The Best Supreme Court in History – AMAC Magazine Exclusive

AMAC Magazine Exclusive – By Mollie Hemingway

The Supreme Court has been no stranger to controversy, even if much of that controversy is unwarranted. In recent years, the conservative majority on the court has been relentlessly attacked. Left-wing media outlets such as ProPublica and The New York Times have published dubious reports trying to gin up scandals surrounding the conservative justices, even going so far as to attack some of their spouses. Justice Bret Kavanaugh was nearly assassinated when a deranged gunman showed up at his home after liberal activist groups published his address online. And in April, famed Bill Clinton political strategist James Carville became just the latest prominent Democrat to call for packing the court, an unprecedented move that would expand the court to 13 seats to wrest control from the six-seat conservative majority.

Brushing aside the desperate attempts to discredit the highest court in the land, the reality is that the Supreme Court is under attack because it is competent and effective. In fact, when it comes to defending and articulating constitutional principles, this might be the best Supreme Court the country has ever seen.

To start, two of the best justices in history are currently serving on the court. Among conservatives, Justice Clarence Thomas has almost become a folk hero. Even before reaching the bench, he overcame coordinated character assassination attempts during his confirmation hearing. (Even then-Senator Joe Biden told his Senate colleagues he did not believe accuser Anita Hill’s accusations of sexual harassment, and Hill later undermined any remaining credibility by publicly defending Bill Clinton’s sexual predations.)

Since his confirmation in 1991, his 35 years on the bench have produced a voluminous number of opinions and dissents that are a model of consistency and clarity. Almost no one in American legal annals has laid as much intellectual groundwork for determining the original intent and meaning of the constitution as Thomas—and his work defending the Second Amendment is unparalleled. If the goal of his hostile confirmation and the left’s ongoing racist attacks on Thomas was to intimidate him into being afraid to act on his principles, they have been a spectacular failure.

Samuel Alito is less well-known, but that’s for a reason. He’s a true rarity for a man who has reached the heights of power while genuinely aspiring to humility. In fact, since being appointed to the Supreme Court by President George W. Bush in 2006, he’s mostly flown under the public’s radar. Among conservative constitutionalists and Supreme Court watchers, however, he has long been admired for his brilliant decisions and ferocious intellect. In oral arguments, he’s been known to blow entire cases to pieces with a single perceptive question.

Alito’s profile, though, has been raised somewhat in recent years for two reasons. The first is The New York Times’ appalling attack on his wife. The paper attracted attention—much of it negative—for an absurd claim that her choice to fly an historic American flag might possibly signal she was secretly an insurrectionist. The second is Alito was the author of the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade. The Roe decision, where the Supreme Court had previously declared a right to constitutional abortion, had even been heavily criticized by venerated liberal legal minds such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg. By contrast, Alito’s Dobbs opinion explaining why abortion laws should be democratically decided by the states is impeccably reasoned and especially difficult to dispute.

This explains why the Dobbs decision was leaked and the justices’ lives were threatened—abortion advocates knew that if the decision became official, Alito’s reasoning would stand the test of time. But Dobbs is just the tip of the iceberg for Alito—he also authored the Hobby Lobby decision that preserved religious liberty for business owners and so much more.

Despite being relatively unsung, Alito’s impact on the court has been monumental—this is why I just published a book about him titled Alito: The Justice Who Reshaped the Supreme Court and Restored the Constitution.

Of course, two historically great justices out of nine doesn’t necessarily make for a great court. However, don’t sell the rest of the conservative majority short. Despite being on the wrong side of a few decisions, conservative constitutionalists have been generally impressed with Neil Gorsuch. While some feared Kavanaugh would prove to be liberal, he supported the Dobbs decision and has shown real backbone on other cases. Amy Coney Barret is still new, but she has shown rigorous thinking in her work. Even Chief Justice John Roberts, who greatly frustrated constitutionalists with his vote to uphold Obamacare and its highly questionable tax provision, wrote the majority opinion in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. That decision greatly reduced the unjust power of unelected federal bureaucrats. He’s also done commendable work in undoing affirmative action, which for far too long enshrined racism in the law.

And despite the attempts to portray the current court as radical and divisive, they do a good job engaging and persuading their liberal colleagues. In the last term, more than 40 percent of the decisions were unanimous, and more than 90 percent of their decisions were supported by at least one liberal member of the court.

So ignore the bogus controversies stirred up by media and liberal activists. The current court isn’t perfect, but it has two of the sharpest American minds on the bench, and it is doing a fine job of making sure that the Constitution, and the rights enshrined in it, are preserved for the next generation.