Last October 11, the US Supreme Court heard testimony in a case that pitted the state of California against the meat packers of America. A piece I wrote the next day, “Meat packers tell the Supreme Court they have the right to torture pigs” outlined the details of the case. Here is the first paragraph:
In 2018, Californians passed Proposition 12 - which would ban the sale of pork in the state if it came from breeding pigs confined in narrow metal cages. Midwestern meat packers argued in the Supreme Court yesterday the proposition is unconstitutional because its "practical effect" would be to force hog farmers to make costly changes in how they raise and confine their breeding pigs. They noted that more than 99% of the pork sold in California comes from other states.
Today SCOTUS rendered its opinion. The Court found for California in a 5-4 decision.
I suspect most Daily Kos readers will be happy the decision favored more humane treatment for animals. Others, while not necessarily opposed to animal rights, may have thought the critical issue was that individual states should not tell national concerns about how to run their business. However, it is not the decision itself that interests me. It is the composition of the two sides.
Given the political leanings of the Court, most readers would assume that the majority comprised three liberal justices and two conservatives. Or that five of the six conservatives agreed.
But that was not the case. Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion. Justices Clarence Thomas, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Amy Coney Barrett joined him. Opposing them were Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Ketanji Brown Jackson — who would have kept the case alive but sent it back to a lower court for more work.
Thomas and Gorsuch are on the Court's far right. Barrett is also far right — but not as far right (although I can hear some say she is just as bad). Sotomayor and Kagan are to the left. On the other hand, Alito is uber-right, Roberts and Kavanaugh are closer to Barrett, and Brown may be the most liberal member.
What gives? I cannot answer because I am not a lawyer. And I do not have even a passing knowledge of interstate commerce laws. However, when I look at what is obviously a non-partisan decision, I am heartened that SCOTUS seems to have decided that case on its legal merits without recourse to politics.
Which I hope is how the Founders intended the court to behave. Although, by having the President nominate the candidates and the Senate consent to them, they opened the door to hyper-partisanship — an unfortunate state exacerbated by giving the Justices lifetime appointments.
A fundamental flaw of the Constitution is that whenever the document’s authors considered the Chief Executive, they had the model of George Washington — a man with a reputation for being fair and sober-minded.
I am sure that in 1787 there were political extremists, zealots, and fascistic types — but it seems it never occurred to the Founders that one would get enough support, even with a minority-friendly Constitution, to win election to the Presidency. And if they did win, that they would also get sufficient backing in the Senate to get Crusaders on the bench. How depressingly wrong they were.
So I will celebrate this small victory knowing it will rarely happen again — unless the God-freaks on the Supreme Court get religion.