This is about our Constitution, though based on recent decisions by the Supreme Court, it’s hard to say anything about what it means with much certainty.

There’s no question that the Constitution was intended “to form a more perfect Union” than the Articles of Confederation, the loose affiliation of states that was cobbled together to help throw off English domination.

What’s also pretty clear is that while the Founders did an admirable job, they knew they had to leave many controversial issues vague or unresolved, in order to get enough states to ratify the new document.  Think about “promoting the general welfare” and “providing for the common defense,” not to mention ignoring rights for women and Native and African-Americans.

This view of the Constitution as a great-but-incomplete starting place has been validated many times, first by the almost-immediate adoption of the 10 Bill of Rights amendments and by the additional 17 amendments ratified since then.  

There have also been countless Supreme Court decisions to interpret all those provisions, starting with John Marshall’s opinion that the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of what the Constitution means. That was a pretty important rule to establish, as someone needed to have the last word or all those provisions wouldn’t be worth the parchment they were written on.  

Many of the Supreme Court’s decisions have advanced the ball toward the “more perfect union” goal line, but many times they have also cost us significant yardage. Think about the Dred Scott decision that African-Americans weren’t citizens with any rights, or the Plessy case that made “separate but equal” the law of the land for more than 50 years.

Take the Korematsu decision that declared it OK during World War II to consign Japanese-Americans to internment camps, the Citizens United case that awarded corporations the right to make unlimited and anonymous political contributions or the Heller decision and last week’s Bruen ruling that cities and states have fewer options to restrict individual gun rights, despite the Second Amendment’s linkage of such rights to service in a militia.

Finally, the Dobbs case overturned a 50-year precedent about women’s privacy rights, based on the failure of the Founders to mention abortion in the Constitution. The Constitution didn’t mention cars or telephones or computers, either, but the Supreme Court has ruled many times that people have privacy rights when using those modern conveniences.

What has become clear in the early 21st century is that Supreme Court decision-making isn’t based on preserving and occasionally refining legal precedents, but on advancing the personal views of individual justices, even if it takes 100 pages to contort the reasoning enough to camouflage their intent, and even if it only succeeds in further undermining the court’s legitimacy as an impartial body.  

Chief Justice John Roberts expressed that goal of being an umpire who doesn’t take sides, no matter which team he really likes, but who tries to make the right calls according to the established rules.  Yet he and his disingenuous colleagues have repeatedly manipulated their calls to suit their personal views.

Maybe it’s naive to think that the system could work any other way than it does, given human nature, but that doesn’t mean attempting to restore respect for the rule of law isn’t worth our continuing efforts. Surely there are minor league umpires out there who deserve a shot at the majors and who might actually live up to Roberts’ aspiration.

L. Phillips Runyon III practices law in Peterborough and was the presiding justice of the 8th Circuit Court.