Today, the Supreme Court kicks off its new term, and the cases on the docket once again have the potential to gut our constitutional rights and freedoms. The main character this term? Donald Trump – who is asking the Court to greenlight his most depraved policies. There’s a good chance the MAGA justices on the Court will acquiesce, having spent last term and the summer granting Trump and his administration broad authority to: racially profile and detain immigrants, deport immigrants to countries they are not from nor have ever been to, sign and implement blatantly unconstitutional executive orders, and much more.

It is clear that these “wins” at the Supreme Court has emboldened Trump to aggressively pursue even more authoritarian tactics, including sending military personnel into Chicago to conduct violent immigration raids that resulted in the detention of literal toddlers, and threatening to send the National Guard into Portland and other American cities to battle our own citizens.

Here are the big cases we’re following so far at the Court this term, although we expect even more challenges to Trump’s attacks on our democracy over the course of the year. Unfortunately, as former Judge J. Michael Luttig (a George W. Bush appointee) told Politico, “The Supreme Court and the chief justice have given Americans zero reason to believe that they will slow this president in any way whatsoever.”

October 15 - Louisiana v. Callais

• This is a racial gerrymandering case involving the creation of a second Black-majority congressional district in Louisiana. Challengers are asking the Court to gut what remains of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act; Black voters argue that Louisiana’s current map (which has only one Black-majority district despite the state’s population being a third Black). Even before he became the Chief Justice, John Roberts had committed himself to the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act. As Chief Justice, he has in fact undermined key provisions of the law with great enthusiasm, and rarely if ever rules in favor of preserving it.

November 5 - Learning Resources v. Trump

• This case is a challenge to the constitutionality of Trump’s disastrous tariff policy, which has significantly raised costs on all kinds of items, from groceries to clothing. The plaintiffs argue that the authority to impose tariffs of this magnitude lies with Congress, not through an executive order, which is what Trump did here. If Trump wins, this will be yet another significant blow to our constitutional separation of powers and would hand even more power to Trump to act unilaterally without Congressional intervention.

Not Yet Scheduled

Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J. - These cases are the next baseless attacks on trans kids and their ability to play sports with their friends. At issue here is whether state restrictions on participation in girls’ and women’s sports violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. These lawsuits come on the heels of last term’s ruling in Skrmetti that upheld an anti-trans law in Tennessee that blocks trans children from receiving critical health care. A win for the right-wing states who continue to attack trans people will only further embolden hateful legislation against trans people and the LGBTQ+ community more broadly.

National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission - This case is a challenge to what remains of our campaign finance system. If the NRSC wins, wealthy donors will be able to legally coordinate with political parties and easily circumvent personal campaign contribution limits to candidates

Trump v. Slaughter - If Trump wins, it will be even easier for him to remove commissioners/board members of independent agencies (in this case, FTC commissioners), and could result in the overturning of Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, a hallmark SCOTUS case that holds the president can only remove commissioners/board members for cause. The MAGA justices have already ruled in Trump’s favor in earlier cases allowing him broad authority to fire federal employees, and it appears likely they’ll continue that trend in this case as well.

Wolford v. Lopez - This case involves a new law from Hawaii that bans and criminalizes carrying a concealed handgun on private property without the owner’s express permission. In 2022, the Court ruled that states could not pass laws restricting guns unless there was a historically analogous restriction on firearms dating back to the drafting of the Second Amendment. In other words, unless states can show there was a similar firearm restriction from the 1700s, they cannot pass new restrictions on guns here in the 21st century. This Court, led by arch-conservative Clarence Thomas, has shown a great enthusiasm for gutting what few gun laws we have in this country, with disastrous effect on our communities.

The Supreme Court is poised to do a lot of damage to our freedoms, but we can fight back. You can get involved here.

The Supreme Court term ended last Friday, but the effects of their rulings this year will be felt for decades, largely by the most vulnerable members of our society. The right-wing justices in particular doubled-down on their allegiance to the MAGA project by issuing rulings that threw our immigration system into chaos, threw trans kids under the bus, and threw an even bigger crown on Donald Trump’s head. Here are the lowlights of this year’s Supreme Court Term:

U.S. v. Skrmetti

In a 6-3 ruling, the right-wing justices upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth. This ruling will have devastating impacts on trans kids not just in Tennessee, but in the 25 other states that have passed similar bans as well – making it nearly impossible for hundreds of thousands of kids across the country to get the care they need and deserve.

