Fix The Supreme Court

The Supreme Court’s recent decision permitting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain individuals based solely on race, language, occupation, or geographic location represents a troubling erosion of constitutional protections. What makes this decision particularly concerning is Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion, which provides additional justification for what amounts to institutionalized racial profiling. ...

Court Expansion: Actually Normal in American History Whenever reform is discussed, critics cry that changing the Court would be “radical” or “unprecedented.” This is historically illiterate nonsense. The Supreme Court’s size has changed seven times in the nation’s first 80 years. The Judiciary Act of 1789 created a six-member Court. It grew to seven members in 1807, nine in 1837, ten in 1863, back to seven in 1866, and finally to nine in 1869. For most of American history, the Court’s size tracked with the number of federal circuit courts. But here’s what critics never mention: while the Supreme Court has remained frozen at nine justices since 1869, the rest of the federal judiciary has continued to grow dramatically to meet the nation’s needs. ...

The Legitimacy Crisis: A Court Out of Step with America Public trust in the Supreme Court has collapsed, and for good reason. Gallup polling shows confidence in the Court at historic lows, with approval dropping to just 40% in recent years—lower than Congress. The Court’s decisions increasingly split along purely ideological lines, with the six conservative justices voting as a bloc on the most contentious issues. This isn’t judicial reasoning—it’s partisan politics in robes. ...

The Abortion Rights Long Game: Decades of Deception The overturning of Roe v. Wade wasn’t a surprise legal development—it was the predetermined outcome of a decades-long campaign. ...

The Federalist Society Assembly Line The Court’s current composition isn’t an accident—it’s the culmination of a 40-year project by the Federalist Society and its allies to capture America’s courts. Since the 1980s, conservative legal activists led by figures like Leonard Leo have built an assembly line for right-wing judges. They identify promising law students, groom them through internships and clerkships, fund their careers, and ultimately deliver them to the Court. Five of the six conservative justices are Federalist Society members, and the sixth, Clarence Thomas, is closely aligned with their ideology. ...

The McConnell Power Grab: Hypocrisy in Real Time The theft of the Supreme Court didn’t happen overnight. It was a carefully orchestrated heist, and Mitch McConnell was the mastermind. In February 2016, when Justice Antonin Scalia died, President Obama had nearly a year left in his term. Obama nominated Merrick Garland, a moderate judge who Republicans had previously praised. McConnell’s response? He invented a new rule: no Supreme Court confirmations in election years. “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice,” McConnell declared, blocking even hearings for Garland. ...