In Overturning Precedent, Roberts Court ‘Has Lost Its Virginity’
Does the U.S. Supreme Court need a cold shower?
A legal journalist apparently thinks so. Linda Greenhouse, the former Supreme Court reporter for the New York Times, says the U.S. Supreme Court “lost its virginity” when it overturned campaign finance precedent in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
“There was a first-timer’s clumsiness in the way the 5-to-4 majority finished off Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, a 20-year-old precedent that the Rehnquist court had invoked just over six years ago when it upheld the McCain-Feingold statute,” Greenhouse writes at the New York Times Opinionator blog.
Greenhouse recalled Justice Antonin Scalia’s taunt three years ago that the court was engaging in “faux judicial restraint” when it came close to overturning a few precedents.
“It was foreseeable then that something would have to give: either the faux or the restraint,” Greenhouse says. “Now we know. Goodbye to restraint. …
“The question now is what the Roberts majority’s next target will be—where will the court’s raging judicial hormones lead it next, now that it has experienced the joy of overturning?”
Greenhouse doesn’t think Roe v. Wade will be overturned, but questioned whether other precedent could be at risk—including opinions upholding the Civil Rights Act.
