A court called Jackson's water crisis grievous, then dismissed the case

On September 4, the full Fifth Circuit ruled 10 to 5 that Jackson, Mississippi residents have no constitutional right to safe drinking water or to truthful information from officials in a crisis. The residents alleged the city switched them to corrosive water, knew of elevated lead by 2015, and spent months saying the water was safe. Priscilla Sterling says several of her children carry lead-poisoning diagnoses. The majority called the deprivations "grievous." Then it dismissed the case, because grievous is a moral word and the Constitution is a legal document.

The majority may be right. Unenumerated rights are limited to those deeply rooted in the nation's history. Since 1989 the Supreme Court has held that due process imposes no duty on government to protect its people from harm. Judges who mint new rights take lawmaking out of voters' hands. That is a serious account of who makes law.

Five dissenters answered with procedure: at this stage the allegations must be assumed true, and these residents never got discovery. The Sixth Circuit, reading nearly identical facts out of Flint, found an invasion of bodily integrity. Same Constitution, opposite holdings.

Both courts are arguing about what the document contains.

Amos never asked. He preached to a prosperous, religious kingdom whose courts worked well for insiders and turned aside the needy (v12), while the festivals kept their schedule. God refused the worship, the noise of the songs (v21-23), and held up one alternative: the prophet's water line, justice as a current that has to reach someone before it counts.

The majority wrote that the Constitution "does not provide a remedy" and pointed the residents toward tort suits, elections, and legislatures. That list is exactly where Amos aimed. In Jackson the current stopped at the tap, and the ruling may be good law anyway. What the Constitution does not guarantee, the God of Amos still requires.