This ruling is the culmination of a years-long attempt from the far-right and transphobic activists to whip up a moral panic about trans youth and their care. Despite the fear-mongering and lies about the trans community, the reality is just this: parents of trans kids want to be able to make healthcare decisions for their kids with their doctors and without interference from anti-science state legislators more interested in waging a culture war for personal gain than they are about kids’ safety.

This should worry us all. Anti-trans activists essentially created a controversy out of nothing, rejecting science and medical expertise along the way, pretending it had nothing to do with bigotry, and now their “sincere concerns” have been elevated by the Supreme Court of the United States to national relevance, equal in importance to the scientific consensus about gender-affirming care. And now, not only are trans kids at risk, but so is the bodily autonomy of any member of any community who finds themselves in the sights of the hard-right. Our freedoms are now up for “fierce debate,” subject to the “sincere concerns” of those who want to do us harm.

This is an excerpt from my full piece for the Big Picture. For more, check out the rest here.

Medina v. Planned Parenthood

In yet another 6-3 ruling, the MAGA justices determined that South Carolina can block Medicaid patients’ access to care from Planned Parenthood — including cancer screenings, annual visits, sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment, and birth control — and that affected patients cannot sue to preserve their right to care. The decisions held that individuals do not have the right to bring a lawsuit challenging South Carolina’s decision to end Planned Parenthood's participation in the state's Medicaid program — thereby cutting off low-income patients from the care they rely on.

Despite a lower court ruling three times on the same case with the same result — that Planned Parenthood and an individual patient could bring a lawsuit to protect access to Medicaid — the Roberts Court decided to open the door for states to further deny critical healthcare to marginalized communities across the country. Countless low-income people in South Carolina, and potentially other states in the future, will lose access to critical healthcare. Millions of Medicaid patients across the country rely on Planned Parenthood health centers for their primary and reproductive care, and people who face systemic racism and discrimination — Black, Latino, and Indigenous communities, as well as LGBTQ+ people and women — are more likely to be covered by Medicaid.

This decision will also make it much harder for marginalized people to litigate individual rights in court. In her dissent, Justice Jackson compared the majority decision to key Reconstruction-era cases after the Civil War that stripped back individual rights and the Civil Rights Act of 1871. “A century and a half later, the project of stymying one of the country’s great civil rights laws continues,” wrote Justice Jackson.

Trump v. CASA

At issue in Trump v. CASA was not (at least not yet) whether the president has the power to deny birthright citizenship via executive order, but whether or not the nationwide injunction blocking enforcement of the executive order was appropriate. The Supreme Court, again in a 6-3 ruling by the MAGA majority, determined it was not – that the nationwide injunction was an overreach of the authority granted to federal courts to provide legal relief.

This ruling has removed a critical tool in curbing the excesses of an out-of-control executive branch. Even worse, it grants Trump extraordinary powers to pursue his alarming policies even when the courts agree that the policy is unconstitutional.

In this case, the Trump administration didn’t even bother arguing the constitutionality of the executive order to the Supreme Court at all. Instead, they focused on the issue of injunctions and the supposed overreach of the lower courts, arguing that they should be able to enforce their executive order against anyone not currently a party to the case.

Here’s how Justice Sonia Sotomayor put it in her dissent:

The Government does not ask for complete stays of the injunctions, as it ordinarily does before this Court. Why? The answer is obvious: To get such relief, the Government would have to show that the Order is likely constitutional, an impossible task in light of the Constitution’s text, history, this Court’s precedents, federal law, and Executive Branch practice. So the Government instead tries its hand at a different game. It asks this Court to hold that, no matter how illegal a law or policy, courts can never simply tell the Executive to stop enforcing it against anyone. Instead, the Government says, it should be able to apply the Citizenship Order (whose legality it does not defend) to everyone except the plaintiffs who filed this lawsuit.

In other words: chaos. The MAGA justices on the Court just told Donald Trump that he can engage in whatever unconstitutional actions he wants to while his policies are being challenged in court. It also means that children born here to undocumented parents are at risk of being targeted by an executive order that nearly everyone—except for Stephen Miller and a handful of racists—agrees is unconstitutional, unless they personally sue the Trump administration. This is not how constitutional guarantees are supposed to work. You shouldn’t need to hire a legal team to access them. This is not democracy.

This is an excerpt from my full piece for the Big Picture. For more, check out the rest here.

The theme of this term, and the vibe of the Roberts era of the Supreme Court overall continues to be: victory for the wealthy and powerful, and scraps for the rest of us. The MAGA majority mostly justifies these deeply unpopular rulings by deploying an “originalist” mode of legal interpretation, which requires considering what the framers had in mind when they originally drafted the Constitution 250 years ago. The reality is that “originalism” isn’t much more than a snake oil developed by conservative lawyers and judges in the 1980s who need a more euphemistic way to overturn civil rights laws besides relying on outright bigotry.

