Reforming the Supreme Court Should Be Commonplace
This excerpt is from a piece by Keith Thirion that originally ran in Ms. Magazine on August 12, 2024.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have thrown their support behind efforts to reform the Supreme Court. In the weeks that followed, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) promised to make these reforms a legislative priority.
These commonsense changes are an important response to a conservative supermajority wreaking havoc on our rights and our democracy. More importantly, it’s an opportunity to ensure moving forward that we’re always talking about how to check the third branch of government—not just when its legitimacy is on the line.
While we the people do not weigh in directly on who sits on the federal bench, our voice is supposedly democratically expressed through our election of the president who nominates, and Senate who confirms, federal judges. The courts had long served as a pillar of our democracy until conservative forces waged a decades-long campaign to twist the judiciary to its antidemocratic liking.
Today, of the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, only one—Justice Clarence Thomas—was appointed by a president who won the popular vote. And instead of being answerable to the people, Justices Thomas and Samuel Alito have for years accepted millions of dollars worth of gifts and luxury trips from wealthy benefactors with interests before the Court, often without following the most basic of disclosure guidelines.
The need for reform is clear—and something that voters across the political spectrum want.