The nightmare facing Democrats, even if Harris wins

October 17, 2024 (Posted by) Don Pelton

Editor’s Note: Excellent complex article, worth reading more than once, by Ian Millhiser (“author of two books on the Supreme Court: Injustices: The Supreme Court’s History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted and The Agenda: How a Republican Supreme Court Is Reshaping America“). I could only include a brief excerpt here. [Don]

If Harris wins, the Republican Party will almost certainly be able to veto anything she does, thanks to our broken Constitution.

by Ian Millhiser

Over the course of its last few terms, the Supreme Court has effectively placed itself in charge of the executive branch.

It’s given itself an extra-constitutional veto power over virtually any policy decision made by a federal agency. Even when it ultimately rules in favor of President Joe Biden’s policies, it often sits on those cases for months, allowing a lower court order to suspend Biden’s programs for as much as a year.

Meanwhile, the Court has done extraordinary favors for America’s only recent Republican president. Just look at the Republican justices’ decision to immunize former President Donald Trump from prosecution for criminal actions he committed while in office.

The president, in other words, is increasingly subordinate to the courts. Yet, as the judiciary seizes more and more power, the battle over who gets to shape it grows increasingly lopsided.

Republicans enjoy an advantage in the Electoral College. Just how much is up for debate, but that advantage does mean that even if the American people hand Vice President Kamala Harris a modest victory in the popular vote this November, Donald Trump could still become president. He’d then get to nominate loyal Republican judges eager to implement his party’s agenda from the bench, much as he did during his first term.

Even if Harris wins by a large enough margin to overcome the Electoral College’s Republican bias, she still may not get to have much of an impact on the judiciary. Her presidency — and specifically her ability to name judges — is likely to be restricted by a Republican Senate. For Democrats to control even a tied 50-50 Senate, one in which Vice President Tim Walz would hold the deciding vote if Harris prevails, they must not just win in every single blue and swing state Senate race this year, but also Senate races in at least two of the red states of Ohio, Florida, Montana, and Texas.

That could happen, but it would require the kind of unusually triumphant Democratic election year that the party hasn’t seen since at least 2008 and possibly not since President Bill Clinton’s landslide reelection victory in 1996. And that seems quite unlikely.

A Harris victory could halt America’s slide into a MAGA-dominated future but it is unlikely to give her the power to reshape the judiciary in the way Trump was able to during his first term.

[…]

READ FULL AETICLE HERE:
https://www.vox.com/2024-elections/377729/kamala-harris-supreme-court-electoral-college-senate-constitution