After this most recent term of the Supreme Court, civics textbooks all over this country will need editing. It seems the judicial branch is now in charge of legislation and amending the Constitution.

The justices dismantled our separation of church and state. They ended reproductive freedom. They invalidated gun safety laws and made future restrictions difficult. They severely limited the government’s regulatory powers to slow climate change and to protect our air, water and soil from pollution. They did all this mostly on a partisan 6-3 vote, proving that they are not working for the American people and to uphold the Constitution but for their own personal ideology. They are restricting our rights and freedoms to benefit big corporations and big money.

In my opinion, this court wants to dismantle our government’s regulating abilities, abolish our social safety net and the progressive improvements that started with FDR’s New Deal and ended with Nixon’s EPA. Voting rights, consumer rights, labor and union rights and human rights all could be on the line: If the court cannot make it illegal, they will make it very difficult to exercise these rights, as they have done with reproductive and voting rights.

The privately funded Federalist Society has spent the past 50 years indoctrinating lawyers and packing them into the federal courts on behalf of the monied elite. This judiciary is out of step with the opinions of the American public and is creating a crisis in our government.

Joanne Garing

North Huntingdon

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