Two court decisions this week concerning President Trump provide an interesting contrast.  The Supreme Court stayed a D.C. Circuit decision that would have required President Trump to provide his tax returns to House Democrats:

Today, the Supreme Court vacated the lower court's decision in Chatfield v. League of Women Voters (League of Women Voters v. Benson below) and remanded for further consideration in light of Rucho v. Common Cause.  There was nothing unexpected or even very newsworthy in this, but what is newsworthy is the hand-wringing among Democrats and in the mainstream media.  The misleading headlines and stories that gave the impression that the Supreme Court had ruled in favor of Michigan Republicans.

In the coming months, the United States Supreme Court will grant or deny certiorari in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Becerra, a case from the Ninth Circuit that has gathered an impressive amount of attention due to its First Amendment implications and threat to donor privacy.

Many experts have concluded last night’s CNN Democratic Presidential debate was won by Mayor Pete Buttigieg.  Moreover many “conservatives” liked Mayor Pete.  However, on the issue that RNLA has been tracking- the candidate’s positions on judicial nominees and court packing- Mayor Pete was again a trainwreck last night. His position last night:

Now, I'm not talking about packing the court just with people who agree with me, although I certainly will appoint people who share my values, for example, the idea that women's reproductive freedom is an American right.

What I'm talking about is reforms that will depoliticize the court. We can't go on like this, where every single time there is a vacancy, we have this apocalyptic ideological firefight over what to do next.

Now, one way to fix this would be to have a 15-member court where five of the members can only be appointed by unanimous agreement of the other 10. 

Demand Justice, a far left group run by former Hillary Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon that has become the left’s voice on judicial nominations, came out with their “short list” of potential liberal Supreme Court nominees.  The list is extreme to say the least.  How extreme?  As Carrie Severino points out:

Amazing: there must be hundreds of federal judges Obama put on the courts, and only 4 make this list. This list would have been way too liberal for Obama.

— Carrie Severino (@JCNSeverino) October 15, 2019

As we celebrate Constitution Day today, it is worth remembering that the Founders carefully wrote the Constitution to ensure that our third branch of government was independent through mechanisms such as life tenure, the prohibition against diminution of salary, and the nomination and confirmation mechanism itself, and that judicial independence is what preserves the Constitution and our system of government.  

Yet many liberals now want to undermine the independence of the judiciary because judges do not always reach the outcomes they desire to advance their progressive policy goals.  

Or perhaps more accurately, they are attempting to redefine judicial independence to mean a judiciary that advances progressive policy goals and interests.  

The Democrats of the 2010s have become the Party that refuses to respect results or the rule of law.  While the most obvious example is their continuing efforts to undermine elections, the most recent example, and most troubling to those who practice law, may be the recent threats of Senate Democrats to the courts.  As we wrote last week, Senator Whitehouse threatened the Supreme Court in an unprecedented amicus brief.  Today, Senate Republicans responded.

For years liberals have used the courts to get what they could not get from voters, the President or Congress.  President Trump and Senators like Mitch McConnell, Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham are doing a great job of nominating and confirming judges that respect the rule of law and not liberals' political wishes.  So now liberal politicians are taking to threatening the courts to get what they want.  As the Wall Street Journal opined last week:

In an interview with the dean of Georgetown University Law School on Thursday, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan expressed her dismay with the Court’s recent decision regarding partisan gerrymandering, even going so far as saying that she will “never accept” the Court’s decision. In Rucho v. Common Cause, the majority held that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions and are, therefore, beyond the reach of federal courts.

On Tuesday, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg again praised Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s commitment to advancing women in the Judicial Branch, highlighting a rare moment in which Democrat appointees on the Court recognized their Conservative counterparts in advancing equality, and this time, the role of women. The comments were made during a panel at Georgetown Law’s Supreme Court Institute, where Ginsburg commended Kavanaugh for “making history” by appointing an all-female staff.

“There is a very important first on the Supreme Court this term and it’s thanks to our new justice, Justice Kavanaugh, whose entire staff, they’re all women, all of his law clerks are women … it’s the first time in the history of the United States that there have been more women clerking than men.”