Free Republic

Below is my column in the Wall Street Journal on the growing counter-constitutional movement in the United States. This assault on the Constitution is being led by law professors who have lost their faith in the defining principles and institutions of our Republic. Here is the column: Kamala Harris declared in Tuesday’s debate that a vote for her is a vote “to end the approach that is about attacking the foundations of our democracy ’cause you don’t like the outcome.” She was alluding to the 2021 Capitol riot, but she and her party are also attacking the foundations of our...

WASHINGTON — Ron Wyden, Oregon's senior U.S. senator, introduced legislation Thursday that would overhaul the U.S. Supreme Court and "restore public trust" in the institution, his office said in a statement. The "Judicial Modernization and Transparency Act" would make a number of significant changes to the highest court and the federal circuit courts beneath it, including an overall expansion of the court itself. "The Supreme Court is in crisis and bold solutions are necessary to restore the public trust," Wyden said.

During the presidential debate between President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, debate moderators curiously failed to include a question about efforts to “reform” the Supreme Court. The Biden administration is proposing radical changes to the Court, which include ending life tenure for justices and giving Congress the power to oversee the Court’s ethics. Others are calling to expand the size of the Court by adding more seats. Those proposals would destroy judicial independence and the rule of law. They’re a threat to Americans’ civil liberties. “Court packing would not simply alter the structure of the Supreme Court—it would...

Democrats have made clear that if they win the presidency and Congress in November, they will attempt to take over the Supreme Court as well. Shortly after ending his re-election campaign, President Biden put forth a package of high-court “reforms,” including term limits and a “binding” ethics code designed to infringe on judicial authority. Kamala Harris quickly signed on, and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has made clear that bringing the justices to heel is a top priority. That increasingly muscular exercises of executive power have accompanied the left’s ascendance in the Democratic Party coalition is no coincidence. The legislative process...

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said there are plans to roll out major overhauls to the Supreme Court if Democrats win control of the White House and both chambers of Congress. Calls for implementing stricter rules for the Supreme Court from the Left have escalated in recent years, as complaints about alleged corruption and ethical lapses have plagued Republican-appointed justices. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have been targeted by campaigns calling into question their relationships with GOP megadonors and their wives’ political involvement.“The Supreme Court has become a morass, both ethically and substantively,” Schumer told NBC News. “We’re...

On Monday, Joe Biden allegedly plans to announce several dramatic new proposals to permanently change the nature of the Supreme Court, in an unprecedented assault on the Constitution. Politico reports that the reforms, first hinted at during Biden’s Oval Office address to the nation last week on his historic decision not to run for re-election, will include term limits for Supreme Court justices and a new code of ethics, among other radical proposals. “I’m going to call for Supreme Court reform, because this is critical to our democracy,” said Biden during his widely-panned address, when the 81-year-old president once again...

President Joe Biden is reportedly planning to unveil a dramatic Supreme Court reform next week in an attempt to overhaul the high court. Two people familiar with the matter told Politico that the president is likely to endorse establishing term limits for justices, and bring in a code of ethics. The 81-year-old is expected to push for an amendment that would limit immunity for presidents and other officeholders. His amendment would come directly after the court ruled that presidents are shielded from prosecution for officials acts, in a case brought by Donald Trump. It is said that Biden will call...

As the Supreme Court term nears its close, the left is redoubling its longstanding campaign to delegitimize the High Court, slander its conservative justices, and undermine the rule of law. Just before the end of its term, the Court has not yet released its most high-profile decisions, namely Trump v. United States, in which the justices will rule on the question of presidential immunity, and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, in which the Court is reconsidering the future of the “Chevron Deference” doctrine that holds that courts must defer to federal bureaucrats to interpret statues. But the usual suspects on...

Lifetime appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court would end, under a proposal unveiled Monday by conservative, progressive, and libertarian constitutional scholars. Supreme Court justices would serve staggered 18-year terms moving forward. The change to Supreme Court tenure stood out among a set of five proposed constitutional amendments prepared for the National Constitution Center. None of the amendments has been introduced formally, either to Congress or through the states. “There shall be nine judges of the supreme court, who shall hold their offices for staggered terms of eighteen years, such that every two years there shall be a vacancy,” according to...

How can one write history so that it seems like a thriller? How does one write a biography without making the subject the centerpiece of the narrative? I have no idea if David Pietrusza asked himself these questions — or this one: How can history be written as a newspaper headline? Call this a biography by indirection. Franklin Delano Roosevelt is defined by competing individuals and movements: Huey Long, Father Coughlan, Al Smith, the Liberty League, Earl Browder and the Communist Party, Dr. Francis Townsend and the Townsend Plan, Norman Thomas and the Socialist Party. They threatened FDR’s majority in...

