MAGA Republicans Attack Proposed Supreme Court Reforms After Politicizing Court For Years
TO: Interested Parties
FROM: Maggie Jo Buchanan, Managing Director of Demand Justice
DATE: August 5, 2024
SUBJECT: MAGA Republicans Attack Proposed Supreme Court Reforms After Politicizing Court For Years
This week, President Biden announced his support for a set of reforms to the Supreme Court, including term limits and a binding code of ethics. He also announced support for a constitutional amendment undoing the Court’s ruling on presidential immunity to ensure presidents do not have king-like power.
However, MAGA Republicans have spent the last week attacking these proposed reforms, claiming that “no one is taking [them] seriously” and calling them “dead on arrival.” Leonard Leo, a longtime leader of the Federalist Society and the architect of the far right’s strategy to completely remake and radicalize the judiciary, released a statement saying that President Biden’s proposals would “destroy a court [they] disagree with.” Leo claims that “the real corruption” lies in Congress – unsurprising that the person responsible for the corruption of the Court is calling for investigators to look elsewhere.
MAGA REPUBLICANS ARE GOING AGAINST THE WILL OF THEIR OWN CONSTITUENTS
Congress must work with the Biden administration to make sure these much needed reforms are enacted. The American people deserve a Court they can trust: one that is judging cases on the Constitution and the law, not a wealthy right-wing extremist agenda.
Recent polling shows:
- Over 70% of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents believe judges have too much power in deciding cases that affect our rules and regulations.
- 70% of Americans support term limits for Supreme Court justices.
However, all week MAGA Republicans have been pushing back against the reforms:
- Speaker Mike Johnson (LA -4): “This dangerous gambit of the Biden-Harris Administration is dead on arrival in the House.”
- Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy: “You can’t overthrow the U.S. Constitution because you don’t like the results.”
- Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin: “Liberals are furious that [the Supreme Court] is abiding by the Constitution.”
MAGA REPUBLICANS HAVE BEEN POLITICIZING THE COURTS FOR YEARS
Thanks to Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society, and other dark money right wing groups, the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary have been completely reshaped to serve the right’s extreme agenda of overturning Roe v. Wade, gutting the Voting Rights Act, and making our country a harder place for everyday Americans to thrive.
After Leo and other right wing actors created and funded a pipeline of conservative judges to higher judicial appointments, far-right plaintiffs shop cases to friendly judges in order to get favorable rulings – another practice used by conservatives that 88 percent of voters broadly oppose. Wealthy donors on the right have given Supreme Court justices lavish gifts and expensive vacations without any repercussions when those gifts go unreported on mandatory financial disclosures. And in return, they get favorable rulings in cases from Chevron to Dobbs.
MAGA Republicans and activists have crystalized why these reforms are needed in the first place. It is not playing politics to enact reforms that undo the harms perpetuated by those who want the judiciary to only work for them, not all Americans.
THE PROPOSED REFORMS ARE LONG OVERDUE AND MUCH NEEDED
The Supreme Court’s actions run the risk of destroying the legitimacy of our entire judicial system. Americans already believe that federal judges are too powerful.
The proposed reforms – term limits for Supreme Court justices and a binding code of ethics for the Supreme Court, as well as an amendment overturning the Court’s ruling that a president’s official actions are immune from prosecution – will help restore some faith in our justice system, ensuring that no one is above the law: not presidents and not Supreme Court justices.
