Benjamin Morse is a writer who focuses on the Left and the law.
It wasn’t just the end of Roe v. Wade. So many rights were stripped by the Supreme Court over the course of its recently ended term that it’s hard to keep them all straight. We have no choice but to curb the court’s power.
All people should have the right to effective legal representation when they’re facing criminal charges. But the Supreme Court has just issued a ruling that severely curtails that basic right.
The Supreme Court’s impending decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is the product of plutocratic judges that serve right-wing interests over the wishes of the majority. There’s no clearer sign that we should radically curb the power of the Supreme Court.
In the wake of revelations that Clarence Thomas and his wife, Virginia, are deeply enmeshed in far-right networks, we shouldn’t shore up the Supreme Court’s legitimacy. We should attack the Court’s undemocratic foundations.
The Supreme Court has always been a wildly undemocratic institution. But its flagrant abuse of the shadow docket, in which the court’s decisions on key issues are made with zero transparency or explanation, takes it to a whole other level.
Since the Progressive Era, liberals have been convinced that the courts and the Constitution are somehow autonomous from politics, setting its boundaries. The Right, in the meantime, has engaged in a concerted effort to refashion the federal bench in its image.
There are few fights as urgent in American politics as the one to reduce the reactionary, undemocratic power of the Supreme Court. To win that fight, reformers should examine how FDR took his case for court reform to the masses.