Supreme Court justices aren’t the only ones who get to decide what the Constitution means, nor should they be – originalism is far from the only way to interpret our laws. Instead, we should consider the principles of what legal scholar Larry Kramer calls “popular constitutionalism,” which advocates for giving all of us “active and ongoing control over the interpretation and enforcement of constitutional law.”

Here’s more on popular constitutionalism from Molly Coleman, the executive director of People’s Parity Project:

This isn’t an easy task under the best of circumstances, and it got significantly harder when Donald Trump retook power on January 20. It requires us to read and understand the Constitution and to make values-based judgements about what it requires, allows, and prohibits. Even harder, it then means we have to enforce our understanding of the Constitution by building the political power to act when we see the Constitution being violated and to ensure our meaning is the one that ultimately wins out.

In a democracy, this requires building popular support for our views, and there are no shortcuts. And even reaching majority support for our constitutional interpretation isn’t enough without action. Professor Kramer, in his book The People Themselves, describes how, since the early days of the United States, the people have enforced the Constitution against “errant rulers” in a number of ways, many of which apply directly to our current moment. Enforcing the Constitution against our current errant rulers looks like voting them out of office, petitioning (calling and writing your elected representatives) and assembling (protesting), defending the rights of people unjustly targeted by law enforcement, engaging in jury nullification (finding somebody not guilty if they broke a law but the law was unjust), participating in consumer boycotts, and more. As we confront arguably the most errant ruler in the history of the United States, it is our obligation as citizens of a democracy to use these tactics to organize our communities around a vision of what the Constitution means and how it should shape our lives.

The Supreme Court’s vision of the Constitution includes delivering a great deal of harm to immigrants, trans people, women, and other marginalized groups. Most of us disagree with that vision. And there is something we can do about it – we can fight for a more representative government that holds these powerful partisans in black robes accountable, not just because we disagree with their rulings, but because their rulings are actively harming our democracy.

To get or stay involved, check out our resources from UFD’s SCOTUS Nerve Center!

Meagan Hatcher-Mays is a lawyer and democracy expert who serves as a senior advisor for United For Democracy. She lives in Washington, DC.

Chief Justice John Roberts is working overtime to convince the public that the Supreme Court – and the federal judiciary more broadly – is a paragon of judicial independence. At a public appearance last week in New York, the Chief Justice assured an audience made up of attorneys and judges that “The judiciary is a coequal branch of government, separate from the others with the authority to interpret the Constitution as law, and strike down, obviously, acts of Congress or acts of the president,” and in order to do this work judges “require a degree of independence.”

Then this week, at an event at Georgetown Law, Roberts lamented “ad hominem [criticisms] against the justices” and worried that the rule of law is “endangered.” Although he didn’t mention Donald Trump by name, Roberts's comments were seemingly in response to Trump’s repeated calls for judges who disagree with him to be impeached, as well as comments he’s made that judges who rule against him are “crooked.”

Forgive me for rolling my eyes at Roberts’s newfound call for propriety. It was Roberts, along with his MAGA colleagues, who attacked the guardrails meant to protect our democracy from an authoritarian like Donald Trump, including gutting the Voting Rights Act every time he gets the chance, and allowing gerrymandered Congressional maps that make the legislative branch comically unrepresentative of the American people – making it nearly impossible for the people to effectuate change at the ballot box.

If that weren’t bad enough, Roberts himself authored the opinion in Trump v. United States where he held the president has broad latitude to do whatever he wants without consequence, including committing crimes, as long as he does so as part of an official act. Donald Trump has taken that gold-plated get-out-of-jail-free card and used it with zeal, and it was that ruling that has emboldened him to become even more dictatorial than he was during his first term.

That’s why it seems…frankly offensive for John Roberts to now offer a lecture on how the government should work – a central reason why it doesn’t work right now is John Roberts’ fault. Trump’s assault on our democracy is only possible because John Roberts gave him permission.

I talked about this and a lot more with our friend Alex Aronson from Court Accountability on his Legal AF podcast. Check it out:

If you want to help us fight back against this MAGA Court, check out our Nerve Center for resources, messaging guidance, toolkits, and more.

Donald Trump thinks of himself as a king. He has, in fact, declared himself to be one in all-caps on social media. His grandiose delusions predate his presidency, but there’s no question that those around him are feeding into his authoritarian fantasies – not just members of his cabinet and his political acolytes in Congress, but also the MAGA Supreme Court justices, led by Chief Justice John Roberts.

