OVERHEARD ON THE SUPREME COURT STEPS:
“Popeye lives here.”
“Popeye?”
“Yes. These justices are powerful. If they eat too much spinach, they can be dangerous.”
“What do you mean, professor?”
“Well, class, on this tour, here are things to learn. These justices can take people off the presidential ballot, or not. They can grant immunity from prosecution, scrap obstruction-of-justice charges or make someone go to trial. They can cut the muscle out of government agencies. And they can change fundamental rights for all of us.”
“Have they done things like that?”
“Yes, and even more. One of them, Justice Joseph P. Bradley, actually picked a president. He was the Republican who broke the tie on an electoral commission that put Republican Rutherford B. Hayes into the White House.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Not a bit!”
“Where do they get their spinach?”
“They get most of it from the Constitution. Whenever Popeye decides something is unconstitutional, that’s the final word. The only way to change it is to convert Popeye or amend the Constitution.”
“Wow!”
“They get some of their spinach from efforts to be collegial, despite deep differences.”
“Isn’t that faking?”
“Yes. They do sometimes turn on each other, and sometimes those disputes even become public. But let me read you something retired Justice Stephen Breyer wrote not long ago in the New York Times. ‘In my 28 years on the court, I did not hear a voice raised in anger … nor were snide or personal remarks ever made.’”
“Civility is a good thing, isn’t it, professor?”
“Not always. Being nice encourages agreement. But it can fall short of winning the day. In a 1954 decision, Brown v. Board of Education, Popeye ordered public schools to end their racial segregation. But Louis Menand writes in the New Yorker that when Breyer reached the court in 1994, he believed that discrimination should be banned everywhere government could reach — not just in schools.”
“But he couldn’t convince enough other justices?”
“That’s right. Not enough spinach. However, it’s a superabundance of spinach that has let Justice Clarence Thomas hide behind those marble columns up there, accept extravagant travel, hospitality and other gifts from billionaire contributors to Republican causes — and keep it a secret.”
“He should be impeached.”
“In more than 230 years, only one justice ever has been.”
“Then there are the flags. Too much spinach prompted Justice Samuel A. Alito to allow two flags associated with extremists and embraced by pro-Donald Trump insurrectionists to fly over his home in Virginia and his vacation home on a New Jersey beach.”
“Judges should never show such partisanship.”
“Right! One was an upside-down American flag, and the other was an Appeal to Heaven flag expressing his aggrieved, right-wing views.”
“Judges shouldn’t voice theocratic politics.”
“Right. Talk about spinach: Alito did all of this with impunity. More than that, he refused to recuse himself from cases before the Supreme Court relating to Trump. Alito said: ‘I had no involvement whatsoever’ in flying the flags. It was Mrs. Alito.”
“Olive Oyl did it!”
“She eats spinach too.”
