The Supreme Court handed down two decisions today, splitting along partisan lines. One ruling allows some companies claiming religious beliefs to disregard the provision in the Affordable Care Act requiring contraceptive care be included in a company's health insurance plan, and the second ruling declared that in-home health workers can't be forced to pay union dues if they disagree with their union's collective bargaining positions. In the first ruling, the companies involved -- Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood -- are family-owned, but other companies are expected to challenge the provision. In the second ruling, the Court didn't go as far as some anti-labor advocates wanted by applying the ruling more broadly to public employees.
These rulings reaffirm the Roberts Court's clear corporate bias and social conservatism, if anyone still needed any evidence. (By the way, remember when pundits were describing Justice Anthony Kennedy as a "swing vote?" Has he ever been anything other than a staunch member of the reactionary majority?). All the more reason that Dems have to control the White House now and in the future, so that appointments to the Court don't result in the kinds of rulings we saw today.
