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Chuck Schumer dumped himself on the Supreme Court after a pair of 6-3 rulings on Friday.
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The High Court dealt a blow to LGBTQ+ rights and scrapped Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan.
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The leading Senate Democrat called the body “the Supreme Court captured by MAGA.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer derided the Supreme Court on Friday after conservative justices handed down a pair of rulings that question the future of LGBTQ+ rights and overturned the plan to overturn President Joe Biden’s student debt.
“After decades of special interest-funded efforts to reshape the federal justice system, the fanatical MAGA right have captured the Supreme Court and enacted dangerous and regressive policies they could never achieve at the ballot box,” he said. Schumer said in a statement.
The nation’s highest court on Friday ended its mandate, ruling in favor of a Colorado web designer who feared creating wedding websites in case she had to create content contrary to her views, including including a potential site for same-sex couples. . In another 6-3 decision, the court’s conservatives also found that the Biden administration lacked the authority to approve a roughly $400 billion student loan forgiveness plan without explicit approval. of Congress. The cases were 303 Creative LLC v Elenis and Biden v Nebraska, respectively.
Schumer also referenced recent reports from ProPublica about Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito failing to properly disclose the lavish gifts they received, even when some of their benefactors had cases before the court. Thomas and Alito have both defended their conduct, but the series of reports has cast further cloud over judges operating with little oversight amid lifetime appointments.
“This MAGA-captured Supreme Court feels free to accept lavish gifts and vacations from powerful and wealthy friends, while refusing to help ordinary Americans,” Schumer said.
Schumer appeared to refer to his and the White House’s brisk pace in confirming federal judges to lower courts. But his statement was not directed at a new progressive outcry to expand the court or weaken its power. Biden said Thursday he continues to view the court expansion as a “mistake.”
“The Supreme Court’s ill-founded and disappointing decisions are a stark reminder that it will take a sustained effort to rebalance our federal courts…” Schumer said.
Unsurprisingly, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had a very different response. McConnell helped prevent then-President Barack Obama from taking the seat of Justice Antonin Scalia. Following President Donald Trump’s election, three more Tories were confirmed at the High Court, including Justice Amy Coney Barrett, whose confirmation came just over a week before Election Day.
“Today’s court decision is a blow to the Democrats’ distorted and overblown view of executive power,” McConnell said in a statement praising the student loan ruling.
Schumer’s past criticisms of the Supreme Court have drawn more than eyebrows. The New York Democrat previously backed critics of Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch on foot after calling them out by name at an abortion rights rally outside the High Court in 2020. Schumer’s clarification is 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, appearing to warn both fellow liberals and outside observers. He added that he took no personal offense to Judge Elena Kagan’s scathing dissent.
“It has become a disturbing feature of some recent opinions to criticize decisions with which they disagree as
going beyond the proper role of the judiciary,” Roberts wrote in the court’s final opinion for his term.
He concluded by saying: “It is important that the public is not misled either. Such a misperception would be detrimental to this institution and to our country.
Read the original article on Business Insider