The Rogues In Robes

You may differ on the merits [1] with the supporters of the District of Columbia's gun ban, who were handed a major defeat by the Supreme Court on Thursday. But progressives can't deny this: The conservative bloc on the court is a rogue band of ideological thugs who care less about strict constructionism and all of the other conservative legal buzzwords they use, but are all about furthering a conservative political agenda.

Only when Justice Anthony Kennedy swings in the opposite direction, as he did when the court rebuked the Bush administration's stance on habeas corpus rights for terrorist suspects, is there a remote chance that the march of right-wing and corporatist ideology gets thrown off-stride. The graphic at right, from People for the American Way's SaveTheCourt.org [2], brings that point home.

Note what E.J. Dionne pointed out in his latest column about the nature of the gun ban ruling:

Conservative justices claim that they defer to local authority. Not in this case. They insist that political questions should be decided by elected officials. Not in this case. They argue that they pay careful attention to the precise words of the Constitution. Not in this case.

His column concludes with that hope that "this decision opens people's eyes to the fact that judicial activism is now a habit of the right, not the left, and that "originalism" is too often a sophisticated cover for ideological decision-making by conservative judges."

It is more proof that elections have serious consequences. The right understands the importance of a compliant judiciary in consolidating their political power, and they have made populating the judiciary with like-minded justices a cornerstone of their agenda. As a result, not only are conservatives on the precipice of having a decades-long hammerlock on the Supreme Court, but they have institutionalized a conservative tilt throughout the federal judiciary, as the chart below prepared by SaveTheCourt.org shows:

Review the top 10 reasons [3] that saving the court in November matters at SaveTheCourt.org [2] and remember that this is part of what's at stake in the coming election.