Supreme Court of the United States Losing Public Support

The above poll, reported by www.pollingreport.com, shows quite a swing in the approval rating of the United States Supreme Court. In the last two years we have seen the Congress go from Republican to Democratic control; we have seen Bush's approval ratings hit new record lows; we have seen Obama and Clinton attract millions of new voters to the polls; Obama now leads in almost every major poll being conducted in the presidential campaign; and now this poll showing the Supreme Court's approval ratings going downhill.

The question is whether all of this is evidence that the public is rejecting conservatism in government? Is that is so, then the GOP is in for a rough time, but only time will tell.

New Yorker Article Calls Voter ID Laws What They Really Are: Racist and Classist

Jeffery Toobin of the New Yorker magazine has a great article out in which he points out that Indiana's law requiring voters to produce a state-issued photo identification before they vote is actually an attempt to make sure poor blacks and whites can't vote. The reason why this article appears is that the United States Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on Wednesday, January 9, 2008, on whether this law is unconstitutional. What is interesting is that while the state of Indiana claims that it is designed to stop voter fraud, it can't point to one case in Indiana in which a person has posed as another person to cast a vote. Meanwhile the New York Times points out that in Indiana there are at least two real people, one an elderly Democrat and the other an elderly Republican who also happens to be Afro-American who couldn't cast valid votes because of Indiana's law.

Ever since 1960 Republicans have been muttering about supposed election law violations by Democrats where people show up and vote illegally. Of course, when pressed to actually point out examples of such cases, they can't. The lack of evidence doesn't stop them, though, from making the claim or having their media shills like Rush Limbaugh make the claim.

Ohio, of course, has its own version of voter identification. Interestingly, though, voters who vote absentee don't really have to produce copies of such identification. Instead all they have to do is give the last four digits of their Social Security number or their Ohio driver license's number to vote. Now, if you stop and think about it, it is more likely that someone will try to commit fraud by mail, where they don't actually have to appear in front of a real live person, than commit fraud in person. Given that the purpose of these voter identification laws is to prevent fraud, why the difference in treatment between absentee and in person voters?

Well, here is the difference. A lot of Republicans have second homes in places like Florida and so the Republicans want them to vote. Thus, they make it easy to vote by absentee and harder to vote in person because they think that such actions will only disenfranchise Democrats. The Republican philosophy of government is built on the idea that some Americans are more worthy than other Americans. The hetrosexual is more worthy than the homosexual; the religious more worthy than the athetist; the wealthy more worthy than the poor; and the absentee voter more worthy than the in person voter.

The way for Democrats to make this work for them is to encourage voting by absentee ballot. The way to encourage such voting is to flood Democratic areas with absentee ballot applications; to have volunteers pick up such applications and take them to the local boards of elections; then to make sure that people receiving absentee ballot forms actually vote. Given the fact that Ohio has a Democratic governor, there is little that the General Assembly can do to defeat such tactics. If Ohio Republicans want to make it easier to vote absentee than in person, then Ohio Democrats should help them out.

Do Roman Catholic Bishops Expect Catholic Supreme Court Justices to Reverse Roe v. Wade?

According to this article, the nation's Roman Catholic Bishops are considering how much involvement they should have in the 2008 Presidential campaign. The article points out how certain Bishops were involved in the 2004 campaign, with one Bishop announcing that he wouldn't allow John Kerry to receive communion in his diocese. What was remarkable about that statement was that there was no indictation that Kerry intended to take communion in his diocese, so his announcement served no other purpose than to indictate to his parishioners his opposition to Kerry.

What is even more remarkable about this article, however, is that the American Catholic Bishops are ignoring the one governmental body that has control over Roe v. Wade and has a majority of Roman Catholics. That body is, of course, the United States Supreme Court. Out of the nine United States Supreme Court Justices, five are Roman Catholic. They are Justices Scalia, Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Kennedy.

So here is the question: why aren't these Bishops who were opposed to John Kerry putting pressure on the Roman Catholic Supreme Court Justices to reverse Roe v. Wade?

What is even more interesting about the Roman Catholic Supreme Court Justices is that all of them were appointed by Republican Presidents and are presumably Republicans. So it would seem that they would be the most receptive to the argument that abortion is a "fundamental" issue for Roman Catholics.

Of course, Americans are very touchy about attempts to interfere with the judiciary and might react very negatively to such an attempt. Which is, of course, why even those Bishops who were opposed to John Kerry's election might heistate to pressure Supreme Court Justices. In the final analysis, however, it seems hypocritical to criticize Roman Catholic Democratic politicians on abortion and ignore the fact that five Republican Roman Catholic Supreme Court Justices could reverse Roe v. Wade anytime they chose to do so.

Framing the Recent SCOTUS Decision on Abortion: Republican Supreme Court Refuses Another Opportunity to Overturn Roe

The recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the cases of Gonzales v. Carhart et al. and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood Federation of America are being portrayed as defeats for abortion right advocates, and, by extension, for the Democratic Party. The reason why the Democratic Party is being seen as suffering a setback is because of the perceived support of the Democratic Party for Roe v. Wade.

There is another way, however, to portray this recent decision. This is at least the third time since the Roe decision that the Republican majority of the United States Supreme Court has refused to overturn Roe v. Wade. There are seven Republican-appointed Supreme Court Justices on the Court as opposed to only two Democratic-appointed Justices. This has been the situation for several years because since the Roe decision, only two Democratic-appointed Justices have been named to the Court. Thus if Roe hasn't been overturned, it is because Republican-appointed Justices don't want to overturn it.

Keeping Roe around makes sure that the conservative base of the GOP stays motivated. It helps in close elections like 2000 and even 2004. Overturning Roe, however, carries the substantial risk of a backlash from women against the GOP. It could cause suburban women in particular to abandon the GOP. It would deprive GOP nominees for President of a potent issue and put GOP candidates for state legislature positions in swing states in a bind.

Since approximately 90% of abortions are performed in the first trimester of pregnancy, the impact of the two recent decisions will be limited, which is exactly what the GOP wants. What it doesn't want is for Democrats to point out that it is a GOP appointed and dominated SCOTUS that is keeping Roe around.