8 Ways the Supreme Court Has Been Destroying American Democracy
Alternet
8 Ways the Supreme Court Has Been Destroying American Democracy
Most people have little idea how badly the U.S. Supreme Court has damaged American democracy.
It’s not just watching a handful of billionaires drive the Republicans’ 2016 presidential contest from the inside out, as a result of the Court’s Citizens United ruling in 2010 and others that followed. There’s been a long line of anti-democratic rulings going back decades that have narrowed who can—and cannot—participate in politics, from citizens to candidates to parties and reformers.
These maddening problems and their source fill the pages of a striking new book about the First Amendment and what the Bill of Rights is really about from New York University legal scholar Burt Neuborne. It’s called Madison’s Music, named after the Bill of Rights’ author James Madison. Neuborne explains how core democratic rights have been shredded by decades of narrow-minded rulings that intentionally ignore Madison’s tapestry envisioning a populist, people-centered, activist politics.
What follows are a list of eight gigantic problems caused by decades of misreading the founding document of American democracy. These don’t just include how the rich have more influence, but how the big political parties have suppressed competitive elections, and how the system’s mechanics discourage millions of people from participating.
... "The fact is that for more than fifty years Supreme Court justices operating inside doctrinal silos have shaped the quality of American democracy without once asking what kind of democracy they were building,”
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