Public Interest Goes Belly Up

The Ledbetter case frightens me a lot, as in it the Supremes chose to take an totally corporate viewpoint, ruling that wage discrimination was out of date if a female employee didn't find out she was being paid far less than male peers until after the fact.

The discrimination factor wasn't important to the majority on the court, instead they chose to rule on the implausible excuse that an employee discriminated against had to have information that an employee is discouraged, and often warned, against obtaining.

I for one have worked in places where "discussion of wages" was specifically forbidden.

Goodyear, the employer, knew their court, and appealed a verdict against the company for what it had done, which was very wrong, taking it all the way to the Supremes. The $3.8 million verdict that she had won, for breaking the law, by Goodyear, was overturned by our highest court because Lily Ledbetter isn't a psychic. A law was written to prevent further such injustice, passing the House, but now held up in the Senate by the corporate shills there.

The Senate's failure to take on the judiciary has implications beyond workplace gender discrimination. In Ledbetter v. Goodyear, the top court's conservatives ignored the original intent of the Civil Rights Act. According to Simon Lazarus, public-policy counsel to the National Senior Citizens Law Center, this court has similarly defied congressional intent on everything from litigation against the companies that helped Enron defraud its shareholders to cases involving mandatory binding arbitration, and lawmakers have done nothing about it.

The Ledbetter case, he adds, is hardly the first time a far-right Supreme Court has tried to gut American civil rights laws—justices made similar attempts under the late chief justice William Rehnquist in the late 1980s, but Congress responded in 1991 with new legislation to overturn the changes. In Lazarus' view, the apparent unwillingness of today's Congress to check judicial power will only embolden the Supreme Court to behave even more radically. The justices, he says, "get away with it with impunity right now because Congress is not just sclerotic but structurally unable to act." (Emphasis added.)

The Supreme Court has shown in several instances that it is biased toward the business sector, and unfortunately it has taken on a distinctively red tint during the past two terms of war criminals. The harm done to date is large, but possibilities for greater harm loom on the horizon. The composition of the court has changed since it decided for habeas corpus. The moral compass of the country has swung downwards, toward authoritarianism, and future court proceedings are in danger of intensifying the country's course change, toward unconstitutional government.

It is the legislature's role to write laws that promote the public interest which it is sworn to protect. There are too many legislators, though, who are betraying their oath, who are protecting corporate misdoings from redress.

The upcoming elections need badly to be held in a glaring light of public attention to the elected officials at all levels who are fighting against America's best interests.

345 days, folks.