First Amendment and Courts — White America’s Truest Loves
From Baby Boomers to Millennials Admiration of Institutional Power Scuttles Needed Reforms
For more than 25 years as a gay man in “progressive” nonprofit advocacy work in Washington, D.C., I witnessed and lived through a whirlwind of “progressive” advocacy-love for the nation’s First Amendment and the courts protecting it.
It is not just white, right-wing people in Florida who profess a love and ownership of Constitution’s First Amendment.
It must be understood that for too many white people in the U.S. in general, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is an “inherent” right to die for. Also know that the First Amendment beloved and written about ad nauseam by many white people is a constitutional amendment of little worth to outliers in the U.S. and always has been.
Ask BLM protestors about the lofty First Amendment and you’ll get a far different take than the one from wealthy white elite wankers at Nashville’s First Amendment Center, part of large thing called the “Freedom Forum.” The Freedom Forum was founded by Al Neuharth a dear friend to long dead president Ronald Reagan. The cop-loving, chamber of commerce cheerleading USA Today is also tied in with all the other Neuharth right-wing media.
In Washington, D.C. it’s almost a requirement for any kind of advancement to write books about the First Amendment — do a google or bling search there are nearly 2 billion books, handbooks, guides, pamphlets, law review articles, and other missives about the amendment.
Good gracious, the D.C. nonprofits, with state chapters, raise boatloads of cash too revolving around the First Amendment. It is not just the ACLU — a whole of host of right-wing First Amendment “nonprofits” do the same. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty or the American Center for Law and Justice engage in costly litigation to advance a far-reaching and insidious First Amendment.
The conservative First Amendment peddlers are about creating communities governed by evangelical Christian tenants and platitudes. See this piece from The Guardian about a white town in Idaho that hopes to govern the place via an evangelical bible, no state or federal law.
A white-lens admiration, obsession, or love of state and federal courts also exits to this day. I remember a white journalism professor at Marshall University going on about his love for the U.S. Supreme Court and how he enjoyed days in October through June when the high court would drop its opinions. I suspect the lily-white professor never had a rough encounter with an officer of any court. He just felt love for the high court’s power — though he used some of the court’s opinions to highlight bad writing and grammar.
While working 8 years for D.C.’s American Constitution Society, the leaders, including its Board, and 3,000 or so paid supporters, a blinkered love of courts and judges ruled the day.
The organization’s “bylaws” prevented ACS from in-your-face advocacy for any type of judge or justice. Instead the organization opted for a soft-touch approach conducting “discussions” around constitutional issues and concerns, hosting forums for centrist and neoliberal judges and justices to flaunt themselves.
The group conducts a three-day conference in D.C. where “progressive” lawyers, law professors and students, policy makers, judges and justices would gather to banter before small audiences of “progressive” do-gooders, drink tons of weak coffee, bottom-shelf liquor, and then party in the evenings at D.C. dance clubs and bath houses.
The elite, white love of a constitutional amendment and all courts is detrimental to the real need for advocacy to overhaul state and federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, which in turn could halt the old-school First Amendment version now propped up by a rightwing judiciary.
The U.S. Supreme Court is far too powerful — rather like India’s.
Early in the Supreme Court’s history a few justices created out of thin air “judicial supremacy” or review, essentially granting the then-weak court the most powerful tool — the ability to invalidate any congressional or executive law or action as unconstitutional.
All sudden of a small all-white Supreme Court had a sweeping power that would in decades to come endear it to conservative Americans who saw it as a tool to end abortion care and give more power to cops, among other right-wing ideals.
Instead of more blinkered love of status quo courts and the First Amendment, muscular efforts to rein in the Supreme Court’s power is needed.
Some reforms include term limits for the justices, limit or end judicial review, no justices from the D.C. appeals court circuit for five decades, and expand the court, making it a tiered court with at least 39 justices. The state courts too are a mess — more than 30 conduct “judicial elections” to fill their courts, which in turn undermines judicial independence. See this piece on Wisconsin’s costly forthcoming Supreme Court election.
Urgent work is needed to reform U.S. courts, and ongoing, skewed admiration for institutional powers is a serious impediment.
