Everyone agrees that the next 30 days will be a bumpy ride until we get to Election Day.
To date, we have been dealing with a pandemic that has killed over 200,000 innocent people, a rush to nominate a candidate to fill the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, efforts to turn the vaccine use into a political football and a president who is ready to burn the Constitution and declare all absentee ballots illegal.
Of all the issues that the nation is confronting, the Supreme Court vacancy battle brought to mind a scene in the “Ten Commandments.”
As the Pharaoh Ramses II, refuses to give in to Moses’ (Charlton Heston) request to let his people go, Moses utters the biblical words “a man reaps what he sows.” And that pretty much sums up what can happen to the Republican Party if they pick a judge who will destroy a woman’s right to choose, end the Affordable Care Act and probably wipe out dozens of our long-established freedoms.
The favored candidate of the president is a woman named Amy Coney Barrett.
An in-depth look at her record shows that she views the Roe v. Wade case as “creating through judicial fiat a framework of abortion on demand.” She thinks it is “very unlikely that the court would overturn that case, it would probably decide that abortions could not be funded by the government.”
The more the Senate will look at her record the more it will be clear that she will be part of a judicial wrecking ball of the U.S. Constitution.
The statistics show that a majority of Americans strongly support a woman’s right to choose. If a newly structured Supreme Court tampers with Roe v. Wade, you can imagine that the public outcry will break the sound barrier.
Women throughout the nation will be looking to place the blame on some politician and the Republican Party will get the brunt of the outcry, which could harm them for many future years.
In mid-November, the Supreme Court will hear the case seeking to knock out the Affordable Care Act. President Trump has filed papers supporting ending medical care for the 20 million people who enjoy such coverage.
If the ACA is declared unconstitutional, people with pre-existing conditions will lose out as well as families who have children in their twenties who will lose coverage. You can be sure that an Amy Barrett or any other person picked by the president will vote against the ACA. After years of making promises that there will be a replacement for the ACA, the president has yet to come up with any plan.
Being the Republican members of the Senate have never suggested that they have any plan, the ACA coverage will disappear.
If you are a union member, a person protected by LGBT rights, or a consumer seeking to attack corporate greed, the new nine-member court will take away any of the benefits and privileges that they now enjoy.
It will not happen overnight, but there are dozens of cases dealing with these issues that are working their way up through the lower courts and will wind up in the Supreme Court. Many of the current judges have made their bias clear on these issues, but changing the balance of power to a 6 to 3 court will empower them to make judicial chaos.
Every day the U.S. Congress passes bills that you know nothing about. Their voting record is not discussed in the media and the voters rarely punish the members. But, the actions of the Supreme Court are widely discussed, and the outside world will know when there is some decision that strips them of their rights.
If the Court throws out the ACA, undermines Roe v. Wade or abolishes job protection, the voters will look for someone to punish, and the target will be the Republican senators who voted to change the balance on the court.
There is no Moses who will stand up on the floor of the U.S. Senate to remind their colleagues “a man reaps what he sows.”
