Healthcare, gay marriage, voting rights, affirmative action, reproductive rights, labor rights, immigration, climate change.
These are some of the crucial issues that have come before the Supreme Court in recent years or will be heard this year. It’s become a cliché every presidential cycle to say that the Court should be one of the most important issues in the election but this year, following the death of Antonin Scalia, it’s never been truer. The next president will almost certainly appoint one or more Justices, especially if Republicans zealously oppose whomever President Obama nominates, which will shape the direction of the court for decades. A Democratic successor to Obama would be able to achieve the first liberal court since the Warren Court of the 1960s…
The Roberts Court has made it easier to buy an election and harder to vote in one, which is why I recently argued that Democratic candidates should make repairing American democracy a central focus in the campaign by embracing policies that reduce the influence of big money, curb gerrymandering and protect voting rights. None of these causes can be achieved without a sympathetic Supreme Court.
In September Rick Hasen wrote a great piece arguing why the future composition of the Court was the most important civil rights issue of our time. It’s now the most important issue, period.