If there’s a through-line to SCOTUS’s major rulings for the last 20 years, it’s making government less effective, less responsive, less accountable, and more corruptible. I described this at length last fall:
I'm stuck on this—the WaPo editorial board uncritically repeated a lie that right-wing rage merchants manufactured by selectively editing a video then splattering it across X. It seems these guys' brains have been so cooked by Elon's algorithm that they can no longer identify MAGA-manipulated slop.
“X owner Elon Musk shared a post from Robinson (whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) announcing locations of protests, and another from the far-right Restore Britain party that read: ‘Do not make peace with evil. Destroy it.’”
We need leaders who can spell out what's happening clearly and with force.
What court-reform foes really ask is for liberals to live under a Supreme Court that doesn’t want to let them meaningfully govern and dismantles their past victories with disingenuous ease for (at minimum) most of the rest of their lives.
Unless the court changes, that calculus will stay the same.
That’s assuming 1) Alito and/or Thomas don’t retire this year, 2) Dems retake the Senate in November, and 3) the GOP doesn’t get simultaneous control of the WH and Senate again for the next 15-20 years. I wouldn’t bet on it!
I think I would agree, in the abstract, that Callais alone does not justify SCOTUS expansion since Congress could easily override it by other means.
The problem is that Callais is only one of many rulings that collectively warp the Constitution to make liberal democratic governance impossible.
I could go on about SCOTUS’s war on progressive policymaking or its blasphemous immunity ruling, but the real problem is that justices time their retirements for ideological control. Dems might not get a chance to form a 5-4 majority under “normal” circumstances until the 2040s.
The Republican DA of Nevada's Washoe County adopted a rule that prosecutors can only file a charge when they are confident they can prove guilt for that charge beyond a reasonable doubt.
Police unions didn't like it, and helped a challenger in today's primary. The challenger appears to have won.
Chief Justice John Roberts has now overseen 20 years of increasingly illiberal rulings by the Supreme Court.