A majority of Americans oppose adding more seats to the Supreme Court, in contrast with recent calls to expand the number of justices in the nation's highest court raised by progressive Democrats and members of the public, according to a new poll. After the Supreme Court voted in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade last week thanks to the support of the conservative supermajority of justices, the idea of expanding the number of seats in the court to re-establish some balance and fairness has been floated. The expansion is legally possible, as the size of the court isn't fixed by...

Court-packing - the attempt to enlarge the size of the Supreme Court for short-term political purposes - used to be a dirty word in the history of American jurisprudence. The tradition of a nine-person Supreme Court is now 153 years old. The last attempt to expand it for political gain was President Franklin Roosevelt's failed effort in 1937. FDR's gambit was so blatantly political that even his overwhelming Democratic majority in Congress rebuffed him. Yet now "court packing" is a law school cause celebre. It is hailed as a supposedly quick fix to reverse the current 5-4 conservative majority. Recently,...

The Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court unanimously approved its nearly 300-page report on court reform Tuesday. Established in April by executive order, the commission was tasked with producing a report that examined the contemporary debate over court reform, historical cases of when there were calls for court reform, and an analysis of the main arguments for and against certain proposals to reform the court, such as expansion, term limits, ethics reform, and more. No specific recommendations were given in the report, and on the issue of court packing, the commission noted that the "profound disagreement among Commissioners" mirrors "the...

The U. S. Supreme Court issued two 6-3 decisions as it completed its last term, causing Democrats to renew their call for expanding the number of justices by four. Under President Biden, this would undoubtedly result in more liberal justices to uphold the agenda of the Democrat Party. The left’s court packing scheme, if successful, will weaken the constitutional system of checks and balances that preserves the American republic and protects against tyranny. The Founding Fathers were wary of a powerful central government that would oppress and restrict the liberties of individuals. Their experience under Britain's tyranny made them determined...

I like to apply free market analysis to American politics. Within established laws, politicians compete for votes and are rewarded for maximizing voters' preferences. As in economics, there are sometimes market failures, but mostly the system seems to be self-regulating. This sounds nice, but it doesn't seem to describe what's been happening over the past five or so years. Both parties seem to be ignoring voters' clear signals. Neither seems to be rationally maximizing its votes and its chances of winning presidential elections or congressional majorities. National Democrats have indeed won the popular vote in six of the last seven...

Democrats on Thursday expressed their displeasure with the Supreme Court's final decisions of its 2020-2021 term, accusing the justices of doing "severe damage" to the political system and in some cases re-upping their calls to pack the court with liberal justices appointed by President Biden. One decision was on a challenge to Arizona election laws, including a ban on ballot harvesting. The other was about a California law that required nonprofits to disclose their largest donors to the state government for law enforcement purposes. The court upheld the Arizona laws – which liberals saw as voting rights restrictions and conservatives...

I have previously criticized Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., for his almost unrivaled advocacy of censorship and speech controls. Blumenthal previously threatened social media companies not to “backslide” in censoring opposing views. Now, Blumenthal is taking up the cudgel of court packing with not so subtle threats to conservative justices that, if they do not vote with their liberal colleagues, the Court may be fundamentally altered. He is not alone in such reckless and coercive rhetoric. Blumenthal told The Hill: “It will inevitably fuel and drive an effort to expand the Supreme Court if this activist majority betrays fundamental constitutional principles....

Democrats are vowing that any action by the United States Supreme Court to alter the legal precedent on abortion will add “fuel” to the push among some in their party to add seats to the nation's highest court. Congressional Democrats issued the warning after the Supreme Court announced that it would decide on the constitutionality of Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban by hearing the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The state of Mississippi is asking the court to review a lower court decision finding that the ban on abortions more than 15 weeks into a pregnancy is unconstitutional....

A Georgetown law student confronted Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Thursday about "court packing," redefining the term to demand why Cruz was opposed to efforts by Democrats to expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court by four. Cruz was speaking at a news conference with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) in front of the Supreme Court about a Democratic bill to expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court from nine to 13. The senator from Texas accused Democrats of making a "power grab." "You didn't see Republicans, when we had control of the...

If the past few weeks are any indication, one thing is crystal clear: the Democrat Party is intent on fundamentally transforming the United States of America. Their radical legislative wish list includes federalizing our elections, dismantling the Electoral College, and making D.C. and Puerto Rico a state. These are just a few of the far-Left agenda items that Congressional Democrats have sponsored as of this writing. If these bills become law – or if they are forced through by Executive Order - the one and only safeguard for the American people will be the Supreme Court of the United States....