The SCOTUS confirmation hearing exposes just how broken our political institutions have become.
For one week in October Amy Comey Barret took center stage in the ongoing Kabuki theater that grips the nation. We heard gloom, we heard doom. We heard plaudits and praise. And we heard it all in alternating 20 minute soapbox speeches.
The hearings to consider the elevation of Judge Barrett to the Supreme Court are over and gone, receding into the rear view mirror and out of the social consciousness. Yet we have learned absolutely nothing of substance in regards to Judge Barrett’s judicial philosophy. We learned nothing about her suitability to assume a position to the court. We did learn, however, how many different ways one human being can decline to speculate on the same succession of hypothetical legal scenarios.
We have reached a point in this nation in which our descent into hyper-partisanship has rendered the political process almost impossible. Although it would be wonderful to have a series of hearings in which Senators could ask probing legal questions and receive a candid answer from a nominee, the political environment makes this impossible. Any utterance is subject to extreme vetting. Any opinion rendered would be quickly subjected to the Right/Left spin cycle and plastered across the social media landscape. These were not hearings, they were depositions.
Any vacancy to the highest court in the land has now become an existential battle. The Supreme Court was not envisioned as an omnipotent council of elders set in place to rule on and sway policy in the United States. Yet, due to the slow and steady abdication of responsibility by the Legislative branch, this is exactly the position we find ourselves in. The legislative process no longer exists for the most contentious policy questions facing the nation. Gun control, healthcare, immigration. All of these issues have become partisan weapons, issues to stir the base and drive fundraising for the next election cycle. There can be no compromise because there is no reasoned debate. Neither side can be seen to even acknowledge the feasibility of a rival policy proposal so we are left with an endless cycle of political brinksmanship where policy poison pills are tacked on the budgets, or defense authorization acts.
Now, while the legislative process has ground to a halt, the problems facing America do not simply disappear. They linger. So now, in lieu of a robust and collaborative legislative process, the most feasible way to address policy questions is to force a tailored lawsuit through the Judicial system to the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Roberts, to his credit, has bent himself into legal knots to avoid the court being used as a blunt instrument to circumvent the proper legislative process but this balancing act becomes more and more perilous with each successive vacancy.
In theory, any given ruling by the Supreme Court is not the final verdict on any given policy. The court rules on legality. In a properly functioning legislative body a Supreme Court ruling would be seen as a impetus to craft a law that would pass judicial challenge. Compromise would be made, legal issues resolved. The hearings show just how far we are from that utopian reality.