In advance of the upcoming Supreme Court nomination process, Professor Geoffrey Stone has written an excellent piece rejecting the recent recasting the role of a Supreme Court Justice as “umpire” and demonstrating how the conservative Rehnquist/Roberts Court has performed a function opposite to that set forth by the Framers of the Constitution.

Justices are jurists, have a special role in protecting people from the abuses of power, and must take the effects of their rulings into account.  Umpires have no such responsibilities.  The Supreme Court is a check on power, not the enhancement to corporate power that it has been under Rehnquist  (at least since the appointment of Justice Thomas) and Roberts. 

Truly excellent and well worth the read.

What should be done to an organization that engaged in illegal, unethical electioneering on behalf of a successful presidential candidate in a swing state that made all the difference? Defund it? Prosecute it? Make a documentary?

How about all of the above? And would it make a difference if the story involved the Republican National Committee’s voter suppression efforts in Ohio during the 2004 election?

Detailed works by both Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Professor Mark Crispin Miller demonstrating fraud in Ohio (and elsewhere) and claiming that John Kerry actually won there (and Ohio alone would have put him in the Oval Office) were dismissed as sour grapes after the 2004 election.

But the grapes have ripened as the story aged.  These new revelations give emphasis to the point that we still have a problem (the “we” of us who want clean elections, that is).

For the media, confirmation that there was caging should give more credence to Kennedy’s and Miller’s charges of other illegalities that turned the election. Since investigative journalism is nearly dead in the US, progressives will have to force this story to the front if the electoral system is to be improved.

Especially since five Supreme Court reactionaries declared that corporations are citizens too (with every right short of voting directly), the need for comprehensive election reform is clear. And any Republican who complained about ACORN’s actions (which were never shown to be widespread and certainly did not change the result of the 2008 landslide) should have to answer for opposition to reform.

Interesting footnote: if Kennedy and Miller are right, then while a Republican strutted around the White House, a Republican has not actually won a presidential election since 1988. Citizens United, leftover problems from the Bush Era, the history of opposition party success during mid-term elections, the disproportionate representation favoring small rural (conservative) states in the Senate, and the electoral college system (favoring the same states) give Republicans reason for optimism in the the coming elections.

But changing demographics and the possibility that Republicans have not legitimately won the White House in five straight tries do not bode well, especially since Fox and right-wing radio refuse to give them permission to move to the center.

Whatever the results of future elections, it is axiomatic in a democracy (or democratic republic, if you prefer) that elections be clean.