EDITORIAL: Presidential Election is about the Supreme Court

The U.S. presidential election this year is about the United States Supreme Court. Make no doubt about that. Yes, there are issues from income inequality to foreign policy at play as well; but those concerns are all dwarfed by, and in many instances controlled by, the presidential responsibility of filling vacancies on the Supreme Court.
A president can act, but the Supreme Court can rule those actions unconstitutional and therefore void.
In the coming four years, at least two justices could retire from the court creating vacancies that could shift the ideological bend of the court either to the right or the left — and that depends on who is elected president in November and which party controls the Congress.
The court has shifted dramatically to the right since 2000. It has given us Citizens United, which allows corporations and others to poison our politics with money — unregulated and often secret money. It has given us decisions that have substantially undermined affirmative action and it recently put on hold plans by the EPA to require coal burning electricity generating plants to stop pumping mercury and other poisons into the environment.
The ideology of the person who becomes president-elect in November will dictate the judicial temperament of the court for a generation to come.
And that means when casting ballots March 8 in the primary here in the state, we need to keep in mind that the make up of the Congress is just as important — some might argue more important — than whom we place in the Oval Office. Why? The U.S. Senate gets to advise and consent on judicial nominees, up to and including appointments to the nation's highest court.
No greater example of the impact on SCOTUS nominees can be found than what is unfolding in Washington today. Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly while on a trip in Texas. This left a vacancy on the high court. Republicans, who control both chambers, immediately announced they would not confirm anyone President Barack Obama, a Democrat, appointed. That has set off a constitutional stand-off which will leave the high court down one justice likely for the remainder of this year.
That showdown is exactly the danger of electing an opposition Congress and president. We've watched, since the GOP took control of the House in 2010 and then the Senate in 2014, how Obama's proposals have landed in the legislative body with a resounding thud and then proceeded to collect dust. In fact, the GOP has had an agenda to oppose and damage Obama's initiative since he was elected president in 2008, even before they took control of Congress.
The high court is placed to review any number of important progressive issues in the coming years. Restrictions on abortion, religious freedom laws, marriage laws, gun laws, discrimination laws, environmental and immigration laws all stand ready on the edge of being overturned or gutted. Without a Congress to partner with the vision and values of whomever is elected president in November, that president will be severely hampered, and the progressive legislative agenda gutted.
Let's be clear. We're progressives. We want to see the Court shift to the left. So we also want to make sure that liberal and progressive judicial nominees not only get hearings, but get confirmed to the benches across the country. Whether former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders is the nominee and ultimately the president-elect in November, if they do not have a Congress that will partner with them to push progressive policy solutions and judges, we will be stuck for another two years with Washington gridlock, political bickering and the continued dissection by a thousand cuts of the progressive ideals of Roosevelt.
It's about SCOTUS — and shaping the course of the court for decades to come. That requires all hands on deck to support, promote and elect progressives who will work hand and hand with whomever is president to make sure progressive and liberal ideals are enshrined in our laws, and upheld by judges and justices that understand government is not a social evil, but a necessary partner in improving the lives of every American.