Two separate things happened last week that make it pretty clear what will happen when Democrats are once again in control of the federal government, which is to rig the Supreme Court (a process understood by Democrats and the media as “defending our democracy”).
First, longtime Democrat operative James Carville essentially advised his party to lie to voters about their intentions so that on “day one” they can pack the court with another four seats and add another four Senate seats as well by way of giving statehood to Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. He seriously said that.
“If the Democrats win the presidency and both houses of Congress,” he said in a podcast interview, “I think on day one, they should make Puerto Rico, D.C. a state, and they should expand the Supreme Court to 13.” He said campaigns shouldn’t bother making it a part of their platforms. “Don’t run on it,” he said. “Don’t talk about it. Just do it.”
Two days later, the New York Times published a bunch of formerly private communications from 2016 between the Supreme Court justices in a naked attempt to further delegitimize the institution, creating the impression that, as it currently exists, the court is nothing more than a political arm of the Republican Party. While previously the court “handled major cases at a stately pace that encouraged care and deliberation,” it now routinely conducts its business “along partisan lines,” as the Times paints it, with Chief Justice John Roberts motivated by a petty vendetta against former President Obama.
“In the Trump era,” the article by Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak said, “[Chief Justice John Roberts] and the other conservative justices have repeatedly empowered the president through their shadow docket rulings. By contrast, the papers reveal a court wielding those same powers to block Mr. Obama.”
The authors chide the new and frequent use of the “shadow docket,” which the court uses to issue quick and temporary orders for highly consequential cases coming before it. The court’s 2016 decision to block a sweeping Obama environmental initiative via emergency order launched a “questionable new way of operating,” according to the Times, and “none of the justices fully appreciated what they were doing.”
Mind you, by the court having “empowered” President Trump, the authors mean he was spared from Democrat-waged lawfare, as that party has broken with the previously unspoken understanding that once one side attempts to make political disagreement illegal, this whole country is over. There’s also the unique issue of this president facing an obscene number of illegal orders from authoritarian district judges whose decisions fly in the face of reason, and the Supreme Court is forced to address them.
But if you can count on Democrats to do one thing, it’s to escalate tensions by breaking precedent. They are sure to do it again. Watch.
Speaking of the Supreme Court, go buy my boss Mollie Hemingway’s fantastic new book, Alito: The Justice Who Reshaped the Supreme Court and Restored the Constitution, out in hardcover and paperback now!
