My father’s family once operated woolen mills in New England. Those factories no longer exist, across America like 63,000 factories that have shuttered since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was passed three decades ago.

As a result, millions of American families of every color have been locked in a downward spiral of economic mobility for too long driven by the greed of multinational corporations and facilitated over decades by government policies like NAFTA.

In part because of the pandemic and in part because of narrow cushion that’s left before our climate is beyond repair, we’re at a moment when we can turn that around. Over the last three years, we committed as a nation to an unprecedented private and public investment in clean energy and infrastructure in ways that promises to reverse this dream-killing trajectory.

We’re in a moment when we finally can shift from an economy defined by consumption back to one defined by working people making and using things they can be proud and, in more recent times, weakened by conservatives. Now Alabama will have to redraw its map to include a second predominantly Black district.

Although the ruling does not expand minority voting rights, it doesn’t reduce them either. That’s a net gain for Democrats and other liberals at a time when

Clarence Page the Dems feared worse as they try to recover from the loss of their House majority, among other setbacks.

Suddenly, they see new hope coming from an unexpected source, the conservative court of Chief Justice John Roberts, which leaves many wondering why two of the court’s conservatives moderated their opposition enough to let Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racially discriminatory voting practices, survive.

One was Justice Roberts. He has been a famously outspoken critic of race-based remedies who authored or joined earlier decisions that gutted key parts of the voting law. Justice Roberts declared in a 2007 affirmative action case that “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

Sure, but if it were that easy we wouldn’t need to turn to the Supreme Court to sort it out.

The other was Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Donald Trump of again from electric school buses to solar panels.

You’d think that opportunity would be welcomed by all. But the self-interested such as Big Oil and Gas companies that are grabbing billions in historic profits and the politicians they support are doing all they can to roll back the commitments made since 2021. They even tied up the recent debate over a U.S. default on its loans to advance their opposition.

That’s an odd political play.

A CBS News poll last month found more than half of Americans want the climate crisis addressed right now and more than two-thirds want it tackled within a few years.

That includes 44 percent of Republicans. Given every congressional Republican voted against the clean energy package last year, that large plurality is significant. It’s also a sign that many GOP leaders in Washington are increasingly out of step with their own constituents and districts.

When the group Climate Power looked at the nearly 200 clean energy projects launched since Congress and the President approved the federal spending package last summer, nearly six appointee, who leaned toward the belief that the need for Section 2 was fading over time and suggested in his opinion that plaintiffs could try to return in some future case to argue that changing times had rendered the law unconstitutional. I hope I live that long.

Which left many, including me, to wonder why both justices just happened to moderate their opposition enough to let the strongest remaining enforcement section of the Voting Rights Act survive.

I’m intrigued by how Justice Roberts maneuvers as best he can to sound fair and evenhanded in weighing his opinions, as a good, credible chief justice should.

Justice Roberts has long been reported to be extremely concerned about the court’s integrity and credibility, a noble and necessary goal, even when both sides of the political spectrum are shouting at him.

With opinion polls in these polarized times showing the high court’s approval ratings to be in the cellar, I’m sure recent headlines about a billionaire patron providing luxurious gifts to Clarence Thomas—as well as about Justice Samuel Alito’s alleged luxury vacations paid for by a billionaire Republican donor— must cause the chief justice no end of consternation.

I cannot write about the high court without the classic 1901 quote from the “Mr. Dooley” stories of Finley Peter Dunne in 10 of them are in districts represented by Republicans who voted against the package. Those projects mean at least 77,000 new jobs for electricians, mechanics, technicians, support staff, and others.

While we’ve disagreed more than once, President Biden has effectively championed the biggest investments in rebuilding American manufacturing than most Americans have seen in our lifetimes as part of his drive to ensure America leads on fighting climate change.

Not since the days of FDR have we seen this kind of national investment. Back then, building American industry was vital to winning a war against genocide across Europe. Today, our investment to turn our economy away from destruction and toward good jobs in a cleaner economy that sustains our planet is a fight to protect all of humanity.

Simply put, President Biden has been the most courageous leader we’ve had when it comes to fighting climate change and to rebuilding American industry at the same time. That’s why the group I lead and our allies in the environmental movement have endorsed his re-election.

Ben Jealous is executive director of the Sierra Club, the oldest and most influential grassroots environmental organization in the country.

The Free Press welcomes letters coming to mind: “No matter whether the constitution follows the flag or not, the Supreme Court follows the election returns.”

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I’m sure the justices might well deny that, but one thing is certain: Supreme Court appointments follow elections. And they last a lifetime. That’s another reason for us, the voters, to pay attention.

Still, there’s another reason why the high court’s conservatives voted to rescue the Voting Rights Act. They’re softening us up before they overturn affirmative action, which also is expected any day now. If so, that also will be controversial. But nobody should be too surprised.

The writer is a member of the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board and a columnist for the newspaper.

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