A front page New York Times "news analysis" about Justice Kennedy's decision to step down from the Supreme Court includes these passages (emphasis added by me):
Nan Aron, the president of the liberal Alliance for Justice, said that Justice Gorsuch's record on the court makes clear that putting another justice in his mold into Justice Kennedy's seat represents a drastic threat.
"The danger is that the Supreme Court, at the behest of this president, will favor the wealthy and powerful and extremist groups at the expense of everyone else — not just for President Trump's term, but for decades to come," she said....
"There is tremendous energy, not limited to the progressive community, over this," said Marge Baker, the executive vice president of the liberal People for the American Way. "People get that this is about undoing precedent and advancing the interests of corporations and the wealthy and privileged, not all of us as Americans."
Ms. Aron ($256,740 in total compensation for 2016, according to her non-profit organization's tax filing) and Ms. Baker ($229,734) appear to be doing okay for themselves (they may even be "rich,"at least for Democratic tax-raising definitional purposes), and their boards and donors include a lot of wealthy and privileged people. It seems to me that at least some of the positions the Supreme Court has taken in recent years and that these advocacy groups are trying to protect — say, that abortion and gay marriage are constitutionally protected rights — are positions that a lot of wealthy and privileged people — Michael Bloomberg, for example — would tend to support. Gun control is another one that a lot of wealthy people, including Mr. Bloomberg, support, but that Trump nominees might oppose.
It might actually look like what's going on here is that rich people are giving money to liberal advocacy groups to advance political positions favored by liberal rich people while simultaneously complaining that conservative justices might "favor the wealthy." I would like judges that apply the law to the facts, regardless of the wealth or poverty of the litigants — just as called for in Leviticus and in the Talmud. Mixing up judicial confirmation and selection with a general anti-wealthy campaign seems a risky proposition, in part because one might use the same reasoning to oppose the confirmation of liberal judges beloved by these wealthy Democratic donors.
