by Jarrett Stepman
The left has taken off its mask and made it clear that it intends to pack or otherwise decimate Supreme Court.
President Joe Biden announced wrote in an editorial in the Washington Post last week that he intends to promote “reform” of the nation’s highest court, which would include term limits and fresh “ethics” rules for judges.
This the plan was signed by Vice President Kamala Harris, who at this point appears to be the de facto president after Biden withdrew from the presidential race.
The left’s plan to thwart the court’s work is not supported only by the White House; it is also embraced by prominent Democrats and left-wing literary figures.
“The Supreme Court has become a quagmire, both ethically and substantively,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., he told NBC News after Biden’s announcement. “We’ll look at everything. There are a lot of proposals.”
Leftist Law Professor at Northwestern University wrote for The Hill that Biden hasn’t gone far enough and the White House should simply start filling out the Supreme Court without bothering to limit it with term limits.
These threats must be taken seriously.
Justice Neil Gorsuch spoke out on Fox News over the weekend, saying the Biden administration — likely including Harris — should “exercise caution” about threatening an independent judiciary.
Gorsuch noted that it is essential for Americans to have the assurance that even “if they are not popular, they can count on a fair trial under the law and the Constitution.”
Gorsuch asked rhetorically: “Don’t you want a fiercely independent judge and a jury of your peers to make those decisions? Isn’t that your right as an American?”
I don’t think the left cares about this at all.
Many leftists are apparently comfortable with a two-tiered justice system, as long as they have control over it and decide which people deserve what the left considers rights granted by the government.
God-given rights, as explicitly stated in our Declaration of Independence, are just crazy, right-wing, They say it’s a Christian nationalist fantasy..
Once leftists believe they have acquired unassailable political power, they believe that any limitation on their power is unacceptable.
Leftists rely on powerful, unelected institutions—whether higher education, nongovernmental organizations, substantial tech companies, federal and state bureaucracies, and often the courts—to effectively advance their agenda relentlessly, regardless of elections or their own popularity.
They have made long-term bets that those who control the institutions control the future. And it is demanding to deny that the left no longer marches through the institutions; the institutions march on behalf of the left.
It is this institutional ecosystem that they have in mind when they continually lament that “our democracy” is under threat from former President Donald Trump, Project 2025, or any other current bogeyman.
Which brings us to the Democrats’ plan to “reform” the Supreme Court.
Currently, the Supreme Court is one of the few institutions that check the power of the left.
Instead of immediately filling the court during Biden’s presidency, which would likely not work against Republican opponents in the Senate, leftists have used the last few years to do everything in their power to smear the court and portray it as illegitimate.
The left likes to promote the idea that public trust in the Supreme Court has fallen to an “all-time low.” Technically, that may be true, but the court has only reached that historic low because breakdown among Democrats.
How are other institutions coping currently? Mostly much worse.
Much of the breakdown in confidence in the Supreme Court has occurred, not surprisingly, during the Biden presidency. The court has not only slapped administration policy and takeover of powerand when he overturned the bad precedent in Roe v. Wade, he sent shockwaves through the left.
Elite media allied with the left have stepped in, inventing imitation scandals to create the illusion that Republican presidents’ Supreme Court nominees are corrupt or crazed maniacs.
Remember stupid stories about flags? aiming at Judge Samuel Alito?
All of these reports were designed to turn the left-wing electorate completely against the Supreme Court, and they largely succeeded.
Alito, Clarence Thomas, and other conservative members of the Supreme Court on the left’s list have not resigned, have not resigned, have not withdrawn from specific cases. This has given the left a green airy to say, “See, we’ve tried to appeal to reason, now we have no choice but to take action.”
It is demanding to imagine the left and the Democratic Party refraining from taking the next step.
This time, the radicals are not just going to wait patiently for the Supreme Court justices to retire. They have set up their metaphorical cannons and are waiting for the right political moment to announce their mandate and launch a hostile takeover, regardless of the consequences.
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Jarrett Stepman is a columnist for The Daily Signal. He is also the author of “The War on History: The Conspiracy to Rewrite America’s Past.” Email Jarrett
Photo “Kamala Harris and Tim Walz” by Kamala Harris.
