Marcia Meoli: Supreme Court just adding fuel to the partisan fire

The United States Supreme Court, prompted by zealous and short-sighted litigants, is now keeping our country from solving important problems of our day. It is doing this in a way that interfereswith the functioning of the other branches of government.

My recent thoughts on this started with a podcast I heard on NPR's "Fresh Air" from April 6. There, Eric Lipton, from the New York Times, discussed his series on the expansion of online betting in our country. A short time ago, it was illegal to gamble on sports in most places in the U.S. Now, sports and other gambling is happening virtually everywhere and on anything. Lipton traced this change to the lawsuit filed by the state of New Jersey claiming it was unconstitutional to allow one state like Nevada to have sports betting, and to prohibit this in other states. In Murphy v. NCAA, the Supreme Court held that a 1992 law prohibiting state-sanctioned sports gambling was unconstitutional under the 10th Amendment because one clause in that law “commandeered” power from the states. Instead of invalidating the one clause, the court invalidated the entire statute.

This left us without a national prohibition of gambling. After that, states passed laws allowing all kinds of gambling, including on sports. After Michigan passed such a law, I have seen bankruptcies by people caught up in this. These people turn over their bank accounts to pay for gambling on their phones. Their bank statements are incredible: pages and pages of entries for FANDUEL and other gambling operations. Reviewing this with the debtors, these people seem to be in a state of shock, not really understanding how they got into this situation but knowing that they were not able to get control of it until it was too late. In the Murphy case, the court seemed to understand that this could happen in the last paragraphs of its opinion, but went forward anyway because of its reading of the 10th Amendment and that “errant” clause in the statute.

This is becoming a pattern. The Roberts court has reviewed a number of statutes and found constitutional problems with them, overruling these statutes and causing upheaval and problems sought to be solved by elected legislators or other leaders. This includes:

Second Amendment decisions: Heller, McDonald and Bruen. Heller was decided in 2008, reversing the full history of interpretation of the Second Amendment, and holding that the amendment provides an individual right to bear arms, rather than a right tied to membership in a militia. The court attempted to temper the decision by stating that the right is not “unlimited.” But subsequent decisions of the court cast doubt on whether the court will ever find a limitation on guns acceptable. In the McDonald case, the court extended individual liberty in cases involving states. In 2022, the court held in the Bruencase that courts reviewing guns law should consider not the public good, but the "historical tradition of firearm regulation" (whatever that means!).

Citizens United: In 2010, the court ruled that the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for political campaigns by corporations, including nonprofit corporations, labor unions, and other associations. It overruled a campaign finance law passed by a bi-partisan Congress. The court attempted to temper the decision by stating that it did not believe in the likelihood of corruption or the appearance of corruption in elections.

Shelby County v. Holder: In 2013, the court overruled portions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, passed and renewed for decades to deal with discrimination in voting, stating that the act was old and no longer responsive to current needs. The court attempted to temper the decision by stating that the country has changed with respect to racial discrimination.

We now face the prospect that this court will eviscerate the FDC in its ultimate ruling on an abortion drug.

The majority members of this court think that they know better for the country than anyone else, including Congress, the president, the majority of voters and previous Supreme Courts, given its growing record of overruling long-standing precedent. Some of these justices stated under oath that they respected precedent during their confirmation hearings. Since they joined the court, they have shown no respect for precedent at all.

We should not need to pass constitutional amendments to solve problems in this country. This court is devolving into yet another hyper-partisan participant in the dysfunction of our national political system.

— Community Columnist Marcia Meoli is a Holland attorney and resident. Contact her at Meolimarcia@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Marcia Meoli: Supreme Court just adding fuel to the partisan fire