Reforming the Courts

The Right, backed by corporate interests, has spent decades building a movement to capture federal courts. Unfortunately, they’ve largely succeeded, and it’s everyday Americans who suffer, while the powerful benefit and the rich get richer. This isn’t an accident, it was by design. 

Rather than delivering justice without fear or favor, the Supreme Court has delivered immunity to President Trump and wins to corporate America with one hand, while giving a green light to gerrymandering, undermining voting rights and reproductive freedom, and making it harder for workers to organize. Federal courts have refused to enforce anti-monopoly laws and have made up theories out of whole cloth to protect corporations from accountability.  

Since January 2025, President Trump has nominated a younger, more politically loyal crop of lower court judges—judges who have demonstrated time and again that they answer only to him, not the Constitution. And his DOJ appointees are falling over themselves to seek retribution against his perceived enemies.

Demand Justice is fighting to unrig the courts. We support bold, comprehensive action to restore integrity, accountability, and independence to the justice system.

While there are many thoughtful and promising proposals to unrig the courts and ensure they serve all the people, Demand Justice is focusing on three priorities. 

1. Demand Justice supports expanding the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has substituted its own policy preferences for the rule of law granting the president immunity for crimes committed in office, erasing whole sections of the Voting Rights Act, and denying the right to abortion. We cannot wait for those on the bench to retire or pass away to set things right. The Constitution gives Congress the authority to determine the size and scope of the Supreme Court. To combat the Right’s decades-long effort to rig the Supreme Court, we must expand it to include a majority of justices who aren’t bossed by Trump or bought by giant corporations. 
2. Demand Justice supports binding, enforceable ethics rules for the entire judiciary branch.  The Supreme Court is the least accountable part of the federal government, with no binding code of ethics. Faced with multiple ethics crises and plummeting trust from the American public, the Court has made clear it is unable or unwilling (or both) to meaningfully police itself. Congress must at minimum institute a binding code of ethics, including a clear enforcement mechanism, so Americans can trust the justices are ruling based on the law, not partisanship, profit, or personal interest.
3. Demand Justice supports efforts to ensure that the Department of Justice cannot be used as a president’s private prosecutor.  Using the Justice Department to pursue personal grievances or political vendettas not only undermines trust in federal cases, it’s inconsistent with an open, transparent, democratic government. Congress must pass reforms to ensure that the Department of Justice makes decisions based on the facts and the law–not the directives of a wannabe dictator.