In this installment of Legal AF from a week ago, Alex Aronson interviews Rep. Sean Casten of Illinois’ 6th District about remedies a (willing) Congress may take to curb the power of a corrupt Supreme Court.
Much of it follows up on Rep. Casten’s op-ed in The Hill from March 16, “How Congress Can–and Must–Fix the Supreme Court.”
Assuming the Democrats and other progressives don’t squander the possible “blue wave” of the midterms, Rep. Casten suggests that addressing our Supreme Court issues should be at the top of the to-do list for a flipped Congress.
Here we weigh in on whether a check on the Supreme Court’s power is the top priority that we hope a non-Republican-majority Congress can tackle next year.
Peter Bergel
Salem Regional Indivisible, Indivisible One Million Rising, The PeaceWorker (Founder/Editor) / Salem
I do believe the antidote to the Supreme Court lies with Congress, but not necessarily by expressly “fixing” the Court itself.
I have so little faith in the current leadership of the national Democratic Party that I am doubtful – if they remain in charge – they would “fix” the Supreme Court in any way I think would be adequate or that people like me would be comfortable with.
On the other hand, if the Democrats finally listen to their constituents – rather than their corporate masters – and install new, more responsive leadership that displays a moral compass, meaningful changes to the Supreme Court might be possible. They are undoubtedly needed!
However, if victorious Congressional Democrats found both a moral compass and a spine, they could correct many of the despicable decisions the Court has recently taken by legislating them out of existence. Pass a law that says money is not speech and corporations are not people, and the Citizens United problem is solved. Put a right to abortion into the law and Roe v. Wade is restored. Place new limits on presidential authority and expressly state in law that presidential immunity is tightly limited and those issues go away. You get the idea. The court has only been able to “legislate” in those areas because the Congress has abdicated its responsibility and authority by not legislating there already. I’m not saying any of that is easy, but if the Democrats now running for office want things to be easy, they are in the wrong business.
Susan Williams
Dunes City Indivisible / COIN Leadership Team
In these tumultuous times, it almost feels like Sophie’s Choice – that heart wrenching book/movie by American author William Styron, where a mother in Nazi Germany must choose which child to save. I was some surprised that this characterization has become a “thing” according to the Free Dictionary, which defines a Sophie’s Choice as “a difficult situation in which a person must choose between two equally deserving alternatives.”
On one hand, without our legal system upholding the laws of the land fairly and blindly, our final bastion of our democracy will be trampled. Even though I’m knee-deep in what is going on with the government right now, I still find my angry-self muttering. “They can’t do that! It’s illegal!” How the Supreme Court can be “making decisions based on politics, not principle” is nothing short of heinous. It needs to be stopped. Justice must prevail.
And yet on the other hand, I lose sleep thinking about the Immigrants (and others!) being terrorized and stripped of human dignity, or the dank humiliation and abuse of the many young women referenced in the Epstein files, or the fact that we have children and perfectly innocent people of all ages going to bed hungry and sick. To name just a few of the injustices being carried out in the name of what? I could go on, but I’m guessing that reasonable people everywhere who believe “liberty and justice for all” follow this train of thought.
So, I guess my answer is it’s not either/or when picking a top priority. To reference another literary fiction, what we need is Everything Everywhere All At Once, that 2022 movie which “connects with parallel universe versions (of herself) to save the multiverse.” That’s likely what is necessary. And OK, maybe we can’t do everything all at once, but how about if we pick the top three to five initiatives to get righted immediately. That can’t be too much to ask…
Bobby Sample
Dunes City Indivisible / COIN Comms Team
The point appears to be that a weakened Legislative branch can be prevented from effecting changes at the top of our priorities list, without asserting checks and balances against both other branches of government to restore the power of the law. Established law has already been “undone” and this can keep on happening without addressing the reasons.
Of course, one of those reasons is that parties in both the Executive and Judicial branches who should have been impeached and removed long ago were not already impeached and removed. New problems spring from this. If Supreme Court Justices are successfully removed, say, as soon as next year, that means we’ll get younger right-wing operatives in their places. The Republicans may even support the usually difficult two-thirds votes required for conviction for the sake of this outcome.
Would Democrats pull an O’Connell move and deny the Executive’s duty to install justices until one side gets the president it wants? Would Democrats do anything as brazenly against the old norms as that, just to re-establish old norms? I.e. will they play dirty, too? I have serious doubts. By “they” I mean the Democrats who already failed to fight when we most needed them to fight. I think the answer is to change “they” to strictly progressive candidates who are willing to get out of the centrist lane.
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