To paraphrase a couple of Ephesian verses from the Christian Bible. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of evil and the dark powers of this world. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, and after you have done everything you can, just stand. Last week a valiant sacrificial attempt to preserve the rule of law and save American democracy was made. Sitting Supreme Court Justice Steven Breyer, who clearly has the mental and physical agility to give years more of judicial service issued the clarion call that he would no longer sit but JUST STAND!!!
Martin Luther King Jr. said on many occasions, “If you’ve got nothing worth dying for you got nothing worth living for”. Justice Steven Breyer has demonstrated that he has found something he is willing to die for, the sanctity of the United States Supreme Court and its rule of law, a foundation pillar of American democracy. His willingness to surrender his seat on the highest court in the land for the reason that he is doing so establishes a historic precedent. A historic precedent that future Supreme Court justices should seek to maintain and one the U.S. House and Senate should legally mandate (more on that in a moment).
For the first time in American history, a Supreme Court Justice is not stepping down for personal or family health reasons, for the feeling of having achieved all their personal goals on the court and want to do something else with their time left to live, for no longer having the mental or physical ability to do the job or death. Justice Steven Breyer is stepping down from the Supreme Court in an attempt to save the Supreme Court, a historic and judicial personal sacrifice first. This is not Justice Steven Breyer declaring I’m from a bygone era and the court has passed me by resignation, this is Justice Steven Breyer declaring I am willing to judicially die so that the sanctity, integrity, and creditability of the United States Supreme Court may live!!!
Justice Steven Breyer is known to be a compromise and consensus seeker while simultaneously being very passionate about his legal perspective with his fellow justices on the court. He is invigorated every session of the court by the challenge of deliberating and debating his Living Constitution perspective on the American Constitution, versus the Originalism perspective on the American Constitution of his fellow conservative justices on the court. And he is as overjoyed as a million-dollar lottery winner on the rare occasions he can reach a compromise ruling judgment with his fellow conservative originalist justices.
But 2 recent cases signaled to Justice Steven Breyer that the Supreme Court had been contaminated with ideological cancer. The ideological cancer is transforming the Supreme Court from making decisions based on the rule of law to making decisions based on the rule of ideology. Last September the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling that even conservative Chief Justice John Roberts allowed himself to be on the unusual side of the 4 losing dissenters, refused to stop a Texas state law that made all abortions performed after 6 weeks of a pregnancy in the state illegal, a clear violation of the established constitutional right to an abortion before the 24th week by the 1972 Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision.
The 5 justices ruled that because the Texas law relied on private citizens to enforce the abortion ban through lawsuits against abortion providers and not on any government entity to enforce the ban, meant that it was a matter for the Texas state courts to decide. Aside from this ruling hauntingly resembling the now spiritually overturned 1896 Plessy v Ferguson ruling that legalized state courts and state laws that denied American Blacks equal rights, it undermines the rule of law. Because it is the first time a Supreme Court did not put an immediate hold or unconstitutional designation on a law that was a clear violation of existing law, instead the 5 justices ruled to let an ILLEGAL law remain in place violating a LEGAL existing law because it met their ideological standard not the rule of law standard.
The second case was an even more egregious case of the rule of law being replaced with the rule of ideology, it’s the case that confirmed to Justice Steven Breyer that his recent speculation about the Supreme Court being infected with ideological cancer was true, therefore the ultimate sacrifice had to be made to stop the spread of it beyond the definite 5 but possibly 6 seats already contaminated with ideological cancer. In National Federation of Independent Business v. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that President Joe Biden could not instruct OSHA to require businesses employing a hundred or more workers to insist that their employees who work in settings conducive to the spread of the Covid virus, either be vaccinated or wear masks and undergo regular coronavirus testing.
The conservative Justices on the Supreme Court claim to have a Originalism legal perspective that dictates that the American Constitution should be interpreted as it was LITERALY written in 1787. Last time I read the constitution it said nothing about corporations being people or that they were entitled to rights that outweigh the rights of people!!!
The 6 justices ruled that OSHA did not have the legal authority to mandate that businesses require vaccinations. In the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, the legislation that created OSHA, b 3 of section 2, the Congressional Findings and Purpose, the Act states authorizes the Secretary of Labor to set mandatory occupational safety and health standards applicable to businesses affecting interstate commerce, and b 7 states provide medical criteria which will assure insofar as practicable that no employee will suffer diminished health, functional capacity, or life expectancy as a result of his work experience.
Anyone with an ability to read can understand by reading the Occupational Safety and Health Act that the law gives OSHA the authority to regulate the work environment. The mission statement of OSHA is: With the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, Congress created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to ensure safe and healthful working conditions for workers by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education, and assistance.
But do to the fact that the ability of the federal government to regulate the American workplace runs counter to the cancer ideology of no government regulation, the 6 Republican-appointed justices decided to ignore the legislation voted on by the elected U.S. House and Senate and signed in 1970 into law by then-President Richard Nixon, and issue a judgment based on their political ideology and not the rule of the Occupational Safety and Health Act law. The contradictory ruling was such a blatant offense to the rule of law that Justice Steven Breyer discovered then that rationalization and compromise with the 6 cancer-ridden justices were no longer possible.
