Because the current court, with a 6-3 conservative majority reinforced by new associate justice Amy Coney Barrett, isn’t even bothering to disguise

California vs. the Supreme Court

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2021-06-14 14:30:05

Because the current court, with a 6-3 conservative majority reinforced by new associate justice Amy Coney Barrett, isn’t even bothering to disguise its anti-California biases anymore.

That was the unmistakable message from recent Supreme Court oral arguments on a challenge by conservative foundations to a California rule requiring non-profits to disclose their major donors.

For the record, it’s perfectly understandable in these polarized times for Republican-appointed judges to be skeptical of a state as Democratic as ours. And it’s reasonable to have doubts about many of the laws and rules produced by California’s confounding governing system, including the rule in dispute in this case.

But the ways the justices treated California—coming on the heels of recent anti-California decisions in cases involving churches and COVID-19 restrictions (like Harvest Rock Church v. Newsom)—raise real questions about whether this Court can give our state a fair shake.

It wasn’t just the way the justices seemed to assume bad faith on California’s part. It wasn’t only the sarcasm in Justice Samuel Alito’s voice as he repeated California’s claims in the case at two different points. Nor was it just the way that Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whose confirmation hearing will be remembered for the sexual assault accusations he faced from a California professor, suggested that California’s rule was suspect because 46 other states don’t have similar rules.