What the Supreme Court Will be Thinking

Let us look into the possible legislative future of our country. What concerns will our Congress seek to address in the years to come? Here at the Blasphemy Blog, we are always optimistic and hopeful. In the wildest reaches of our imagination, we allow ourselves to contemplate many possible laws.

What would some of those laws be, you ask? One of them would be a law that gives employees of corporate entities whose jobs are cut a cause of action to claim as damages part of the severance packages and bonuses given to the CEOs of those corporations. Thus, when Carly Fiorina, the CEO of Hewlett-Packard, leaves her post with a severance package of $21 million (including a $7 million bonus) and pension and other benefits totaling $23.5 million, the 14,500 employees of HP whose jobs will now be cut would have a claim on some of that money.

If HP can afford to give its ex-CEO, who wasn’t even a very good CEO, $44.5 million, and also dare to argue with a straight face that it cannot afford to maintain jobs for any of these 14,500 people, we have little sympathy for it. And, if there is no other way to stop this kind of highway robbery, Congress ought to do something. So we at the Blasphemy Blog say, This is America. Let them sue.

Such a law is, of course, unlikely ever to come into existence. But what if it did, or what if a law like it, that dares to restrict CEO bonus and severance money in some way, did exist? What if the employees who lost their jobs could sue? What if they could sue in federal court?

What if the case ended up in the Supreme Court of the United States?

Put quite simply, the current Supreme Court would be fairly likely to give Carly Fiorina all of her $44.5 million. There’s a pretty good argument that forcing a private corporation to transfer assets from one employee to a bunch of other employees is unconstitutional. Still, in the current Supreme Court, the law might have a shot of passing constitutional muster.

The Supreme Court as it shall soon be composed, however, will be far more of a sure thing for Carly Fiorina. Conservative judges like John Roberts always, always deliver for corporations.

Some people think that this is a good thing, because Carly Fiorina is likely to put her money back into the economy, thus generating more jobs. We at the Blasphemy Blog disagree, because we think that most of the $44.5 million is going to end up sitting in banks in the Cayman Islands. Plus, remember those 14,500 employees? They would have spent that money on things like houses, dinners out, and college education. That’s good for the economy, too.

But this isn’t about a sound economy and good growth. This is about fairness. This is about the fact that CEOs make way too much money, which directly insults and injures this country to its core. This is about how Carly Fiorina’s great-grandchildren will have an automatic, unearned advantage against the great-grandchildren of the 14,500 employees she fired.

The President promised, and has delivered, a conservative judge. If this one is not approved, he’ll come back with another, and another, and as many as it takes. There’s going to be a big fight about it. Christian conservatives want to make sure that the new Justice will be on their side. They’re nervous right now; sometimes conservative judges rule their way, but sometimes they don’t.

But the CEOs of America are not nervous. They know they’ll get what they want.