I received a form email from South Carolin's Senator Tim Scott in response to an email I sent through WREN SC (Women's Rights and Empowerment Network) requesting that he support the addition of justices to the Supreme Court.
As you can imagine, it was rife with mansplaining to me about what our government is intended to do and how it should work. My favorite line is "Elections have consequences."
There were two points Senator Scott made in particular, however, that I had to address. He wrote that "Expanding the Supreme Court for political reasons is short-sighted and dangerous for our democracy, especially in today's political climate" and "Recent attempts by the Biden-Harris Administration and Congressional Democrats to entertain the idea of expanding the courts is deeply troubling."
This is simply untrue. The number of justices on the Supreme Court has been changed six times in history. There is nothing unprecedented about doing so now. On the website of the Supreme Court itself are these words: "The Constitution elaborated neither the exact powers and prerogatives of the Supreme Court nor the organization of the Judicial Branch as a whole."
As for Senator Scott's claim that expanding the Court is for "political reasons," he of all people should know that issues of constitutionally protected rights are not political. The right to bodily autonomy is something all Americans must have, and not just when it comes to abortion: The Republican Party has recently championed the right to choose to get a Covid vaccine and to WEAR A MASK, one of the least invasive health measures it’s possible to dream up. This is not even to mention McFall v. Shimp (1978), which established that Americans are not obligated to undergo a medical procedure "at their physical OR MENTAL expense" in order to save the life of another human being. When you consider that we don’t even legally obligate Americans to donate blood, which would without question save American lives while, all arguments against abortion fall apart.
The Supreme Court has blatantly ignored these facts, and the right to bodily autonomy of a majority of Americans, in overturning Roe v. Wade. Not only that, but they are infringing on the sovereignty of indigenous rule over their own lands, on the rights of Americans to have recourse against illegal arrests, on the rights of the wrongly convicted to have their trials reviewed due to inadequate legal counsel and in light of exonerating evidence, and on the rights of states to interpret the Second Amendment. This is disturbing and hypocritical in the extreme.
The other quote from Senator Scott that was worth addressing is this: "It is the constitutional right of the President to nominate individuals to serve on our federal courts, and it is the job of the Senate to advise the President on these nominations and, in the event of qualified candidates who meet relevant standards, to consent to them through confirmation.”
This technically is correct, but once again Scott's claim belies the reality of the situation, which is that the partisan Senate, led by Mitch McConnell, blocked the Supreme Court nomination of a sitting president, Barack Obama, in one of the most shameful politically motivated and partisan displays I’ve ever had the misfortune to witness; they then rushed through Trump’s third nomination despite the direct promise not to do so of both Mitch McConnell and South Carolina's Senator Lindsey Graham: "I want you to use my words against me. If there's a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say, 'Lindsey Graham said let's let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination."
So this "sitting president" Senator Scott refers to had three nominations when he should have had one. Here we come to the paternalistic "Elections have consequences" quote, despite the glaringly obvious fact that political corruption and partisan games have stripped Americans not only of our rights but also of our voting influence—something the Supreme Court also plans to take up in its new session by ruling on whether state legislatures—which are partisan—have final oversight of elections instead of state courts—which are not partisan. This would allow states to override the results of fair democratic elections.
Tell Senator Tim Scott to stop giving excuses for the shameful conduct of the Supreme Court. Americans who care are informing themselves, and we will call all legislators out who are pretending ignorance. These are issues that directly affect our lives, both our right to life and our everyday living with liberty and in pursuit of happiness.
Below is the entire email:
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