The disaster of leaving Afghanistan was compounded by the fury of Hurricane Ida and the Delta variant of the coronavirus emerged in late August as a real threat to the economic recovery of the United States.
When it seemed that the presidency of Joe Biden could not suffer more setbacks to cloud its energetic start, the conservative Supreme Court that was born during the Donald Trump Administration has proven to be an insurmountable wall against the policies of the Democrat.
The legislative hell that the White House is experiencing, with a recalcitrant Senate that prevents it from advancing its agenda, had just been joined by the highest court, which seems destined to do the job that Congress cannot do, incapable of passing immigration reform , enact laws that do not restrict the vote of minorities or maintain the moratorium on evictions in times of pandemic.
The Supreme Court has been demolishing the social pillars promoted by the Democratic president based on emergency procedures known as
shadow dockets
, a legal term that describes the measures adopted by the court without an oral presentation of their arguments.
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The Supreme Court deals a new blow to Biden by allowing evictions again in the pandemic
The US Supreme Court revives the "Stay in Mexico" program established by Trump
Under the Trump administration, the nation's highest judicial authority made many far-reaching decisions through this method, quickly sealing, and sometimes late at night, substantive issues that critics on the other side of the ideological spectrum considered. lacking in transparency in the forms.
When this happens, the result is often attributed to a Supreme Court friendly to the White House.
However, with this tactic, the court - extremely conservative after Trump's latest appointments - dealt a severe setback to the Biden Executive at the end of August, by agreeing with a Texas judge who asked to restore the controversial program Stay in Mexico, It came out of Trump's ideology and for which tens of thousands of asylum seekers had to wait for the resolution of their request south of the Rio Grande.
A few days later, that first assault by the Supreme Court against the Biden White House was joined by another decision by which the court, by six votes to three, declared that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, for its acronym in English) ) did not have the authority to declare the suspension of evictions, imposed in early August, and which provided protection to some 3.5 million Americans in places with a high incidence of the coronavirus.
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The last blow of the Supreme Court happened last week when the magistrates, who hold their position for life, prevented by five votes to four from halting the new abortion law approved in Texas, which practically reduces the rights of women to paper. to terminate the pregnancy in that State. The rule, known as the Texas heartbeat law ["Texas heartbeat", in reference to the supposed impulse of the fetus], came into force on the first day of September and prevents women from aborting after the sixth week of gestation.
In addition, the law promotes the possibility of civil complaint of any person who assists in the interruption of a pregnancy and rewards that accusation with 10,000 dollars.
In the words of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, in her scathing dissent from the decision of the highest court, Texas "has delegated to the citizens of the State the task of hunting bounties, offering them cash prizes for civilly prosecuting the medical procedures of their neighbors."
Six versus three
John Roberts, the Chief Justice, together with Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and the justices Donald Trump appointed during his presidency - Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Barrett - forms the conservative wing of the court. Facing them are Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer, who at 83 is the oldest member of the court. His longevity makes Breyer the subject of a strong campaign by Democrats to remove himself from office and Biden to appoint his successor, in order to prevent his appointment from passing into the hands of an eventual Republican Administration.
Since 2010, when the Supreme Court ruled that the limits on electoral financing be eliminated, allowing private companies to contribute unlimited funds to support or oppose different political candidates, the court has become more important for the Democratic voter.
How all the sentences of the highest judicial authority may affect the future of the 2022 elections and the fate of Joe Biden's party then may be linked to that unwritten rule by which voters who declare themselves not satisfied with the decisions Supreme Court officials are more motivated to go to the polls compared to those who are.
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