At a party of liberal activists to mark the end of the Senate confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, and her likely confirmation as the first Black female justice, the mood in the downtown Washington club last week was upbeat even before funk star Chaka Khan took the stage.
I’m glad they enjoyed it, because this crowd has little else to celebrate in the months and years ahead.
Even amid the partying, folks lamented the likelihood that the Supreme Court, by the end of its term in June, will effectively strike down the half-century-old constitutional right to abortion established by Roe v. Wade. They also know that Jackson’s expected replacement of retiring Justice Stephen G. Breyer after this term – a swap of one liberal for another – won’t change the conservatives’ 6-3 stranglehold on the court.
And that means more defeats ahead at the court’s hands, and on social issues that have majority support nationwide.
As emboldened Republicans made clear during the week of Jackson’s hearing, at the Senate Judiciary Committee and elsewhere, conservatives are playing a long game that doesn’t stop with curbing abortion rights. Republicans are now openly questioning other familiar court precedents on reproductive, racial and LGBTQ rights that go to Americans’ most intimate decisions about whom they marry and whether they have children.