In election fracas, Trump has confirmed the judicial branch is no longer independent

In 2000, when Vice-President Al Gore and George W. Bush were rivals for the Presidency, election turmoil developed in Florida, where hundreds, perhaps thousands of eligible voters were purged from the rolls after they were incorrectly labeled as felons. Also in Florida’s Pandora’s box of voting irregularities were the infamous hanging chads, distortions which made ballots unreadable. The only fair solution seemed to be a complete recount, but five conservatives on the Supreme Court voted to stop the recount and award the Presidency to George W. Bush.

The Court’s minority dissent was written by David Souter, who had been appointed by President George H.S. Bush. Souter believed that the independence of the Judiciary had been violated by a blatantly partisan 5-4 decision. Justice Scalia’s sons were lawyers in firms representing Bush, and Justice Thomas’s wife had been collecting applications from candidates wanting to be recommended by the Heritage Foundation for positions in a Bush Administration. Sandra Day O’Conner’s husband’s offhand remark made it clear how Justice O’Conner would vote. Souter was devastated and had to be talked out of resigning. As Jeffrey Toobin recalls in his book, Nine, “There were times when David Souter thought of Bush v. Gore and wept.”

The Florida fiasco and its 5-4 Supreme Court decision left many voters disenchanted with politics.

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 was supposed to eliminate registration problems and prevent election fraud by creating electronic databases, which would allow election officials to purge real felons and dead people from the rolls. But in several states, including Kentucky, thousands of voters found themselves disenfranchised when names or numbers did not exactly match their state’s database. The disenchantment continued.

The Republican Party’s attempts to interfere with the elective process surfaced in 2009, when Mitch McConnell and other Republicans asked the Supreme Court to remove all political campaign finance restrictions, arguing that the contributions from billionaires are actually free speech and are protected by the First Amendment. In a 5-4 decision in 2010, Citizens Unlimited v. Federal Elective Commission was passed with John Roberts writing the majority decision and David Souter providing the dissent.

About that same time, Kentucky, North Carolina, and other states governed by Republicans were redistricting in efforts to stifle the voices of minorities and others who were likely to vote for a Democrat. Early voting was eliminated and voter identification was challenged.

In 2016, reports of Russian interference in the election surfaced, and although it was clear that the Russians were attempting to discredit Hilary Clinton and help Donald Trump get elected, President Trump refused to acknowledge the Russian interference. He accepted Putin’s denial, saying, “I don’t know why he would.” Responding to the criticism he received after that denial, Trump said, “Where’s my Roy Cohn?”

Roy Cohn is described as Senator Joe McCarthy’s ruthless, unscrupulous Chief Counsel, who became Trump’s attorney and mentor after representing Donald Trump in a failed countersuit. Cohn was disbarred in 1986.

President Trump apparently believes that Attorney General William Barr is his “Roy Cohn,” who should prosecute Trump’s political enemies when commanded to do so. Now Barr has agreed to lead the investigation into election fraud with no credible evidence that any fraud exists. As David Souter feared in 2000, the judiciary is no longer an independent branch of government representing the people.

When it comes to keeping the Presidency, control of the Senate, and the majority on the Supreme Court, no egregious lies, investigations, or prosecutions are beyond the pale for Mitch McConnell and the US senators, who are supporting President Trump’s pathetic attempts to overturn the election.

I am a 90 year-old Democrat, but saying, “Goodbye, Grand Old Party” makes me sad.

Shirley Spires Baechtold is a native Kentuckian, writer, musician, and professor emeritus of English at EKU.