Our Current Supreme Court

We are finally home and it’s nice to be home. We enjoyed our vacation to Washington State a great deal and saw some beautiful scenery along the way. I’m putting something together on it along with many photos. We took over 2,500 photos in all! Don’t worry, not nearly that many will be published. Maybe we are a bit addicted to photography? You think?

I noted on the news that the Supreme Court has made what I would consider to be major decisions on a few very big issues: our environment, freedom of speech, and finance reform, and grants to religious organizations.

Oh.... and what do all of these rulings have in common? They were all decided on a 5-4 vote - all of which would most likely have been decided the other way in the court of Sandra Day O’Connor. This is just one more thing President Bush has done for our country. America is not America anymore. It’s been sold out and we are losing more and more with each ruling. And this is just the beginning. Here’s a bit of news to look forward to:

If a U.S. Supreme Court justice steps down in the coming months, the Bush administration may have an easier time filling the seat with a conservative nominee than is generally expected, some political analysts argue.

The first full term in which Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr., and Associate Justice Samuel Alito have served together is drawing to a close, and the country is again bracing for the possibility of another justice retiring from the bench.

Retirement speculation focuses on Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, both liberals. Stevens is 87 years old; and although Ginsburg is 13 years younger, her frail appearance has often prompted conjecture of poor health. (source)

So I would expect that the rulings on the court with new Bush appointees (which will most likely be confirmed with this gut-less Congress that we have today) to be much more lopsided.

And now, the rulings...

Endangered Species Act

The Supreme Court sided with developers and the Bush administration Monday in a dispute with environmentalists over protecting endangered species. The court ruled 5-4 for home builders and the Environmental Protection Agency in a case that involved the intersection of two environmental laws, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act....

A federal appeals court had said that EPA did not do enough to ensure that endangered species would not be harmed if the state took over the permitting.

Environmental groups, backed by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal, said the administration position would in essence gut a key provision of the endangered species law. (source)

“A federal appeals court had said that EPA did not do enough to ensure that endangered species would not be harmed if the state took over the permitting.”

I had to read that twice and really think about it. The entire purpose of the Endangered Species Act was to prohibit any federal agency from taking action that would put an endangered species in further jeopardy. Now, the states can determine for themselves what they will or will not do for the protection of endangered species. Do I have that right?

Free Speech

In a majority decision written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and joined in full by Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito, the Supreme Court ruled that students don’t have the right to promote pro-drug messages at school-sponsored and faculty-supervised events. Justice Breyer concurred in the judgment in part. The Court also unanimously rejected Frederick’s damages claim against Principal Morse.....

The case arises from an event that occurred in Juneau on Jan. 24, 2002. During the 2002 Winter Olympics Torch Relay, the Juneau School District participated in the event by allowing students to view the relay under the supervision of teachers and school administrators as it passed through the street in front of the high school. As the torch and television cameras approached the school, JDHS high school student Joseph Frederick and several of his friends displayed a large banner that read “BONG HITS 4 JESUS.” Principal Morse asked the students to drop the banner because it violated the school district’s policy prohibiting the display of messages promoting illegal substances. When Frederick refused, Principal Morse confiscated the banner. She subsequently suspended Frederick for displaying the banner and several related offenses. (source)

BONG HITS 4 JESUS huh... Well, a bit tacky I will admit. I’m sure it’s very offensive to many groups. But here’s the thing with free speech; it is only free speech if you can defend anyone who says the most offensive things. The only issue I would have is if that speech is inciting others to violence against someone else or a group of people. “BONG HITS 4 JESUS” doesn’t fall into that category as far as I’m concerned. As an example, I find the signs held up by Fred Phelps pathetic church (we all know what the signs say... I’m not going to give him more air time) to be extremely offensive. Does his group have a free speech right to display those signs and speak their mind? Yes they do, and I would defend their right to that speech. Free speech isn’t easy.

Also on this topic I found an interesting article entitled "Did student-speech rights go up in smoke?" Here's an excerpt.

With a stroke of the powerful pen of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the U.S. Supreme Court limited student-speech rights this week, creating another exception to Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, its landmark 1969 First Amendment decision in which it declared that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

As a result of a colorful case colloquially known as “Bong Hits 4 Jesus,” the Court ruled June 25 that students just outside the schoolhouse gate lose their First Amendment rights if they speak even ambiguously about drugs. Though many associate the “war on drugs” with a loss of Fourth Amendment freedoms, the First Amendment also fell victim in the Court’s decision in Morse v. Frederick.

Federal Campaign Finance

The U.S. Supreme Court gave companies, labor unions and interest groups more power to run broadcast ads before elections, limiting the reach of a federal campaign-finance law.

The 5-4 ruling today marks a shift for the court, which in 2003 upheld the law, including a provision that restricts pre-election ads. The court today said that provision couldn’t be constitutionally applied to three 2004 ads, aired by a Wisconsin anti-abortion group, that called on the U.S. Senate to hold votes on President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees. (source)

We will never know if they ruled this way because they are against pro-choice. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “Discussion of issues cannot be suppressed simply because the issues may also be pertinent in an election. Where the First Amendment is implicated, the tie goes to the speaker, not the censor.” Would they have ruled this way if it were for gay rights? My gut feeling is, probably not. We know the First Amendment doesn’t apply to “BONG HITS 4 JESUS”.

Grants to Religious Charities

In a 5 to 4 decision, the Supreme Court has sided with the Bush administration, ruling that average citizens and watchdog groups do not have the legal right to challenge the federal program that awards grants to religious charities....

The ruling means that lawsuits challenging the White House office must be pursued by a person or group directly injured by a government action, as opposed to an average citizen.

Religious, civil-liberties, atheist, and other groups had been closely watching the case because of the precedent it will set about who can sue the federal government when concerns arise in cases that involve government grants to religious organizations. (source)

The federal government has ABSOLUTELY NO BUSINESS WHAT SO EVER giving money to “faith-based initiatives.” The line that separates church and state just keeps getting thinner and thinner and thinner. And yet, no one notices, just like Germany in the last century.

I suppose President Bush got just exactly what he wanted, a Supreme Court that would side with the administration on very key issues facing our country. It honestly would not surprise me if somehow this Supreme Court found a way to issue a ruling that Dick Cheney really wasn’t part of the Executive Branch.

If Cheney’s a member of the legislative branch, the Democratic Caucus chair suggests, the vice president won’t need all the money that currently goes to pay for his executive office, extensive staff and that secure undisclosed location that is so often his haunt. So Emanuel plans this week to offer an amendment to a spending bill that would defund the Office of the Vice President.