Kavanaugh would cement Supreme Court support for an oppressed minority — corporations Brett Kavanagh's life story ensures he wouldn't be prejudiced against corporations. After all, like them, he's a minority — part of the 1 percent.

Steven Strauss | Opinion columnist

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Progressives worry that conservative Supreme Court justices won’t defend, let alone extend, the civil rights of America’s oppressed. But as the late Justice Antonin Scalia would say: “Pure applesauce!” Our conservative justices have already proved willing to extend the rights of America’s most oppressed minority — corporations.

I believe that Judge Brett Kavanaugh (President Donald Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court) is a conservative who, if confirmed, will continue the important work of expanding the rights of America's corporations.

Further, Kavanaugh’s life story provides additional assurance he won’t be prejudiced by sympathy for ordinary Americans: His father made millions per year serving corporate interests. Instead of public schools, Kavanaugh attended elite private schools (where per-student tuition exceeded most Americans’ annual earnings). He then proceeded to Yale University and Yale Law, and a series of prestigious jobs in Washington, D.C.

Kavanaugh is clearly a member of a minority group — under 1% of all Americans come from a background like his — and he's living proof that America’s affirmative action program for the rich and well-connected is functioning smoothly. He’s also dedicated to supporting the next generation of his community, enthusiastically serving as teacher and mentor to Yale and Harvard students, especially if they have important parents. In summary, Kavanaugh can be counted on to be supportive of America’s ruling elite.

Liberating corporations in Citizens United

It’s my understanding that conservative justices are generally originalist and textualist and believe, as Scalia explained in his 1992 dissent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey:

►Judges should interpret words as they would have been understood by the drafter.

►Unless the Constitution strictly enumerates a right, issues should be resolved "by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting" — not by an “Imperial Judiciary” acting as an all powerful unelected legislature.

►The court should show due deference to "the longstanding traditions of American society."

►Judges should not be activist, but should practice judicial restraint.

Kavanaugh broadly shares these views, but like other conservative justices, when the interests of corporate America are at stake, I trust he’ll be a judicial activist.

In the 2010 Citizens United case granting corporations the right to make unlimited independent political expenditures, conservative justices (with Scalia’s concurrence) voted 5-4 to discard American traditions dating back centuries. To increase the power of America’s corporations, these five conservatives didn’t hesitate to act like an unelected imperial judiciary, overriding the express bipartisan views of the elected legislature.

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Our Supreme Court’s distinctive role is to answer the questions it is asked, while our legislature addresses whatever issues it considers most important to our society. In Citizens United, Scalia and the conservative justices answered a question they weren’t asked in order to liberate America’s oppressed corporations.

Although corporate entities have existed since the 17th century, and the 18th century drafters of the Constitution (and Bill of Rights) knew what corporations and people were, no evidence exists the drafters intended to give corporations rights of this kind. Yet our conservative justices weren’t bothered about granting them.

Justice John Paul Stevens in his dissent observed:

"The court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering. ... While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics."

Citizens United was followed in 2014 by the equally bold Hobby Lobby ruling. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in the dissent:

"In a decision of startling breadth, the court holds that ... corporations ... can opt out of any law they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs. Compelling governmental interests in uniform compliance with the law, and disadvantages that religion-based opt-outs impose on others, hold no sway."

Again, the vote was 5-4 with Scalia in the conservative majority. And again, nothing in our history or in the literal words of our Constitution supports the Hobby Lobby decision. The Constitution opens with "We the People" — not "We the People and Corporations." Justice Ginsburg pointed out that in more than 200 hundred years of litigation, “no decision of this court recognized a for-profit corporation's qualification for a religious exemption.”

Freedom to vote and to worship profits

Soon a corporation (whose sincere religious belief is the worship of profits) will be able to freely practice its religion by successfully claiming exemption from all environmental, labor, fire safety, health or other laws that in any way reduce those profits. Approving some religious claims, while deeming others unworthy of accommodation, would be favoring one religion over another — and that’s precluded by the First Amendment to the Constitution. Therefore, any sincerely held religious belief must be accommodated, and the worship of money is certainly a sincere religious belief for many corporations and some members of our ruling elite.

While the court has done much to extend civil rights to corporations, more remains to be done. Our nation was founded on the principle of no taxation without representation. Yet, America’s corporations pay taxes but are denied the right to vote. It’s time corporations exercise full voting rights in our elections, proportionate to the taxes they pay. In practice, this wouldn’t even constitute a substantial change, because our Republican Congress already acts like it represents only corporate America.

Once corporations have the right to vote, they clearly should be able to run for office, too. Perhaps some day, America’s corporations will elect the Koch Corp. as president of the United States.

Kavanaugh must be confirmed, so he can join the other conservative justices in their important work of practicing judicial activism in the service of America’s corporate elites, while applying judicial restraint to the rights of ordinary Americans.

Steven Strauss, a visiting professor at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, is a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors. Follow him on Twitter @Steven_Strauss.