In a new book, a legal analyst argued the Supreme Court "protects the rights of the rich and conservative," but "to heck with almost everyone else."
An excerpt posted in The Nation, "Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes," argues that non-conservatives aren't treated like conservatives at the high court.
University of Michigan Law School Professor Leah Litman wrote that the Republican-appointed justices "seem to think that some people get free speech while others do not." She wrote that currently, the court is "driven by conservative grievance," which finds conservative speech acceptable unless it's criticizing conservatives.
"Speech is good when the speech is money that tends to favor Republican causes, but speech is not good when the speech favors Democratic causes—such as speech from unions or speech that supports rights for racial minorities and the LGBT community," Litman wrote. "The court protects the rights of an entitled minority, to heck with almost everyone else."
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Her first example is speech that criticizes wealthy conservatives, which the court considers "bad, even while it insists that other speech (spending by wealthy conservatives) is good." She cited the case, Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, the former she described as an arm of the "petrochemical Koch family network" that funds conservative organizations.
In this case, the Supreme Court "invalidated a California law" that required nonprofits to disclose large donors to the state attorney general. California requires regular campaign reporting, the Fair Political Practices Commission website said. Federal campaigns file donation and expenditure reports to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) quarterly.
"Per Government Code Section 81008, campaign reports are public documents and subject to review by elections officials, members of the public, and other candidates and committees," the FPPC site said.
The Supreme Court shot down the California law, saying that there was a "risk that donor information would be disclosed to the public." The FEC already makes those reports public.
The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, said that the disclosure requirement was not narrowly tailored and imposed a widespread burden on donors' First Amendment rights.
Litman said that the justices appear to say that disclosure "might subject donors to, get ready for this, verbal accusations of wrongdoing."
Justice Clarence Thomas asked during the oral arguments: “Do you think it would be reasonable for someone who wants to make a substantial contribution to an organization that has been accused of being racist or homophobic or white supremacist, that in this environment that they would be chilled?”
Litman explained that the implication is that donors will be deterred from supporting groups that are homophobic or racist if people find out about the donations.
"It depicts some speech as a problem (accusations of racism or homophobia against conservative organizations) while protecting other speech (monetary contributions to conservative organizations)," she wrote.
Litman cited several other examples to illustrate her belief that the court seeks more power, because what they have "is apparently not enough."
She closed by remarking, "It must be good to be king."
