Where do we go from here? The Supreme Court has been stolen.
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In 2005, I wrote my first piece on then Judge John Roberts’s confirmation hearing for his nomination to the Supreme Court. It was this one: In his opening statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Bush nominee to replace the late Supreme Court Chief JuWhere do we go from here? The Supreme Court has been stolen.
In 2005, I wrote my first piece on then Judge John Roberts’s confirmation hearing for his nomination to the Supreme Court. It was this one: In his opening statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Bush nominee to replace the late Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, John Roberts, drew an analogy between the Supreme Court and umpires in baseball: Judges are like umpires. Umpires don't make the rules, they apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules. But it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ballgame to see the umpire. . . . And I will remember that it's my job to call balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat. It is an interesting analogy Judge Roberts draws. And it seems to me to be an excellent argument for why Judge Roberts must answer the questions put to him by the Senate. As any baseball fan knows, umpires are not uniform in the delineation of the strike zone. Some are «hitters» umpires. Some are «pitchers» umpires. Some call the high strike. Some call the outside pitch. The strike zone has been changed by the clear theft of a seat on the Supreme Court by Mitch McConnell and the Republicans—the Garland seat. Now that Justice Kennedy has retired, this theft could be of generational duration. Everything we hold dear is at stake—not just what we have achieved, but what we aspire to. We are threatened with living in Robert Bork’s America, but delivered with John Roberts’s genial smile. So what do we do? In the short term, we of course fight against the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh. But what happens after that? In my view, we have no choice: we can not follow norms that were blatantly violated by the Republican Party and Mitch McConnell. Those norms are no longer operative. Thus, we must plan to exercise all legal and constitutional power to undo the wrongs committed by McConnell and the Republicans. We must remake the Supreme Court. Read more