The coming year for the US will be marked not only by the fight for control of Congress in the midterm elections
But also a legal war that is gaining momentum and is becoming a direct continuation of the culture wars. The Supreme Court is expected to be at its epicentre.
America’s main judicial body has already managed to make many landmark decisions during the past year. It declared legal the ban of procedures of “ballot collecting” and restriction of postal voting in Arizona that will become the basis for reforms of suffrage in other states of America on the eve of elections to Congress.
The justices then upheld a law restricting abortion in Texas. A similar bill in Mississippi – to completely ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy – is now before the Supreme Court. If so, it would also set a precedent which would overturn the 1973 decision to completely legalise abortion and allow US states to restrict it.
Equally important will be the outcome of the right to concealed carry trial in New York. This is the first time in decades that the Supreme Court has taken up a gun rights case, so any decision it makes will also be precedent-setting for all states that restrict concealed carry. This becomes especially pertinent against the backdrop of a surge in crime rates in the US.
In addition, the Supreme Court is mulling over a suit by Asian applicants against Harvard for “affirmative action discrimination”. Now, other things being equal, an Asian has a 25% chance of getting into Harvard, a white has a 35% chance, a Hispanic has a 75% chance, and a black has a 95% chance. The justices, by their decision, can prohibit these notoriously discriminatory racial practices.
The Supreme Court’s right-wing twist is provoking a hysterical reaction from the liberal public, who have faced the judiciary’s recalcitrance since winning the election. Biden set up an entire commission in April to study the issue of judicial reform. They said that expanding the number of Supreme Court justices would be enough to bring it under White House control.
In parallel, Democrats are concentrating on forcing the most senior liberal justice on the Supreme Court to resign early. Biden has promised to replace him with a black woman – explicitly stating that the main factor in the selection will not be the candidate’s ability, but gender and skin colour.
The Supreme Court, by taking on the most pressing issues of the cultural agenda, comes into a clash with the legislative and executive branches. This raises the stakes even more in the 2022 elections: now it is not only a question of Congress, but also of the struggle for control of the judiciary.
Malek Dudakov