I find a number of recent Supreme Court decisions extremely disconcerting, namely, the Snyder vs. United States ruling regarding political bribery, the Garland v. Cargill bump stock ruling, and the Court’s landmark anti-environmental decision in Loper-Bright Enterprises v.
Raimondo, which overturned the landmark Chevron USA v. National Resources Defense Council, Inc. case.
The latter two decisions are egregious examples of the ultra-conservative majority reducing Congress’s role in protecting our people. I am also extremely troubled by the Court’s unwillingness to enact an enforceable ethics code. I, and the majority of the American people, are becoming more and more distrustful of the court.
Its current approval rating is hovering around thirty-five percent. Repeated revelations that members of the court have accepted gifts from persons with possible business before the court have only added to the mistrust. The most jarring revelations have concerned Justice Clarence Thomas.
Over a twenty year period he received luxury vacations and real estate deals valued at $133,363 from a major GOP donor. The trips and real estate exchanges, from Harlan Crow, a Texas real estate developer, were not initially reported on Thomas’s annual financial disclosure form. It has also come out that Justice Samuel Alito accepted a luxury vacation from a GOP donor.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, aided by her staff, has promoted her books through college visits over the past decade. Former Justice .