To The Eagle:

The fate of disputed federal laws depends upon how the unclear intent of the framers of our 229 year old constitution is interpreted by nine bickering judges, in order to align 21st century jurisprudence with 17th century standards. Every judge in the nation is subject to term limits and the will of the electorate. So too are the President and all legislators. There is a good reason for this. The political lawyers insulated within the robes of the Supreme Court should be no exception. Nor are they exceptional in the delivery of justice. The Court’s Dred Scott decision of 1857 reaffirmed the immutability of slavery in the US. This supreme injustice was one of the final sparks that detonated the nation into civil war. Martin Luther King Jr. said “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” The Supreme Court has just as often subverted, as it has promoted, the delivery of that justice. Our arcane Constitution has often been the court’s blunt instrument. We don’t need yet another constitutional originalist, and an avowed religious fundamentalist, like Amy Coney Barrett on the bench wielding that blunt instrument against contemporary American social justice.

Could the original framers of our Constitution have truly intended, or expected, a seventeenth century document to effectively guide a 21st century society? True equity and justice for all are American ideals worth striving for. The best pathway toward realizing them is to vote for a Democratic administration.

JB Bouchard

Puget Island