Reform the Supreme Court

A decades-long strategy undertaken by conservative legal organization The Federalist Society, has helped Republican Presidents stack the US Supreme Court with a 6-3 majority of far-right partisan appointees. In its most recent term alone, this SCOTUS has issued a dramatic series of decisions in favor of longstanding conservative policy priorities and Republican political interests:

– On July 1st, the Roberts Court ruled that the President of the United States is above the law.. Not only did they rule that a President has broad immunity for any crimes committed as “official acts” in office, they also shielded the use of any communications about those crimes from being used as evidence in any other criminal proceedings. The Supreme Court rewrote detailed checks and balances in the Constitution, like impeachment, and paved the way for a President to rule as a violent dictator. – On June 28th, the Roberts Court overruled a 40-year-old precedent known as Chevron deference, ruling that judges can themselves interpret ambiguities in federal laws instead of deferring to the experts from the agencies who issued them. In effect, this will threaten every federal agency’s ability to make or enforce regulations, despite the necessity of those regulations to protect the public across important areas such as environmental safety, financial fraud, or public health emergencies. – The Roberts Court also greatly limited the Department of Justice’s ability to prosecute Jan 6th insurrectionists, delayed the guarantee of a pregnant person’s right to an emergency abortion to save their own health, blocked the EPA from implementing a plan to reduce air pollution, struck down a ban on bump stocks, allowed South Carolina to use a racially drawn voting map, and allowed states to criminalize homelessness.

In addition to these destructive and norm-breaking decisions by the Supreme Court, there have been credible reports of significant ethical violations by individual justices. Justice Clarence Thomas received lavish gifts for decades from billionaire conservative mega-donor Harlan Crow and omitted those gifts from legally-required annual ethics disclosures. His wife Ginni Thomas was also an active & prominent political supporter of Trump’s so-called “Stop The Steal” efforts. Meanwhile, Justice Samuel Alito raised literal flags showcasing support for former President Trump’s attempt to subvert the 2020 election and fringe Christian sects that advocate for theocratic government in the US. Despite their clear conflicts of interest and inability to make fair, unbiased judgements, neither Alito nor Thomas recused themselves from cases related to the Jan 6th insurrection. SCOTUS adopted an updated code of ethics in November 2023, but as a “self-regulating” body that sets and applies its own rules, the Court currently avoids true ethics oversight.

Given the amount of devastating damage this corrupt and impartial Court has done to our justice system, the balance of power within our government, and democracy itself, it is beyond time for our duly elected officials to reform how the Supreme Court operates.