Show up at the Supreme Court, and a stark symbol of how little you matter awaits.

[Nevilledog]

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/05/changing-protests-outside-one-first-street.html

To call the plaza in front of the Supreme Court “nondescript” might be overstating it. The small rectangular concrete slab at One First Street is little more than a widened sidewalk, variously bisected by bike racks and fenced in on one side by black metal pylons. The 97 bus stops out front.

It’s the only gathering-permitted area that exists near the base of the marble stairs that lead to the iconic column facade, behind which the justices, their clerks, and their staff conduct the business of the highest court in the land. At capacity, the berth can hold maybe 1,500 people, though it was clearly not designed for—and is still not really encouraged for—that purpose. And yet, for a little over a year, this platform has been one of the most important theaters of protest in America.

The court has made clear that this is the closest the people can get. In 2016 it upheld an earlier ruling that found constitutional a 1949 federal law prohibiting protests anywhere near the actual chamber itself; the court decided that First Amendment free-speech guarantees are suspended once you hit the marble plaza and climb the stairs. Getting inside the court is not easier: many of the chamber’s 439 seats are given out to friends of the lawyers arguing. The paltry 50 seats publicly available are given out on a first-come, first-served basis, and require attendees to be in line before sunrise to claim a spot. (Conservative groups have been known to pay professional “line-sitters,” often homeless people, to sleep in line and secure their position.) That protesters are permitted to gather on the sidewalk but no closer seems to tidily underscore the court’s relationship to the people for which it makes its decisions.

Soon after that 2016 decision was made, the supposedly nonpolitical court began its transformation to what it is today: First, a president who had not received a majority of the popular vote appointed a justice to the bench (Neil Gorsuch) to fill a seat that had been kept open for him, in a process that obliterated previous norms. Then, that same president appointed a second justice, whose confirmation hearing included credible allegations of sexual assault but no actual, legitimate process for investigating those allegations. Finally, weeks before the 2020 election, the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg allowed the same Republicans, who had previously kept a seat open for an entire year pending a presidential election, to rush Amy Coney Barrett onto the bench. The packing of the court happened in real time, in public, before every American’s own eyes. The new conservative majority made clear that it would remain as insulated from public accountability in issuing decisions as it had in its formation. And then the court got down to business.

*snip*