Chief Justice Roberts wants the public at large to think of him and the Court he oversees – to the extent they think of them at all – as a bastion of nonpartisanship, where he and his colleagues do nothing but call “balls and strikes,” like an honorable, apolitical umpire. This narrative Roberts crafted of himself is pretty clearly at odds with reality, the power he actually wields, and how he uses that power to help Trump engage in flagrantly unconstitutional behavior.

The reality is that the MAGA justices are just fine with Trump’s policies, and have no interest in reining in his abuses. In fact, their rulings helped create the crisis we find ourselves in today. Over the past decade, the Roberts Court has steadily dismantled the legal guardrails that once protected our democracy: gutting voting rights, undermining federal agencies, and allowing Trump to get away with his crimes. These weren’t neutral decisions – they were calculated moves from politicians in robes to help Trump expand his authoritarianism and extreme conservative policies. Trump has gladly taken these rulings as proof that he has permission to ignore the constitution and the rule of law and impose his kingly fancies on all of us.

Lately, this abdication of duty has had a devastating impact on those who have been swept up in Trump’s apparent “abduct first, ask questions later” policy. Since taking office, Trump and his administration have gone on a horrific spree of removals and deportations of immigrants, some of whom were here lawfully, to a deadly prison in El Salvador. In a country where due process still theoretically exists, these government-backed abductions of lawful residents – not to mention Trump’s subsequent comments to El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele that he should build more prisons to house “homegrowns” (i.e. American citizens) – should chill us all.

Even the Trump administration has admitted that they made an “error” in removing some of those who were caught up in their mass deportation scheme, as in the case of lawful Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The district court judge who initially heard Abrego Garcia’s case ordered his immediate return, but the Department of Justice, now headed by MAGA loyalists beholden only to Trump’s interests, appealed to the Supreme Court. In his majority ruling, Roberts wrote that the lower court had overreached by ordering Trump to “effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return, but that “the government should be prepared to share what it can” how they planned to "facilitate" his return.

If you’re thinking to yourself that it seems uniquely hellish to force a person who even Trump and his lackeys admit was wrongly removed from the United States to stay in an El Salvadoran prison for no reason while lawyers fight over the definition of the words “effectuate” and “facilitate,” well…you’re right. And this ruling, unsurprisingly to most who are familiar with Trump’s game, did not compel him to act. Abrego Garcia is still in an El Salvadoran prison. Commentators and legal experts are sounding the alarm that Trump’s refusal to comply with this Supreme Court order is not just lawless but firmly places us all in a constitutional crisis.

But I think if you were to ask Roberts himself whether or not Trump defied his order, he’d say no. A close read of his ruling in the Abrego Garcia case exposes quite a few loopholes. Again, he wrote, “the government should be prepared to share what it can” (emphasis added) with the lower court judge about Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States. The next day, the Department of Justice filed a motion with the lower court judge that refused to provide any information, writing “Defendants are not in a position where they ‘can’ share any information requested by the Court,” pointedly putting quotes around the word “can” to indicate they were quoting from the Supreme Court’s order.

This is not (just) obnoxious lawyering – it’s establishing plausible deniability on both sides. Trump can continue to tear up the constitution and the rule of law while getting his lawyers to argue over the word “can,” and John Roberts can write rulings so vague that whatever Trump does in response can still be categorized, at least in his mind, as being in compliance. The problem is that no one else is falling for it. Trump is clearly flouting the law and making the Supreme Court look ridiculous and weak.

So why is Roberts doing this? Because he’s a massive coward who does not want to hold Trump accountable, for two clear reasons. One is that Roberts agrees with Trump as a matter of partisan policy. He may not like the means, but he sure does support the ends. The other goes back to Roberts’s very strong desire to be perceived as the nonpartisan umpire. He isn’t one, but he wants people to think he is. He doesn’t want to weigh in on The Question: if we’re in a constitutional crisis, what is the Supreme Court going to do about it? If it’s up to John Roberts, the answer will always be “nothing.”

Fortunately, it isn’t up to him. It’s up to all of us. If you want to help us fight back against this MAGA Court, check out our Nerve Center for resources, messaging guidance, toolkits, and more.

In many ways, the second Trump administration isn’t much different than the first – chaos, bigotry, abuses of power, all the authoritarian hallmarks Trump is known for. But there is something about this second version that feels darker, and more vicious. The pace of Trump’s dismantling of our democratic institutions feels more relentless this time, and the speed with which Elon Musk and his acolytes from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency have dismantled the safety net is terrifying – both because of the harm it has caused and will cause, and because it shows just how delicate our constitutional order really is.

