Gavel Grab

A political playbook reportedly lies behind Democrats’ sustained and intensifying criticism of the Supreme Court for its Citizens United decision.

Chief Justice John Roberts’ criticism of the scene at President Obama’s State of the Union address (see Gavel Grab), and a forceful retort by the White House assailing the landmark campaign finance ruling, drew widespread reaction–and opened the door to examination of political agendas.

Democrats want to use Citizens United as an arm of a strategy to paint the court’s conservative justices “as more protective of corporate interests than of average Americans,” a Washington Post article reported, and it quoted an unnamed Democratic strategist as saying the fight would help set the stage for the next Supreme Court opening:

“Most Americans have no idea what the Supreme Court does or how it impacts their lives…This decision makes it crystal clear.”

On Wednesday Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, blasted the decision at the start of a hearing on it. He said that “the Citizens United decision turns the idea of government of, by and for the people on its head.”

The committee’s senior Republican, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, counterattacked, deploring “too much alarmist rhetoric that has been flying around since this decision.” He urged colleagues to not “misrepresent the nature of the decision or impugn the integrity of the justices.”

Also slamming the conservative justices was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. He “castigated” Justice Roberts ” as being out of touch and completely detached from political reality,” according to a Huffington Post article.

In the category of trading shots over remarks made by Justice Roberts and by the White House Wednesday, you can choose with whom you side:

• “For the life of me, I just don’t get why the White House continues to try to pick a fight with the Supreme Court,” wrote Jan Crawford at CBS News.
• Justice Roberts’ “whine and cheese, delivered to students at the University of Alabama, is unbecoming of the leader of the third branch of government,” opined Andrew Cohen at The Daily Beast.
• Republican Sens. Sessions and Orrin Hatch of Utah “called on President Obama to stop attacking the Supreme Court,” according to a Fox News report.
• Justice “Roberts’ speech indicates that while unlimited corporate billions are, after his Court’s recent decision in Citizens United v. FEC, newly essential to democracy, apparently a thick skin is not,” James Sample asserted in Huffington Post.

To learn more about Citizens United, which lifted restrictions on corporations spending their treasury cash to support or oppose political candidates, read Gavel Grab. Or see a commentary, “Criticizing the High Court: What Is the Line,”   by Bert Brandenburg, executive director of Justice at Stake.