you are long dead and your grandchildren as established lawyers. Maybe that's not what you want for them; God knows this profession has its share of drawbacks and these days I find myself warning young people away from it. But surely at least one of them will be moved to follow your example and join the profession that makes the world civilized and keeps it from degenerating into a Hobbesian state of nature.
I pray that your grandchildren's generation, both in the United States, in other common-law countries, and in the world at large, will be able to say that as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, you were more like Charles Evans Hughes than like Roger B. Taney. Let them say that you sought to perfect the common law rather than perverting it. Let them say you were not on the side of those who sought to perceive a flaw in the text of codified law for the purpose of undoing the will of the people as expressed through our durable and noble system of government. Let them say your vision included a Constitution that was living, so that ordinary Americans could live better. Above all, let them not say that you convinced the mass of the people that the Supreme Court is the most, rather than the least, dangerous branch of the government to the well-being and liberties of the people. Protect the Court's (and your own) reputation by acceding to Congress' intent when it passed and the President's intent when he signed the Affordable Care Act. Your grandchildren will sing your praises.
Sincerely, Jason Galbraith, TX Bar #24072100