Sometimes it seems like the only thing standing between a functioning democracy and the Trump administration is a thin, black-clad line.
While the Supreme Court, in general, and the courts of common pleas, in particular, have bowed down and given President Trump permission to do whatever he wants, they have not completely sanctioned his indefinite hold on more power. (The way the invertebrate congressional Republicans have it.)
At the lower court level, justices have repeatedly ruled in ways aimed at checking Trump, especially when it comes to violating civil and constitutional rights by pursuing his indiscriminate immigration net.
His administration’s tendency to be slow in responding to those decisions — and to ignore others that Trump thinks he can safely ignore — only contributes to the perception of the president’s lawlessness and the sense that our justice system is struggling with something approaching a crisis.
Go ahead, if you like, and dismiss those concerns as too much hand-wringing, or the inane criticism of Trump from your friendly political columnist. A new survey of legal experts — including federal judges, top lawyers and dozens of professors from some of the nation’s top law schools — finds widespread concern about the fragile state of our legal system.
And it’s not just the fear of many thinking liberals.
“The nation is strong as we are committed to the rule of law,” said one Republican-appointed appellate judge. “The current president presents the biggest threat in decades.”
The survey was conducted by Bright Line Watch, a nonpartisan academic group that monitors the health and resilience of American democracy, in conjunction with the Project on Democratic Defense at UCLA Law School.
Conducted between mid-February and early March, the survey anonymously surveyed 21 federal judges, 113 attorneys, 193 law professors, 652 political scientists and a nationally representative sample of 2,750 Americans.
What stood out to UCLA’s Rick Hasen, director of the Project for the Defense of Democracy, was that “across the judges, lawyers and law professors, there was overwhelming agreement that the rule of law in the US is under tremendous pressure.” That consensus, he said, poses “a real danger to democracy.”
While most legal experts have agreed that Trump is using too much executive power, many doubt that a heavily partisan Supreme Court will handle cases involving the Trump administration impartially. Experts also expressed concern about the political use of law – Trump wants to prosecute his perceived enemies – the excesses of the executive branch, and the failure of Congress or the Supreme Court to do more to strengthen the brutal president.
Eight in 10 of those surveyed say federal officials fail to comply with court orders some or most of the time, and nearly 9 in 10 say political appointees to Trump’s Justice Department mislead federal judges some or all of the time.
Talk about contempt of court — not to mention our vital system of checks and balances.
There was, surprisingly, a split between conservatives and liberals who participated in the survey. (This study defined legal stakeholders as those who say that the Supreme Court should base its decisions on its understanding of what the Constitution meant as it was originally written. Liberals, who made up the majority of respondents, were defined as those who said that the court should base its decisions on what the Constitution says in modern times.)
Conservatives, for example, were more likely than liberals to see former President Biden as a greater threat to the law than Trump. Liberals are more likely to see evidence that Trump is politicizing the Justice Department.
There was also a difference between legal professionals – those closest to the justice system – and the general public. Experts have been more concerned about Trump’s overreach and threats to the law, which, Hasen said, makes sense.
The legal system is not something most people experience on a daily basis in the same way, say, gas prices or grocery costs. “However,” said Hasen, “it’s one of these backstage things that is really important.”
Why?
Hasen put it this way: “Let’s say a person has a dispute with his neighbor and it ends up in the small claims court in front of a judge and the judge makes a decision not based on the favor of the case but based on the fact that he was a friend of one of those involved, or he didn’t like people like one of the parties.”
Now imagine what kind of corrupt, perverted system of justice it looks like.
If, for example, “people know that the government can successfully seek retribution from people who criticize it, people will be less likely to criticize the government,” Hasen said, leaving the country worse off by silencing those who would hold their elected leaders accountable.
Or if, say, protesters stormed the US Capitol and tried to steal an election and, instead of being punished, received a payout from the federal government, what would be the motivation for law enforcement?
Fortunately – and you could use a little happiness right now – all is not lost.
People “can demand that their elected representatives take steps to ensure that the law is followed,” Hasen said, and they can insist “that the government [not] play favorites or seek revenge on imaginary enemies.”
That’s the power people have, come election time. That’s why voting is important.
There are many things at stake in the outcome in November, not the least of which is the sanctity and integrity of our legal system.
Keep that in mind when you vote.
