Today was the season premiere of the Supreme Court. Oh good, I love this show!
Over the summer, the producers decided to spice up the cast by adding some color to the mix. Justice Sotomayor promises to be scads more entertaining than that dead fish Justice Souter, and the perfect empathetic foil for Justice Scalia, the Court’s unofficial villain ever since that season when he criticized Miranda rights and denied that we have a Constitutional right to privacy. Jerk off.
To kick things off, today the Court refused to hear a case involving the pro-life group Choose Life, who unsuccessfully sued the state of Illinois for discrimination because they refused to offer a specialty “Choose Life” license plate (here). Um, yeah folks, it’s only discrimination if the state issued “Choose Choice” license plates. Duh.
Though the docket does carry a number of controversial cases that will divide the Court down their stalwart ideological lines, according to the New York Times the season is expected to be “dominated by cases concerning corporations, compensation and the financial markets,” apparently stemming from the economic crises and the government’s subsequent intervention and regulation of the markets (here). That’s what I love about the Supreme Court: They know how to keep their material timely!
And no re-runs, either. “In recent terms, the business docket was studded with cases about employment discrimination, federal pre-emption of injury suits and the environment. With the exception of a single employment case, all of those categories are missing.” Because everyone knows that those federal pre-emption of injury suit cases are ratings death.
Although it looks like an eventful season for the Supremes, I’m worried that they’re not doing enough to remain relevant. I mean, in this go-go digital era with so many other things competing for our attention, it’s hard to expect people to care about just exactly “who” the Supreme Court is, “what” they do, and “why” they matter.
You know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about maybe it’s time to let people see the “real” Supreme Court. I’m talking about a fly-on-the-wall, un- or semi-scripted look at the Supreme Court via an all-access camera crew. Placing the Justices in some sort of artificial living environment would be ideal. A weekly elimination round would be cool, if it’s constitutional. Perhaps there could even be competitions, where the US Supreme Court would face off against the UK Law Lords. Judical smack-down! Who can hear the most cases in a week? Ain’t no one gonna write a more scathing dissent than Ruth Bader Ginsburg!
