Lost in the reporting on protests related to police brutality was an ominous sign from the Supreme Court set into motion by Susan Collins’ flawed judgment in voting to confirm Bret Kavanaugh to the court.
Collins went out of her way to lecture Americans on jurisprudence before voting for Kavanaugh, convinced of his exemplary qualifications. Yet a recent case from California exposed his biases and his sloppy work.
In a case involving a southern California church claiming religious discrimination due to pandemic related limits placed on numbers of attendees at church services, the court’s 5-4 ruling prompted New York Times opinion columnist Linda Greenhouse, a journalist who spent 30 years covering the court, to conclude that the “polarization roiling the country has the Supreme Court in its grip.”
Kavanaugh and the three other conservative justices bought the church’s argument, and Kavanaugh’s dissent stated, “The church would suffer irreparable harm from not being able to hold sermons on Pentecost Sunday.” In fact they could hold services as long as the numbers of attendees were within public health guidelines.
Greenhouse describes this as invoking “….the court’s power to undermine fact-based public policy” and “….beyond depressing, it was terrifying”.
Chief Justice Roberts, siding with the liberal justices noted that “…..the politically accountable state officials are entitled to act within broad limits…..not second-guessed by an unelected federal judiciary.”
I suspect Senator Collins’ judgment was clouded by her eagerness to please her donors and her party.
Mary Ann Larson
Portland
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