A string of recent election results — including the Kansas abortion amendment and special elections for House seats in New York and Alaska — make it clear that the Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade has enormous political consequences, and could even end up preserving the Democrats' hold on Congress this year. But the court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization wasn't the only earth-shaking break with precedent in the last two weeks of its term. Even if Democrats do hold onto Congress and somehow codify Roe into law (an unlikely set of outcomes) that would only affect one aspect of the vast sweep of policy change the court's rulings portend.
The new book by UC Berkeley Law School dean Erwin Chemerinsky, "Worse Than Nothing: The Dangerous Fallacy of Originalism," shows how fundamental those changes could be and focuses on the bogus legal reasoning known as "originalism," which plays such a crucial role in justifying this sudden and sweeping assertion of judicial power.
