Rebalancing The Smug, Immodest, Corrupt Supreme Court

 

We have two worthwhile reads on the illegitimate Republican Supreme Court this morning. We're only posting brief extracts, so please go to the links for the full reads.

First, conservative Jill Lawrence's views on the Court have been evolving:

... Until recently I was skeptical about both term limits and Court expansion. I didn’t sense the political will for either one, and I wasn’t sure either was warranted. But since the immunity hearing, and after many rulings detached from precedent, practicality, or public opinion, I’ve had zero doubt about the need for term limits and I’m even warming up to the prospect of a thirteen-justice Court.

The point of all of this is not to pack the Court and send it screeching left, but to rebalance and stabilize an institution that has grown smug, immodest, inured to ethics abuses, and cavalier to constitutional and national concerns and freedoms—starting with whether a president who tried to stay in power despite losing an election should be tried for that before voters pass judgment on his third presidential campaign.

Meanwhile, Dan Pfeiffer writes about why the Court can be a big election issue for Democrats:

...This is the court that overturned Roe v. Wade and is helping ensure Trump avoids accountability for his crimes. They are corrupt and out of touch with mainstream American values.  [snip]

Running against a corrupt court is pushing on an open door. American faith in the Supreme Court is at an all-time low.  

 

[snip]

Making voters — especially the less politically engaged — care about the Supreme Court is difficult. To succeed, we have to explain why it matters to their lives; how the rulings of a MAGA court will restrict their freedoms and be a boon to powerful interests. The fundamental question of this election is whether Democrats can hold together the anti-MAGA majority that won elections in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, and 2023. The best way to do that is to make this election about something bigger than a contest between two men. The Supreme Court is a perfect issue to go big.

Both Lawrence and Pfeiffer are coming at the problem from somewhat opposite ends of the political spectrum, but both agree something fairly drastic needs to be done to undo the damage wrought by packing the Court with Republican/ Federalist Society extremists, starting with the modest step of establishing ethics rules.  

Expanding the Court or establishing term limits may be aspirational to the point of fantasy, at least during this era of extremist right- wing revanchism. But, in 2024, campaigning on the real world consequences of an out- of- touch extremist Court in the lives of the average American -- e.g., losing reproductive freedom, caving to special interests like the gun lobby and industrial polluters -- can be the first step toward building a coalition for change and reform.  The lesson to be learned from the right's decades- long project to reshape the Court is that this process is a marathon, not a sprint.

(Cartoon:  Joe Heller, hellertoon.com)