TRANSCRIPT
I’m Michael Voris coming to you from Capitol Hill, where Democrats are not only putting on a display of raw political power with the meaningless Jan. 6 hearings, but also huddling up trying to lock down some strategy to blunt the impact of the court’s overturning of Roe.
The ruling itself they are powerless to do anything about, at least with the current makeup of the court.
And given the relatively young ages, it doesn’t appear there will be any vacancies to fill anytime soon.
Clarence Thomas is the senior justice at 74, followed by Samuel Alito at 72. Chief Justice John Roberts is 67, Brett Kavanaugh is 57, Gorsuch is 54 and Amy Coney Barrett is 50.
On the opposite side, Sonia Sotomayor is 68, Elena Kagan is 62 and Ketanji Brown Jackson is 51.
That is an extremely young court overall, and, to put it in a little perspective personally, I’m older than four of them — and almost five. It’s true that Justice Thomas is 74, but many justices have far surpassed that age and remained on the bench. So as the Dems huddle, replacing one of the Justices in the remaining time Biden has left in the White House is pretty much scratched off their list.
It’s clear whatever sweeping strategy they employ will have to derive from the current power they have here on “the Hill.” And on that score, there are two major attacks they can deploy.
First, there is the idea of packing the court — adding a bunch more justices, all pro-child killing, to offset the current balance of power on the court. But in order to do that, they would have to end the Senate filibuster and they do not have the votes to do so.
Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, both Democrats, are each on the record as saying they will not vote to get rid of the filibuster, and the Dems would need both of them to do so.
So unless they each change their position, ending the filibuster in order to pack the court also seems like a nonstarter to blunt the impact of the Dobbs ruling.
So this all comes down to the much-ballyhooed strategy of trying to codify Roe, making the elements of Roe a federal law.
In Congress’ current makeup, that is a possibility, but it is not one without risk for the Dems. It’s a bit of a legal-political Byzantine track attempting to follow this particular strategy; it’s pretty involved, actually.
But in the end, the Dems would have to make a decision, place a wager on whether they are so married to preventing red states from banning abortion, that they would risk giving the Supreme Court an opportunity to roll back other powers the federal government has accrued to itself — pretty extensive powers.
Much of those powers have been amassed through application of what’s known as the Commerce Clause, something that began being weaponized by FDR during the Great Depression and that has swelled to incredible size.
The federal government whips out the Commerce Clause to regulate virtually every aspect of American life — categorizing a huge number of activities as being “commerce.”
It’s a ploy, of course, to amass huge amounts of power over everyday life, right down to it being against the law — yes, actually against the law — to grow crops in your own backyard, or even collect rainwater.
The abuse of the Commerce Clause has grown so severe — and has been so weaponized at every turn — that some judges around the country have started to become very leery of how it’s being employed. And that includes the high possibility of the conservative bloc on the high court.
If the Dems in Congress were to try and override state abortion bans, it would more than likely be done through exercise of the Commerce Clause because, speaking in terms of “commerce,” abortion is business, economic activity, and, therefore, subject to federal regulation.
However, and this is where Dems run big risk, if they pass such a federal law using the Commerce Clause as the ruse, it is a virtual guarantee that such a law would be immediately challenged and the whole matter would wind up in front of the Supreme Court, a court that (as is now obvious) has no qualms about overturning what it sees as bad precedent as well as government overreach.
The fundamental question then for Democrats is, Which do they value more — abortion rights or their power over other vast aspects of American life?
It is highly unlikely, given the current makeup of the court, that the conservative justices would not deal a severe blow to the Dems in reigning in their power, and that would include them losing on the abortion question as well.
Last week’s end-of-term ruling severely reigning in the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency shows the mind of the court. The EPA’s expansive powers were bound up with the Commerce Clause.
Pinning their hopes of blunting the court on a strategy implementing the Commerce Clause would prove to be an enormous gamble for the Party of Death, one they likely would not want to take.
However, because here in D.C. there is always a “however,” it’s very likely, come November, the Dems are going to be swamped by a red wave here on Capitol Hill, at least in the House.
Control of the Senate side is still a 50/50 proposition at this point. After the dust has settled from the midterms in November, there will be essentially a two-month window referred to as a “lame duck” session.
At that point, anyone who has lost his or her seat still has two months to vote for or against legislation. It could prove to be the Democrats’ last hurrah, and depending on how the midterms turn out, they could see it as their last chance, a kind of “scorched earth” approach to the abortion question.
Those who got drowned in the red wave may just throw all caution to the wind — after all, at that point, they would have nothing to lose. In the minds of those who have lost, and among the more radicalized, they could just push the nuclear button and create an enormous mess the next Congress has to deal with.
Nancy Pelosi, who will certainly be gone as speaker, is just that spiteful. So is Chuck Schumer. If Dems lose the House and the Senate, this could very well be their swan song, and as long as Biden still occupies the White House, any legislation they ram through at the end of this session would be impossible to get rid of in the next term.
So would they be sufficiently ticked about everything that has happened that would have caused them to be swept from power that, in one last dying gasp, they would go bananas and pull that lever? The Dobbs ruling and overturning of Roe and Casey has had an enormous impact on American politics.
Like Roe in 1973 set the stage for a half-century of great turmoil politically, Dobbs may set the stage for even more, or, depending on what they do, it could effectively spell the end of the Democratic Party on the national stage for years to come.
Joe Biden will not be in the White House a second term, even if he lives that long. The Dems are already sending up smoke signals that he’s dead in the water in 2024.
If they lose the White House in 2024, after having lost Congress in 2022, the Dems could be banished to the political wilderness for quite some time, and it’s a safe bet that is on the minds of many of them as well as they approach that lame duck session.