As Election Day approaches, voters need to keep in mind one of the most important powers given to a president: the ability to nominate Supreme Court Justices. Judicial nominations take even more precedence in this election due to the fact that four current justices are in their seventies, making it likely that the next president will have the opportunity to nominate at least one or two justices, putting major progressive reforms along with a list of other issues at risk with the possibility of even one additional conservative justice to the Court. The stakes are highest for progressives because Breyer (74) and Ginsburg (79, the most likely to retire) tend to lean liberal in their decisions and a conservative-leaning replacement for either would give disproportional amounts of power to the conservative wing of the Court.
Romney has pledged to nominate individuals that align with extreme right-wing justices like Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Chief Justice John Roberts. Under the guise of securing “greater protections for economic liberty and greater scrutiny for regulation” and “judicial modesty,” a more conservative Court would ultimately limit the expansion of gay rights, further extend corporate influence in politics, attack women’s reproductive rights, and threaten the recently upheld healthcare legislation.
To understand the implications of a Supreme Court under Romney, one only needs to look at Romney’s choice of chairman of his Judicial Advisory Committee: Robert Bork, a right-wing extremist and advocator for Constitutional “originalism”, a radically conservative way to interpret the Constitution. Bork opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Roe v. Wade, and in 2007, Romney declared, “I wish he were already on the Supreme Court. He’s the kind of brilliant conservative mind that this court could use.” Clearly, Romney intends to shift the Court’s further to the right with nominations similar to Bork.
President Obama has been quite vocal regarding his opponent’s intentions with vacancies on the Supreme Court. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Obama made it clear that a Romney/Ryan administration would be in a position to overturn Roe v. Wade through the Supreme Court. In a recent appearance on the Tonight Show, President Obama again highlighted the importance of having a diverse Court especially when it came to Roe v. Wade. The President also recently emphasized the importance of the Supreme Court and marriage equality in the coming years during an interview with MTV, expressing opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act and hoping for its eventual overturning.
A more conservative Supreme Court would lead to a radical reinterpretation of the Constitution and a dramatic attack on equal opportunity and rights. If Romney is elected, this sort of Court would almost certainly become a reality.
Click for PFAW’s new report on the Court’s importance.