Jonathan Turley explains in the latest edition of Hillsdale College’s Imprimis why we shouldn’t “cancel” the US Supreme Court.
There is a radical movement rising in the U.S. with chilling parallels to the French Revolution. Demands for the elimination or packing of the Supreme Court and other measures are ripped from the French revolutionary handbook. Most worrisome is the surrender of establishment figures, particularly in promising to make radical changes to the Supreme Court. Indeed, offering the Supreme Court up to this movement has become a litmus test for Democratic presidential candidates. Former Vice President Kamala Harris, former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, and U.S. Representative Ro Khanna have embraced it. Harris and California Governor Gavin Newsom have characterized reluctance to change the Court as “nostalgia” and have warned that “nostalgia is not working.” The platform of the increasingly influential Democratic Socialists of America calls both for dissolving the Supreme Court and for creating a unicameral legislature by eliminating the U.S. Senate.
Much of this is animated by undisguised power politics. Here’s former Attorney General Eric Holder arguing that packing the Supreme Court should be made a priority: “[We’re] talking about the acquisition and the use of power if there is a Democratic trifecta in 2028.” And Democratic strategist James Carville: “If the Democrats win the presidency and both houses of Congress, I think on day one, they should expand the Supreme Court to 13. . . . Eat our dust. Don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it. Just do it.” …
… Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has characterized the Court as illegitimate because it has rendered decisions against what she sees as “widely held public opinion.” Former U.S. Representative Eric Swalwell similarly objected that the Court “defies the will of the people.” U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is now leading in some Democratic presidential polls, asks why we even have a Supreme Court: “How much does the current structure benefit us? . . . I don’t think it does.”
The irony is that those calling to pack the Court say it will make the Court “less partisan.”
