The Supreme Court term ended its term last week with historic, precedent-shattering decisions on abortion, guns, school prayer and environmental regulation. Editorial cartoonists reacted with sharp visual commentary, plentiful enough to devote a whole gallery to it.
Walt Handelsman of the Times-Picayune/The Advocate of New Orleans leads the gallery with the combustible nature of decisions overturning Roe v. Wade, a restrictive New York gun law, the prohibition of school prayer and the federal government’s power to regulate power plant emissions. Uncle Sam notes, “And we already had a short fuse.”
Elsewhere in the gallery, Handelsman draws the United States as a pressure cooker. Nick Anderson notes Justice Samuel Alito’s observation, in his majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, that “Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.” The decision “enflamed” it even more.
Cartoonists are divided along the usual partisan lines, with conservatives cheering the abortion ban and liberals portraying it as government controlling women’s lives. Several touch on the concept of state’s rights.
Cartoonists also address the Supreme Court’s crisis of legitimacy. Bill Bramhall of the New York Daily News draws all three branches of government under water. Nick Anderson sees the court burying the concept of “stare decisis,” which means standing by precedent. Michael Ramirez tweaks Congress for relying on the courts to do its job.
Cartoons were drawn by Nick Anderson, Bill Bramhall, Dana Summers, Drew Sheneman, Scott Stantis, Walt Handelsman, David Horsey, Phil Hands, Joel Pett and Joey Weatherford of Tribune Content Agency; and Steve Breen, Mike Luckovich and Michael Ramirez of Creators Syndicate.
