Part One:
CAN COURTS FUNCTION WITHOUT TRUTH?
We speak with Mark Joseph Stern, who writes for Slate and other media about legal issues, politics, and government policy. He attended yesterday’s Supreme Court argument on Louisiana’s latest law restricting a woman’s right to choose abortion. The law prohibits abortions by doctors who don’t have “admitting privileges” in a hospital within 30 miles of their clinics.
The rub: Just 4 years ago, the Supreme Court struck down almost the exact same law from the state of Texas. The Solicitor General of Louisiana tried to tell the Court that her law was different from Texas’s, but the SG had no facts at all to support her position. In fact, she stretched the truth so many times that Chief Justice Roberts seemed to tell her that, even if he wanted to support her general position on abortion, he would be embarrassed to do so based solely on Louisiana’s false/misleading/pretextual reasons.
Last year, Roberts and the Supreme Court, expressing similar concerns, rejected the Trump administration’s plan to use the US census to ask people about their citizenship status. The administration’s phony rationales were just too outrageous for the Court to uphold a policy that they might have affirmed if they had been given a larger figleaf. Will the Court (and the entire Judicial Branch) learn from these experiences that it must scrutinize executive branch reasoning more carefully, lest the courts be snookered again?
Part Two:
VIEWING THE ELECTION FROM 30,000 FEET
After the loss of Elizabeth Warren from the presidential race, our depression is lifted by a remarkable conversation with Bill Curry, who was twice the Democratic nominee for Governor of Connecticut and later a White House advisor in Bill Clinton’s administration.
Curry puts this election season into perspective. Pundits have often noted that Bernie Sanders’s 2016 campaign opened up the political discussion to many progressive ideas and issues, which are more “mainstream” now. Similarly, this 2020 campaign has engaged voters and the Democratic Party in a long-overdue reflection about the soul of the Party, what Democrats stand for, whether or not Democratic candidates will work to erase the imbalances (economic, political, and social) between the corporate elites and the average working family.
With Warren’s voice eliminated from the debate stage, whether Bernie wins or loses the nomination, we hope that a thoughtful, reasoned, and respectful discussion continues to take place. All sides have valid points to make, yet no one is going to agree with every idea put forward by any particular candidate. Perhaps the United States can work on healing itself — yes, this will require hard work and a good deal of humility on everyone’s part. Perhaps we can move forward toward a future where all people are treated with respect and dignity and human-kindness, where all people can share the bounties that our great country has to offer.