The public servant in Justice Steven Breyer knew he had to face the reality that the only way he could continue to best serve the Supreme Court was to vacate it, making room for a younger rule of law jurist who could be nominated and confirmed while the rule of law political party, Democrats, still controlled the Senate and White House helping to prevent additions of any new jurist who rule by ideology if and when Democrats are no longer in control, and a jurist who would be young enough to continue his 28-year rule of law battle for another 28 years.
Justice Steven Breyer is making the ultimate sacrifice to help cure the Supreme Court of ideological cancer. Now it’s time for the House and Senate to honor the sacrifice of Justice Steven Breyer by doing their part to rid the Supreme Court of current ideological cancer and prevent further or future ideological cancer contamination. Since the need for legislative reform of the Supreme Court by the House and Senate is not a doubt the question is what reform should look like. The 2 most popular reforms adding justices to the court and term limits for justices might prevent future cancer contamination but don’t do anything to address current cancer contamination.
Adding justices to the Supreme Court or court-packing with the intent of impacting what the court rules, is just as wrong today as it was in 1937 when then-President Franklin Roosevelt proposed it. There are only 2 non-political reasons to add more justices to the Supreme Court, one is to improve the operations of HOW rulings are reached but not to change what the rulings will be, and two is to increase how many cases the Supreme Court can hear each year. A hybrid of the term limit is the best way to both address current cancer contamination and prevent future long-term contamination.
The House and Senate must pass a law that requires the President to decide, without a consent vote of the Senate, whether to reappoint or not reappoint each Supreme Court Justice at every 10th-year interval of their service on the Supreme Court. Once reappointed they would serve another 10 years and have to be reappointed or not reappointed again at the next 1oth-year interval. If a President decides not to reappoint the replacement Supreme Court Justice would go through the traditional Senate confirmation process. No more than 3 justices or one-third of the 9 Justices could be replaced at the same time and the first day the law is in effect the sitting President could immediately opt to replace any 3 current Supreme Court Justices that have served 10 years or more. The 10-year reappointment provides a if it ain’t broke don’t fix it option that a term limit provision does not.
Every Supreme Court Justice confirmed since John Roberts was asked during their confirmation hearings if they would overturn Roe v Wade, each one said they were strong believers in stare decisis implying they would not overturn Roe v Wade. Based on their rulings all but Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Elena Kagan lied during the confirmation process because they all have ruled in cases to gut the stare decisis of Roe v Wade, Affirmative Action, and Voting Rights. Under the 10-year reappointment law any Supreme Court Justice who misleads Senators during confirmation hearings on any subject matter, even if the evidence does not surface until after they have been confirmed, can be dealt with at the 10-year interval.
With a 10th-year reappointment law for Supreme Court Justices, if information comes to light after a Justice has been confirmed to the court that they lied about ANYTHING during their confirmation hearings the President would have the option of not reappointing the Justice at the 10th-year interval
Any Supreme Court Justice that starts ruling by ideology and not the rule of law can be disposed of at the 10-year interval. Since the American Constitution delegates the selection of who should serve on the Supreme Court to the President of the United States, it’s appropriate that the President alone should select who should or should not continue to serve. The judicial life sacrifice by Justice Steven Breyer and the 10th-year reappointment are desperately needed now because the last time ideological cancer infected the Supreme Court to this degree it produced the 1896 Plessy v Ferguson decision that legalized racial discrimination in America.
Based on the rulings by the current 6 Originalism Supreme Court Justices they not only want to read the American Constitution in 1787 terms, they want America to return to living like the days of 1787 when American women could not vote, American Blacks were considered sub-human possessing no rights any American White was bound to respect, business America was not legally required to a pay minimum wage or an overtime wage, business America was not required to provide a safe work environment, business America was not legally required to sell you the quality product they advertised, business America was not held responsible for any harm caused by any product they manufactured or sold, income taxes did not exist, and a government safety net for senior citizens, Social Security, was thought to be unconstitutional.
Unfortunately to the shame and dishonor of the Supreme Court there is some truth in what this gentlemen is saying to Chief Justice John Roberts, truth that the House and Senate must legislatively address!!!
The 6 ideological cancer-ridden Justices must not be allowed to return America to the days of being a fake democracy or destroy a pillar of American democracy, the Supreme Court. Like Rosa Park’s monumental selfless but simple act of refusing to stand up but instead to defiantly sit, laid the foundation for racial change in America. Justice Steven Breyer selfless refusal to no longer sit amongst the rule of ideology but instead to simply defiantly stand, lays the foundation for the House, Senate, and President to reform and rid the nation’s highest court of ideological cancer, restoring the Supreme Court to one that rules based on the rule of law. God Bless you Justice Steven Breyer your country salutes and thanks you for your service!!!