National, Minnesota, Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida Report

The US Supreme Court may be facilitating the failure of our nation and the demise of our democratic experiment, by its divisive decisions on issues of importance to the entirety of our population and not just the dogmatic pursuit of its own conservative Juris Prudence. Our nation’s motto, E Pluribus Unum, Out of Many, One, is now fractured. This union was just as torturous to achieve at our onset first with a confederation of states, to be then followed by a constitution of the original thirteen colonies on June 21, 1788, but required an American Civil War to maintain.

As we have said before, the Minnesota State Capitol, which opened to the public, on January 2, 1905, is a shrine to the war between the states and the victory of the northern states, fought Apr 12, 1861 – Apr 9, 1865, and the significant role played by a new entrant, Minnesota which joined the union on May 11, 1858. The insurrection we saw on January 06, 2021, punctuated by the words of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-14, GA) shrill and shrewish call for a “national divorce” on President’s Day, February 20, 2023, echoing those seeking succession from our national union is nothing short of the same. It is treachery and traitorous to this country.

In the build-up to the Civil War, as the dominoes of southern Democratic states voted to secede, first with South Carolina and followed by Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas prior to the fall of Fort Sumpter followed by Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas following the fall, and we look to the states making similar noises, we may be seeing a similar script playing out.

Texas, Florida, Georgia and now Tennessee are asserting themselves in ways that are detrimental to our vitality as a country. The continued assert of the 2016 election denialism, and voter suppression is an affront to our continued democracy. The direct assault on our comity, those precepts of ideas with which we share, not those which tear us asunder. We establish and gain our collective identity as a nation through our rights and privileges. The embodiment of our principles is through our laws, statutes, and ordinances. Where the common understanding is aspirational and just not a basic tenant of what just is, but what it can be. We are only as strong as our weakest link but also as weak as the limits of thought and the debilitation of oppression.

Erosion of the Voters Rights Act of 1965, actions such as purging the voting roles by past Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp (R-GA) when he was a candidate for Governor in 2016, and the conflation of stripping the voting rights of people convicted of felonies are examples of the hangover of the Civil War, the questions between Federalism and State Rights are issues we face to this day and when a 50-year-old precedent, like Roe v Wade (1973) can be overturned and certain rights have been removed the erosion of the faith in our US Constitution as a document that evolves with our society, rather than being seen as a rigid and strict construction is at the core of this debate, and could devolve into another Civil War.

Republicans may need the court to protect them from their own worst judgment and ply a more moderated line based on a common set of values. Extremities on any political side results in backlash, but when a right or privilege has been extended and is summarily stripped away, the electorate takes notice and seeks means to redress this grievance.

We will once again argue, since the number of seats on the US Supreme Court was originally set based on the number of District Courts, and currently there are now thirteen which warrants a change in the component members of the highest court in the land.

The allowance of statehood for Washington DC and Puerto Rico would also help resolve the hard right turn of the court and moderate its rulings. Of course, impeachment at this time is a non-starter, even for Justice Clarence Thomas whom we are learning has been taking lavish junkets for years from Harlan Crow, because the articles of impeachment must emanate from the House of Representatives.

Maybe, the need for an extension of term limits to judges, something often called for by Republicans for politicians, should be considered.