Station Selected:
Beginning the next significant series of broadcasts during this important time in the annual history of our High Court—when, consistent with tradition, its Members release their major decisions, including explanatory opinions, tempering concurrences, and increasingly vitriolic dissents. And observing the one-year anniversary of the landmark decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—overturning nearly half a century of constitutionally-embedded rights to reproductive services, sending decision-making on abortion into what has become a patchwork of laws and inconsistent rulings throughout the states, and arguably opening up the door to revisiting other, long-established privacy rights guaranteed to all Americans. (This commentary includes reporting on the practical consequences of the Roe v. Wade reversal, including increases in violence visited upon health care providers and the still-pending controversy over the nationwide accessibility of mifepristone, the principal drug previously authorized as medically safe by the Food & Drug Administration in abortion and miscarriage treatments.)
Then reviewing and explaining the significance of these four, major rulings—each of which provides reason to be hopeful about the future of the Republic, focusing on the individual rights, prerogatives, and histories of its diverse people: (1) Affirming the legislatively-established right of the Secretary of Homeland Security to use limited resources to investigate and deport those illegal immigrants who pose the greatest threat to national security and local safety; (2) Confirming the long-settled meaning and power of the Voting Rights Act in prohibiting racially-based gerrymandering that denies congressional representation to people of color; (3) Upholding the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act to safeguard the heritage of the youngest members of our indigenous populations in adoption, placement, and custody proceedings in our state courts; and (4) Validating the right of nursing home patients to sue for mistreatment under traditional civil rights principles and the foundations of our Medicaid (and Medicare) programs.
Finally, examining the latest instance of ethical lapses by our Supreme Court—this time involving the high-priced travel of Associate Justice Samuel Alito to an Alaskan fishing site, provided by a conservative political donor who also benefited from at least one High Court decision ultimately resulting in a $2 billion judgment in his favor: That—and previous reporting about the conflicts of interest (familial and financial) presented by Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, prompting the Senate Judiciary Committee to vote (after Independence Day) on pending legislation imposing a code of ethical standards and recusal guidelines on all SCOTUS members—like the rules for hundreds of other federal judges.
[Note: Expecting two more “decision days” in the coming business week, next Saturday’s broadcast will also focus almost exclusively a review of those rulings.]
