WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Supreme Court\u2019s sweeping rulings on\u00a0guns\u00a0and\u00a0abortion\u00a0sent an unmistakable message. Conservative justices hold the power and they are not afraid to use it to make transformative changes in the law, none more so than taking away a woman\u2019s right to abortion that had stood for nearly\u00a050 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No more half measures, they declared Friday in\u00a0overturning Roe v. Wade\u00a0and allowing states to outlaw abortion. And the day before, in ruling for the first time that Americans the right to carry handguns in public for self-defense, they said the Constitution is clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA restless and newly constituted Court,\u201d is how Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of three liberals on the nine-member court, described her colleagues\u00a0earlier in June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The abortion case in particular was a repudiation of the more incremental approach favored by Chief Justice John Roberts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The decisions in the blockbuster cases on consecutive days were the latest and perhaps clearest manifestation of how the court has evolved over the past six years \u2014 a product of historical accident and Republican political brute force \u2014 from an institution that leaned right, but produced some\u00a0notable liberal victories, to one with an aggressive, 6-3 conservative majority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They also showcased the enormous influence wielded by two stalwarts of the right, Justices\u00a0Clarence Thomas\u00a0and Samuel Alito. Thomas wrote the court\u2019s\u00a0opinion on guns, while Alito wrote for the\u00a0abortion majority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alito\u2019s opinion was unequivocal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRoe and Casey must be overruled,\u201d he wrote in referring to the court\u2019s landmark abortion precedents from 1973 and 1992, \u201cand the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alone among the court\u2019s six conservatives, only Roberts said he would take a more \u201cmeasured course,\u201d simply upholding a Mississippi ban on abortions after 15 weeks. He said overturning Roe was an unnecessary and \u201cserious jolt\u201d to the legal system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the chief justice was unable to attract any support from his colleagues on the right, including the three justices nominated by former President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett helped form the majority to overrule Roe, and fulfill a prophecy from then-candidate Trump that his high court picks would vote just that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were selected after careful screening by the Trump White House and conservative interest groups that was designed to avoid the disappointment produced by earlier GOP nominees such as Justices David Souter and Anthony Kennedy, whose votes helped preserve Roe 30 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But how did Trump even come to have three vacancies to fill? After Justice\u00a0Antonin Scalia died\u00a0in February 2016, Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky vowed to prevent President Barack Obama from filling the seat during the election year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Obama nominated Merrick Garland, then a federal appeals court judge and now President Joe Biden\u2019s attorney general, but Republicans would not even give Garland a hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Trump surprisingly won the presidency, he nominated Gorsuch, who was only confirmed after\u00a0McConnell scrapped what was left\u00a0of the Senate filibuster for high court nominees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Justice Anthony Kennedy retired the following year and Kavanaugh narrowly won confirmation after facing allegations, which he denied, that he sexually assaulted a woman when they were teenagers decades ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\u00a0death of the liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg\u00a0in 2020 led to\u00a0Republicans\u2019 quick confirmation of Barrett, notwithstanding the approaching election and McConnell\u2019s opposition during Obama\u2019s term to filling an opening in an election year. She took her seat just days before the 2020 election and solidified the conservative hold on the court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Without the votes, the court\u2019s three-justice liberal minority could only look on in dismay, confined to writing dissents that were alternately scathing and sad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his guns case dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer accused his colleagues in the majority of acting \u201cwithout considering the potentially deadly consequences\u201d of their decision, which came on the heels of a recent series of mass shootings and as Congress was working to pass gun control legislation signed by\u00a0Biden\u00a0on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the abortion decision, Breyer, Sotomayor and Justice Elena Kagan issued an unusual joint dissent, speaking as one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWith sorrow \u2014 for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection \u2014 we dissent,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The dissent included a warning that \u201cno one should be confident that this majority is done with its work.\u201d The justices suggested the decision\u2019s logic also imperiled previously recognized rights to same-sex marriage and contraception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alito refuted that suggestion, writing that \u201cNothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.\u201d But in a separate opinion Thomas called for the court to reconsider its major privacy rulings, including its 2015 opinion that guaranteed the right to same sex marriage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next term promises more of the same: Affirmative action and voting rights already are on the agenda and an important elections case could be added to the mix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Public approval of the court already is at a low ebb, according to opinion polls, and justices have repeatedly spoken out in the past year in defense of its legitimacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Roberts has been the leading voice in urging the public not to view the court as not just another political branch of government,\u00a0once tangling with Trump over judicial independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Years ago, Scalia would sometimes rail against the smaller steps that Roberts often prefers. But at that point, there was no conservative majority without the chief justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Justice William Brennan, a liberal who served over parts of five decades, used to tell his law clerks that with five votes, anything is possible on the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The conservatives have a vote to spare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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