The Tribune

THIS is the time of each year when the United States Supreme Court wraps up its yearly activity with a rash of judgments to mark the end of its latest term. Often, these decisions do not garner dramatic headlines, because the issues may touch on obscure constitutional points of law or practically not affect too many people.

But at numerous times in American history, the Supreme Court has issued opinions that have had dramatic effects on the nation’s course. One such decision most likely to be in the public eye for the foreseeable future is the landmark 45-year-old decision in Roe v Wade that reaffirmed a woman’s constitutional right to have an abortion.

This decision has not been far from public view or television pundits’ bloviation for decades, since abortion has become one of the calling cards of a Republican party largely free of positive ideas to move the US forward. It is a party of retrenchment and reaction. The GOP has embraced social conservative issues as a means of rallying support from a white male base of support that is inexorably, demographically shrinking.

Last week, a different kind of decision emerged from the chambers of the highest American court. Justice Anthony Kennedy announced he would retire, with effect from the end of the court’s 2017-18 term.

For liberals, the establishment American media, the Democratic party and for advocates for progressive social causes, the sky suddenly fell.

Now, with Kennedy’s retirement and the Senate changing last year to a simple majority vote to confirm Supreme Court nominees, there is a virtual certainty that the US president will get to nominate yet another staunchly conservative justice to the high court. And unless the Republicans prove to be unable to close ranks in support of whomever Trump nominates, the court could be in conservative hands for quite a while.

Is the sky really falling?

It must be said first of all that Anthony Kennedy is neither liberal nor progressive. He has moved to allow freer rein to corporations and was a force in the thinking that led to the 2010 decision in the Citizens United case. That decision handed to organisations much more latitude in spending on and thus influencing American elections.

Kennedy has largely been a gun hawk. He has generally favoured corporations over labour. He has actually been pretty reliably conservative, and the fact that he has come to be seen as a “swing” vote in the middle of an ideologically sharply divided court is an indication of its truly conservative majority makeup.

The one big area, however, in which Kennedy has been reliably progressive is on issues such as abortion, gay rights and the death penalty. Abortion brings us back to Roe v Wade, Trump campaign pledges to appoint justices who oppose abortion and to the right-wing social screed. Fears are rising that a new justice would join with the court’s four conservatives and overturn Roe v Wade.

If the progressives’ worst fears materialise in the US, perhaps a template from across the Atlantic Ocean can serve as a guide. Maybe the US will ultimately have to follow the example of the overwhelmingly Catholic Republic of Ireland. The Irish people just resoundingly overturned by a two to one margin a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion.

Many major American newspapers announced Kennedy’s retirement decision with banner headlines and gloomy prognoses. It does seem inevitable that a high court without Kennedy and with an additional staunch conservative will be even more inimical to most progressive causes.

Many are reasonably discouraged by events of the last two years, starting with the Republican Senate’s refusal to even grant a hearing to President Obama’s nomination of judge Merrick Garland, through Trump’s election, to Kennedy’s retirement announcement.

Some political scientists studying American political history and trends have concluded that due to factors such as constitutional-based overrepresentation in the Senate for rural, mostly Republican areas, gerrymandering of congressional districts by Republicans and the GOP’s aggressive manipulation of election rules, a Republican vote practically counts for 1.05 votes; a Democratic vote counts for only .95.

Liberals, progressives, Democrats, moderates and others offended by the degenerating Republican party have a remedy at hand. They need to get out and vote.