The U.S. Supreme Court has changed from a once venerated institution and third pillar of our democracy to an ideologically driven, partisan, and intellectually dishonest creator of minority rule. Undisclosed gifts to Justice Clarence Thomas, unacknowledged conflicts of interest in the January 6 case, and a failure to live up to an ethics standard that every other judge in the country must adhere to have driven Americans’ confidence in the institution to new lows.
Seventy percent of Americans think the court now puts ideology over impartiality and I am part of that overwhelming majority. These dire straits have driven me to commit $30 million to the Brennan Center for Justice to require term limits and an enforceable standard of ethics requiring recusal in conflicts of interest.
Starting with Citizens United, which equated money with speech, to Shelby, which weakened the Voting Rights Act, through the repeal of Roe and to the latest immunity ruling, the Court has consistently favored the powerful, the wealthy, and ideologues over the working class and the American people. In short, it has rigged the system to make it harder to vote, made every single vote less important than wealthy contributors, and made it easier to gerrymander districts to keep corrupt parties in power and unaccountable to the electorate.
The six conservative justices that make up the majority on the Court exploit originalism and textualism to hide the true political nature of their rulings, basing decisions on ideology rather than objectivity and the law. In every one of their sworn testimony before the Senate, each swore allegiance to stare decisis—then promptly ignored their own sworn testimony.
I am not a political actor or activist. I have voted for both Republican and Democratic presidents. And these critical reforms are not designed to help one party over the other. Each president should get a pick for the Supreme Court, thereby making it accountable to the will of the citizens of this country.
We are at a critical juncture; if we allow this court to rule unimpeded it will reverse 60 years of jurisprudence trying to level the playing field away from the moneyed ideologically driven elites and the corporate interests that have so much sway over our politics through lobbying and fundraising.
We must not allow this to happen. We must do what we can. We must find ways to reverse the reactionary drift of the judicial system. We must not allow the Federalist Society to continue to be the gatekeeper of the Supreme Court and continue to corrupt the judiciary. Never has a private institution been allowed to influence the Court in this way.
“Equal justice under law”—those words are carved on the entrance to the Court. One man one vote. No man is above the law. The peaceful transition of power from one administration to the next. These are the bedrock values of our unique and priceless democracy. But they will not be preserved without action and funding. Please help and do your part.
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