Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently brewed up a tempest with comments disparaging Donald Trump and his bid for the Presidency. Her criticisms, denounced by people Left and Right as violations of long-standing custom for Supreme Court justices, also included mention of some court cases she would like to see reversed (Citizens United and Heller, no surprise there). Ginsburg, appointed by President Clinton in 1993, is the senior member of the Court’s liberal wing, and her SCOTUS votes tend to reflect that political slant.
Her political beliefs aside, it remains that she is a Supreme Court justice, a member of one branch of a tripartite government, and more specifically, the branch that’s supposed to exhibit a measure of impartiality and grant fair hearings to both sides of the cases it adjudicates. In addition, it is a well-established rule of jurisprudence that theoretical cases do not get judged. How, then are we supposed to contemplate that Ginsburg would give a fair hearing to any case that cited either Heller or Citizens United as a precedent? Even some members of the Left are bothered by this breach of protocol.
Her actions didn’t arise in a vacuum, however. The lines between the three branches of government have been blurred almost beyond recognition in recent years. Obama came into office promising, among other things, to reverse the encroachment of executive branch power into the legislative branch’s duties, a promise he broke rather declaratively with his assertion that he can use his pen and phone to get things done. Obama also broke another wall in his very first State of the Union address, when in another breach of precedent and decorum he scolded the Supreme Court over its ruling in the Citizens United case.
Ginsburg’s impropriety is merely the latest manifestation of a system that’s been breaking down for quite some time. Organizations take their cues from the top, and Obama, rather than reversing a trend he found distasteful and problematic, turned out to be one of the biggest culprits. The breakdown of divisions between the three branches of government, the blurring of lines between the executive, legislative and judicial branches, will be Obama’s greatest legacy. It continues the elevation of men above the laws written to restrain them, and it continues to corrupt this nation’s very fabric.
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