A Decade of Legal Warfare Has Warped America’s Future
If all our political disputes are destined to be settled by unelected judges, do the people even have a place in our democracy?
By MATT FORD
December 30, 2019
Welcome to the Decade From Hell, our look back at an arbitrary 10-year period that began with a great outpouring of hope and ended in a cavalcade of despair.
It’s hard to keep track of all the lawsuits that have been filed against President Donald Trump and his administration over the past three years. In November alone, the president waged legal battles to keep his tax returns hidden, to block aides from testifying in his impeachment hearings, and to enforce his immigration policies. Some of these cases can be traced to Trump’s unique foibles, like his opaque finances and penchant for committing impeachable offenses. But others, particularly when policy is at stake, reflect a deeper shift in the American political process over the past decade.
The 2010s will be remembered as a decade when the courts overtook Congress as the primary arena for political debates and outcomes. With the legislative branch impotent and hollowed out, the executive branch—and the president who sits atop it—increasingly makes and carries out the policy decisions that shape American lives. The counterweight to this arrangement isn’t a coequal branch of government but unceasing litigation by the opposition party and its ideological allies. These changes did not overthrow the American constitutional order. But they have warped it in ways that may not be sustainable in the long run.
This is not how the decade looked like it would end when it began. Barack Obama entered office in 2009 with Democratic control of the House and a substantial majority in the Senate. Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Spector would later switch parties and hand Democrats a filibuster-proof majority in that chamber. The result was a wave of legislative activity: the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the 2009 stimulus bill, the Dodd-Frank package of financial reforms, and more. Foremost among the Obama administration’s labors was the Affordable Care Act, which became his signature domestic policy achievement.
Lawfare pushes policy battles outside the democratic channels in which they’re supposed to take place.
More at the link.
https://newrepublic.com/article/155894/decade-legal-warfare-warped-americas-future