A judicial lion, former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens passed away yesterday at the age of 99. While Stevens was appointed by President Gerald Ford and was a lifelong Republican, he was the leader of the liberal wing of the Court for nearly 35 years (though he claimed the Court moved right while he stayed the same). He retired from the Court in 2010. The Washington Post chronicles his career here.
A strong defender of women's reproductive freedom, separation of church and state, gay rights and voting rights, Stevens cast perhaps his most significant dissent in the Citizens United case, wherein the Republican- majority Court declared in a bogus First Amendment/ free speech argument that corporations are people, people!, opening the floodgates of unlimited special interest dark money into (mostly) Republican campaigns. Stevens stated the decision "threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation," and rightly observed the partisan nature of the Court's 5-4 decision as doing damage to the Court as an institution. Of course, it's only gone downhill from there.
Scott Lemieux has a remembrance of Stevens as "one of the very greatest justices ever to serve" on the Court. R.I.P.
(Photo: Justice Stevens receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama in 2012.)
