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- Chuck Schumer unloaded on the Supreme Court after a pair of 6-3 rulings on Friday.
- The high court struck a blow to LGBTQ+ rights and axed Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan.
- The top Senate Democrat called the body a “MAGA-captured Supreme Court.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer derided the Supreme Court on Friday after conservative justices issued a pair of rulings that called into question the future of LGBTQ+ rights and axed President Joe Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan.
“After a multi-decade, special interest-funded effort to reshape the federal judiciary, the fanatical MAGA right have captured the Supreme Court and achieved dangerous, regressive policies that they could never attain at the ballot box,” Schumer said in a statement.
On Friday, the nation’s highest court ended its term by ruling in favor of a Colorado web designer who was fearful of creating wedding websites in the event that she would have to make content contrary to her views, including a potential site for same-sex couples. In another 6-3 ruling, the court’s conservatives also found that the Biden administration did not have the necessary authority to approve a roughly $400 billion student loan forgiveness plan without explicit congressional approval. The cases were 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis and Biden v. Nebraska, respectively.
Schumer also referenced recent reports by ProPublica about Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito did not properly disclose lavish gifts they received even when some of their benefactors had business before the court. Both Thomas and Alito have defended their conduct, but the series of reports has created a further cloud over the justices who operate with little oversight amid lifetime appointments.
“This MAGA-captured Supreme Court feels free to accept lavish gifts and vacations from their powerful, big-monied friends, all while they refuse to help everyday Americans,” Schumer said.
Schumer appeared to reference his and the White House’s brisk pace of confirming federal judges to lower courts. But his statement did not address a renewed progressive outcry to expand the court or to weaken its power. Biden said on Thursday that he continues to view expanding the court as a “mistake.”
“The ill-founded and disappointing decisions from the Supreme Court are a stark reminder that it will take a sustained effort to rebalance our federal courts …,” Schumer said.
Not surprisingly, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had a very different response. McConnell was instrumental in blocking then-President Barack Obama from filling Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat. After President Donald Trump’s election, three more conservatives were confirmed to the high court — including Justice Amy Coney Barrett whose confirmation came just over a week before election day.
“The Court’s decision today deals a heavy blow to Democrats’ distorted and outsized view of executive power,” McConnell said in a statement praising the student loan ruling.
Schumer’s past criticism of the Supreme Court has drawn more than just eyebrows. The New York Democrat previously walk-backed criticism of Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch after calling them out by name during a rally on abortion rights outside of the high court in 2020. Schumer’s clarification came after Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare statement slamming “dangerous” rhetoric.
As for the court itself, Roberts issued a preemptive defense in his Biden v. Nebraska ruling, appearing to caution both his liberal colleagues and outside observers. He added that he did not take personal offense to Justice Elena Kagan’s scathing dissent.
“It has become a disturbing feature of some recent opinions to criticize the decisions with which they disagree as
going beyond the proper role of the judiciary,” Roberts wrote in the last opinion the court released for its term.
He concluded with, “It is important that the public not be misled either. Any such misperception would be harmful to this institution and our country.”
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