First Monday in October**

**New Supreme Court Term Opens

As is customary, the Supreme Court opens for the new term on the first Monday in October. Recently appointed Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson takes her seat then, to hear the first arguments for the new term. The activist Court from last spring is still very much in play, as none of the majority in the Dobbs’ decision has moved on, much as I might wish they had.

Polls show that the court has lost the support of most voters in the country, yet Chief Justice Roberts claims to not understand why. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning Independents, support for the court has dropped 40 points since 2020 with only 28% in favor now. Among Republicans and those who lean right, who generally favor the actions of the court, support is higher at 73%. This almost 45-point gap in the percentage between parties is the widest since Pew started measuring this spread over thirty-five years ago.

There are variations among men and women, older and younger voters, and college-educated vs non-college-educated groups, according to Pew. For example, they cite the gender gap using all parties: “Men are slightly more likely to view the Supreme Court favorably (52%) than unfavorably (46%), while women are slightly more likely to hold unfavorable views of the court (45% favorable vs. 51% unfavorable).”

They took these polls in August after the Dobbs’ decision. As a rule, conservatives, older, and non-college-educated voters are more supportive, while younger, more liberal, and college-educated voters are less so.

Recently, Chief Justice Roberts spoke about the courts’ loss of popularity and noted that the court's legitimacy should not be criticized just because people disagreed with the decisions it made. Frequently, he has been the moderate voice against the aggressive conservatives on the court, but with five votes already aligned in favor, he cannot prevail as he once did with a 5-4 court. However, even though he supported the dissent in Roe, he supported Dobbs; neither vote changed anything, however. His colleagues should have tempered the passionate overreach and lack of a constitutional rationale or compassion shown by Justice Alito in Dobbs, but they did not, because too many of them agreed with his ultimate conclusion. Basically, that was why the Republicans chose them for the court in the first place, according to many.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor criticized the court in her oral arguments on Dobbs in one of her strongest comments yet: “Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?”

And further in their dissent, the three liberal justices stated: “Today the proclivities of individuals rule.” (And not the Rule of Law, nor the words of the Constitution, they might also have said.)

Justice Elena Kagan reacted to the remarks of Chief Justice Roberts quoted above by saying in a recent speech that the court must take unpopular decisions when sometimes laws or circumstances demand. And, when they are seen as fair and following established precedent, the public views them as even-handed. But when the court goes out of its way to decide a matter that was not even before the court, such as Roe and does not follow settled law, then its actions rightly make the public suspicious, she noted. (I have paraphrased Kagan’s and Roberts’ comments from a remarkable multi-page opinion piece in the Washington Post by Ruth Marcus for this discussion.)

The opinion, called Brace Yourself, previews the upcoming cases before the court as announced, and others that might appear. She believes that the Conservatives have tasted their power and want to run with it, disregarding precedent as they go. Last year, for them, was just the beginning. In this article, she quotes Harvard Law School professor Richard Lazarus describing Justices Thomas and Alito “They’ve spent a lot of time waiting for this majority to happen and they do not intend to waste it.”

Although I cannot review every bit of her article here, I think that one of the most dangerous theoretical cases involves the rights of a state legislature to overrule its courts on decisions concerning electors or election decisions they dislike; this was the theory proposed by John Eastman and the basis for the fake electors’ schemes in 2020. Already, courts have voided decisions made in some states to disregard vote counts or certain ballots. The MAGA folks have come up with schemes that could require all ballots to be received by election day, not merely be postmarked by then, as has long been the practice, even though courts have supported a mailed ballot waiting period.

Another concern is the “independent legislature clause” that some define as meaning that state legislatures are outside judicial review and do not have to adhere to judicial oversight, such as redistricting decisions, even though they might be contrary to law. Already some justices have spoken in favor of this theory, which could allow even more extreme gerrymandering. The case under consideration is coming from Republicans in North Carolina.

Now can everyone see why Congress should have passed the voting rights legislation demanded by so many earlier in the year? We are now almost at election day, in fact, for the mid-terms, voting has already started in some states with onerous regulations in place.

What we once thought to be a national red wave has turned into a close race. Polling results compiled by 538 still shows favorable results for Republicans in the House with Democrats slightly favored to keep control in the Senate. Kevin McCarthy is already measuring for new draperies n the Speaker’s office, so to speak! In many races, the extreme candidates chosen by the MAGA cultists are not finding favor with a wider electorate. The abortion access issue is the sleeper in the race as pollsters are not yet certain how this will ultimately play out. There have been higher numbers of women registering across the country according to some reports. In August, according to the Upshot in the NY Times, in the ten states for which data was available, 55% of new voters registering were women.

In Maryland, Trumpster candidate Dan Cox, who bused folks to the Insurrection, is trailing Democratic candidate Wes Moore by 32 points in the 538 poll. The Washington Post strongly endorsed Wes Moore today. Polls favored Senator Chris Van Hollen to win easily. In the newly redistricted-and consequently more conservative-6th District, Democratic Congressman David Trone, who had been trailing challenger and ultra-conservative, Neil Parrott, is now slightly favored to win by 538 and favored by the Cook Report. In the 8^th District, Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin, who no longer has any districts in Frederick County, is favored to win by 99%.

The County Executive race in Frederick County features two quite different candidates. Republican State Senator Michael Hough is facing Democratic County Council member Jessica Fitzwater. Hough, a favorite of the conservatives, (and his boss Congressman Alex Mooney, another ultra-conservative) is suddenly trying to present himself as moderate. He is against access to abortion and has voted against expanding options for providers in Maryland. His campaign ads are highly negative and misleading against his opponent. To me, these ads come across as bullying. Fitzwater, in 2020, spoke about race issues and noted the existence of white privilege, which was much discussed after the death of George Floyd. During a county council meeting then, she discussed this in a manner that she now describes as in-artful, but which has been played hundreds of times in an ad by Hough. I interpret these remarks to say she is caring and wants to better understand these issues. The two debated before the Rotary Club recently. (Full disclosure Notice-I support and volunteer for Jessica.) Hough, who had no opponent in the primary, has more funds on hand than Fitzwater, who was challenged by two others in the Democratic primary. To my knowledge, they have published no polls for this race. I hope that Wes Moore will carry all the down-ballot candidates on his coattails, but note that Democrats should take nothing for granted and need to show up at the polls.

I cannot sign off without sending a few words of hope to those victims of Hurricane Ian in Florida and elsewhere. No one deserves to have that extreme level of destruction and personal devastation enter their lives. I cannot imagine how I would feel were I to find myself suddenly with no home, no car, and no belongings. MSNBC reported on some kitchen workers whose restaurants no longer existed, nor did their apartments. They were all due a paycheck but did not know how to get them; they wondered did they still owe rent. Far too many people in America live paycheck to paycheck and have little in savings. These are the people who get lost after such tragic events. Life can go on, but recovery will take a long time and my heart goes out to all.

Now, I ask, when will Congress wake up and deal with Global Climate Change?

Before I leave, I am sending Happy Birthday wishes to former President Jimmy Carter, now 98 years old! What an example he has given us all!

‘Til next week-Peace!