Judicial rulings have become an increasing part of the lives of common Americans. Look no further than abortion law, which now swings on the makeup of the Supreme Court, rather than the makeup of our legislative bodies and elected officials.
The recent Alabama IVF case sent shockwaves around the abortion advocate world – that should not be so. A functioning legislature at the state and federal levels should be making these decisions, not a court. But our legislators have long abdicated their responsibility, and agents of political machines have brought prosecutions and civil actions to preferred, activist judges on both sides of the aisle to fill in the gaps to write preferred law through legal, rather than legislative, process. This is not a good thing.
Take for example the recent case of the Trump Organization in New York City. For background, Letitia James, the New York District Attorney who brought down Governor Cuomo with a damning report of his sexual harassment allegations in which no charges were filed but the Governor was ultimately forced to resign. Ms James proceeded briefly to attempt to Mr. Cuomo as governor.
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She dropped out of the Governor’s race (due to low polling) and ran instead for re-election to the Attorney General’s office in 2022, promising that the next political figure she would target for prosecution (persecution?) was Donald Trump. She won re-election with 54% of the vote.
Next, Ms. James sued and won the civil case, with the Judge finding Trump and his organization were fraudulent in their production of financial statements to get real estate loans approved by their lender, Deutsche Bank. In fact, Ms. James filed these charges in September 2022, just 60 days before Election Day.
Amazingly, the case did not come to be heard until smack dab in the middle of the current Presidential election. The Judge (who has had to respond to claims of his own bias against Mr. Trump) ruled in her favor this month, finding that Trump owes the government $450 million for what most describe as normal business practices in real estate development. The Judge has also barred Mr. Trump from managing or being an officer in any business in New York for three years.
That ruling is simply ludicrous. As many have said, there is no victim in this alleged suit. The bank that loaned Trump money based upon their evaluation of his assets made money and would gladly work with him again.
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The famous Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary said in response, “This award, I mean, just leaving the whole Trump thing out of it and seeing what occurred here. . . . And I’m no different than any other investor, I’m shocked at this. I can’t even understand or fathom the decision at all. There’s no rationale for it.” Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Palantir founder and tech investor Joe Lonsdale wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that, “If these rulings stand, the damage could cascade through the economy, creating fear of arbitrary enforcement against entrepreneurs who seek public office or raise their voices as citizens in a way that politicians dislike.” That’s totalitarianism personified. It is chilling.
In another case, Elon Musk’s compensation from Tesla – that was agreed to by 80% of the shareholders more than five years ago – was determined to be too rich, based upon a suit brought by a person whose 9 shares rose in value from $200 to $2,000 over the term of the agreement. By all accounts, the incentive pay was designed to be nigh-impossible, and Musk’s achievements were very well rewarded, to the tune of $56B. As a shareholder of Tesla over the period, we made amazing returns that I doubt any other person could have engineered at the helm of the flagship company. I would gladly pay Musk another $56B to do it again.
Today, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in two social media free speech cases – Moody v. NetChoice LLC and NetChoice LLC v. Paxton – which involve laws passed in Florida and Texas that seek to limit the ability of social media platforms to remove politicians or other political speech from their websites. At issue is whether or not speech on a private company’s product (X, Facebook, etc.) is protected by the First Amendment or not.
While it may be germane for the Court to hear such a case, we are left asking why Congress (after years and years upon years of blustering, grandstanding and ceremonial beratings of social media executives) passed any legislation to update Communications laws in the age of the Internet 3.0? Why haven’t they yet protected speech on these platforms which have already been established by the Supreme Court as the public square. Once again, inaction in Congress leads us to a new ruling, which will replace the legislative process of the people with the preferences of the few on the Supreme Court. This is no way to write law and Internet policy; every member of Congress over the past twenty years should feel shame that they have so neglected their duties that lawsuits has become our legislative process.
Congress should take steps to redefine the obligations of social media companies in the 21st century, and take strong steps to limit the ability of any private company to silence Americans – to firmly protect the speech of the common people. These are the fundamental first principles necessary to restoring a healthy, deliberative democracy.
The Supreme Court should punt this case back to Congress and require they produce legislation immediately. Let’s put this horse back in the barn.
Justin Weller is the Founder and Editor of The Country, and host of the podcast The Country with Justin Weller. Prior, he was a general manager and sales leader in startup and Big Tech firms, interned on Capitol Hill, and was a Contributing Editor at mxdwn.com. This piece is republished from The Country
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