Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Friday, March 14, 2014

Supreme Court Ruled In Favor Of The Nation’s Top Corporate Interest Group In 7 Of 8 Cases This Term

So far this term, the Supreme Court handed down eight cases where the United States Chamber of Commerce filed a brief — and a majority of the justices sided with the Chamber in all but one of these decisions. The one outlier decision was a case involving anti-retaliation protections for whistleblowers where the justices votes broke down along unusual lines, with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg writing the majority opinion and Justice Sonia Sotomayor in dissent.

This most recent data is part of an ongoing project by the Constitutional Accountability Center, which scored the Chamber’s “win rate” before the justices going back to 1981. As their data reflects, corporate America got a big boost in the nation’s highest Court shortly after Chief Justice John Roberts (and his conservative colleague Justice Samuel Alito) became justices:
CAC SCOTUS data
Several Chamber cases remain to be decided this term, including two major environmental cases and an attack on President Obama’s recess appointments power.
CAC’s data also shows a sharp divide between the Court’s conservative bloc and its four more liberal members:
CAC Justices

Original Article
Source: thinkprogress.org/
Author:  IAN MILLHISER

No comments:

Post a Comment