The Supreme Court Is Still Repeatedly Ruling in Favor of the Ultra-Wealthy
The Supreme Court has made some surprising recent rulings defending rights for LGBT people and immigrants. Those rulings should be applauded — but they also shouldn't distract us from how the court is continuing to erode democracy and worsen inequality with new rulings that are huge boons for the rich.
The US Supreme Court building on June 25, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Michael A. McCoy / Getty Images)
Last week, the US Supreme Court issued two commendable rulings that may have seemed off-brand for a conservative judicial panel: in one case, the court prevented President Trump from deporting the children of undocumented immigrants; in another case, the court extended antidiscrimination protections to cover sexual orientation and gender identity.
Progressives rightly lauded these civil rights victories, which dominated the headlines. But amid the celebrations, the court also issued the three following rulings, which received relatively little attention:
The court limited Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulators’ power to punish financial firms that bilk investors.
Justices overturned a lower court’s ruling and fortified energy companies’ power to steamroll environmental objections to fossil fuel infrastructure.
The court prevented workers and retirees from suing Wall Street firms that bilk their pension systems (see yesterday’s story on that here).
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