Opinion: Clarence Thomas led the Supreme Court's majority in denying a challenge to consumer safeguards. The implications of this decision.
The top line in the story might be shocking, but it shouldn't be. It's not because Thomas has switched to being a liberal, but because the supreme court case reached the Supreme Court because of an absurd ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court, which handles appeals from Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.
The main takeaway from Thursday's events is not that the Supreme Court is less extreme than its critics say. It's that there's a court of appeals that's even more extreme. Not just in this case, but in 10 other cases the Supreme Court will decide this term.
A case in question concerns the scope of Congress' power to fund the operation of federal executive branch agencies. The infamous CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) is one example. Instead of providing yearly allocations, Congress allows these agencies to draw funds from the Federal Reserve according to their needs, limited only by an annual cap.
The stakes for this case were high. If the court ruled against the CFPB, all its previous work would be discarded. The CFPB said in a statement that "lawbreaking companies and Wall Street lobbyists have been trying to get rid of consumer protection enforcement. The Supreme Court has denied their radical theory, saving the American financial markets. The Court turned down the arguments of the payday loan lobby and confirmed that the CFPB is still operating. The agency claims it has saved consumers more than $20 billion."
An even broader issue emerges from this case. The argument against how Congress funds the CFPB could also called into question the constitutionality of the Federal Reserve itself, with potentially disastrous financial consequences.
So far, every other lower court who's considered the issue has concluded that the Congress' budgeting choice is acceptable, since both cases involve directing funds to an agency and limiting the total amount. But the Fifth Circuit decided otherwise. A three-judge panel unanimously decided that the Constitution doesn't allow such an open-ended appropriation. Four other judges on the same court agreed with this approach in a separate case. Thus, a narrative that seemed too conservative for even Thomas (let alone dignitaries such as Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett) is supported by seven out of the Fifth Circuit's 17 active judges - five of whom were appointed by former President Donald Trump.
The pattern in this case fits a larger trend. Totally different areas of law have seen the Fifth Circuit's ideologically-biased decisions. This term, there are 11 cases from the Fifth Circuit on the Supreme Court's docket. Reversals seem likely in seven out of the remaining nine cases - from whether restraining orders can make it illegal for people to possess firearms to whether doctors can obstruct nationwide access to mifepristone (because they'd be affected by having to treat patients having side effects in the future).
The most: If the Fifth Circuit ends up with the highest reversal rate this term, that would be for a second term in a row - a significant sign of disagreement between the Republican-dominated judges of the court of appeals and the Republican-appointee Supreme Court Justices.
However, defending the Supreme Court on the basis of cases like the CFPB is problematic because it doesn't reflect the courts they're coming from. The Fifth Circuit's radicalism provides a more illuminating view of the federal appellate judges in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas than it does about the justices in Washington DC.
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- Join us on Twitter and FacebookBut the extremism of the Fifth Circuit prompts a critical question about how we view the Supreme Court. Some of its defenders take decisions like the CFPB's case as evidence that the court is less extreme than what its opponents allege - and point to the bipartisan majority as proof that the court isn't as ideological as it's widely seen.
The issue with these arguments is that they neglect the court's origin.
Rather, the real insight from Thursday's ruling - and of the pattern that it suggests - is that the current Supreme Court is less radical than the Fifth Circuit. Yet, given how the Fifth Circuit has been acting lately, this observation says far more about the judges in the circuit courts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas than about the Justices in Washington.
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People may hold varying opinions on the Supreme Court's decision regarding the consumer safeguards case. Despite Thomas's conservative stance, some might view his position as less extreme compared to the ruling of the Five Circuit Court due to its consistent ideologically-biased decisions.
Source: edition.cnn.com
