NYT OPINION: This Is Biden’s Chance to Tell Us Exactly What the Supreme Court Has Done
By Kate Shaw
Section: Opinion
Source: New York Times
Published Date: February 7, 2023 at 02:00AM
His restraint in discussing the court is true in general, and it’s especially true in his 2021 remarks to Congress and his 2022 State of the Union address: In the former, he did not mention the court once. In 2022, he devoted a paltry few sentences to thanking retiring Justice Stephen Breyer for his decades of service and to praising the qualifications of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, then a nominee. That was it.
Even a year ago, this restraint was a dubious choice. The court’s new conservative supermajority was already flexing its muscles. Months earlier, it permitted Texas to functionally ban abortion in the state through a cynical workaround designed to evade judicial review even while Roe v. Wade remained law. Yet the writing was on the wall: The court would overrule Roe. In June 2022 the court jettisoned the popular precedent in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. In the same week, it also handed down decisions making it dramatically more difficult for our elected officials to regulate firearms and curtailed federal agencies’ ability to tackle pressing problems like climate change.
On Tuesday night President Biden has another opportunity to begin a deliberate, sustained process of reminding both the public and the justices that the court is part of the nation’s democratic fabric — and that neither the court’s decisions nor its members are beyond criticism.
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By Kate Shaw
Section: Opinion
Source: New York Times
Published Date: February 7, 2023 at 02:00AM
Why the president needs to use his bully pulpit.
President Biden has been conspicuously quiet on the topic of the Supreme Court. Even as there’s an active debate about what to do about a court that has too often exceeded the bounds of its authority, he has avoided regular criticism of it.His restraint in discussing the court is true in general, and it’s especially true in his 2021 remarks to Congress and his 2022 State of the Union address: In the former, he did not mention the court once. In 2022, he devoted a paltry few sentences to thanking retiring Justice Stephen Breyer for his decades of service and to praising the qualifications of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, then a nominee. That was it.
Even a year ago, this restraint was a dubious choice. The court’s new conservative supermajority was already flexing its muscles. Months earlier, it permitted Texas to functionally ban abortion in the state through a cynical workaround designed to evade judicial review even while Roe v. Wade remained law. Yet the writing was on the wall: The court would overrule Roe. In June 2022 the court jettisoned the popular precedent in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. In the same week, it also handed down decisions making it dramatically more difficult for our elected officials to regulate firearms and curtailed federal agencies’ ability to tackle pressing problems like climate change.
On Tuesday night President Biden has another opportunity to begin a deliberate, sustained process of reminding both the public and the justices that the court is part of the nation’s democratic fabric — and that neither the court’s decisions nor its members are beyond criticism.
Read more at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/07/opinion/biden-supreme-court-state-union.html
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