An attack of this magnitude requires a response of equal measure – someone needs to fight back. Grassroots activists are doing their part, but it appears too many Congressional Democrats are hoping a different branch of government will step in to respond instead.

But the unfortunate reality is that the courts have been captured, and no longer serve as “a bulwark” against authoritarianism. Our judiciary has been targeted by the well-financed right-wing activists over the last 50 years, who have spent untold millions of dollars to install right-wing judges and justices who are committed not to the law or the constitution but to achieving partisan aims. Judges who issue rulings to billionaires and then accept lavish gifts and trips from those who benefit from them; justices who revoke our civil rights during the day and then toast themselves on their benefactors’ yachts at night.

It could not be more clear: the courts will not save us. They will not get us out of this mess, because they got us into it in the first place. Trump himself has hand-selected three Supreme Court justices, and they – along with the rest of the MAGA majority – have repeatedly ruled in his favor. In no case is their loyalty to Trump more clear than their ruling in a 2024 case fittingly titled Trump v. United States, where the MAGA justices ruled that Trump was broadly immune from criminal prosecution for any crimes he commits as President of the United States.

Not only did this decision allow Trump to avoid sentencing in his criminal trials for which he had been found guilty, thus paving the way for him to be elected president again, it also, clearly, supercharged his belief that he can do whatever he wants without facing a single consequence.

In her dissent in Trump v. United States, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned:

The long-term consequences of today’s decision are stark. The Court effectively creates a law-free zone around the President, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the Founding.

The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution.

Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune.

Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune.

Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.

Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today.

Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.

Sound familiar? Trump’s boldness and fearlessness as he illegally shuts down agencies, fires federal workers, hands over sensitive personal information to Elon Musk, is obvious. And it could not be more obvious that the reason Trump is behaving with such reckless disregard for our democratic institutions is because he knows there are few, if any, guardrails left to stop him. Trump molded the courts in his image, and he knows they work for him.

Just look at this exchange between Trump and Chief Justice John Roberts at Trump’s joint address to Congress:

couriernewsroom

A post shared by @couriernewsroom

“Thank you again, I won’t forget.” It is clear what this means. The Supreme Court of the United States gave Trump a gold-plated get-out-of-jail free card, and Trump is using it with zeal.

And when the courts don’t work for Trump, he does not take it in stride. Instead, he threatens impeachment, judicial purges, and retribution to any judge he deems insufficiently loyal to him and his MAGA project. He’s even started to ignore court orders he doesn’t like. Trump’s rhetoric has been so intense that federal judges report fearing for their safety, and even the Chief Justice issued a statement saying, “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose,” although that doesn’t mean much coming from the man who authored the opinion that kicked off this crisis in the first place.

The courts won’t save us because the courts are already lost to us. We are in a constitutional crisis. This is not the time to play dead, this is the time to fight back. That’s why United For Democracy has launched our SCOTUS Nerve Center, to provide critical resources about how to fight back against a judiciary that is on the attack. The right-wing actors who captured our courts never lost sight of their goal even when they lost elections, and we can’t either. The stakes are too high to give up now.

Meagan Hatcher-Mays is a lawyer and democracy expert who serves as as senior advisor for United For Democracy. She lives in Washington, DC.

Allies,

We’re only 4 days from the most consequential election in our lifetimes, and there’s so much to do to win this thing before we cross the finish line next Tuesday – or, in our case, before we reach the end zone. 

More on that in a minute, but first, here at United For Democracy we’re doing everything we can to get the message out about would-be authoritarian Donald Trump and his horrifying plans to enact Project 2025, a deeply creepy policy manual developed by hard-right MAGA fanatics at the Heritage Foundation. If you haven’t yet had the misfortune of perusing Project 2025 and its plans to make all of our lives unspeakably worse, here are some of the low-lights:

• Ban abortion and contraception nationwide

• Eliminate student debt cancelation programs and reject safeguards for students against predatory student loan providers

• Make housing even more expensive and difficult to obtain

• Remove basic workplace protections and allow employers to deny overtime pay

• Allow polluters to destroy our air and water

Yikes. We were so horrified by this plan that we, along with our partners at Court Accountability Action, launched the Project2025.WTF campaign to ensure that voters everywhere understand the stakes of this election. Project2025.wtf is backed by a six-figure ad campaign, featuring digital ads, guerrilla marketing, and creative activations, including mobile billboards that are circling Capitol Hill and the Heritage Foundation’s headquarters to call attention to the alarming policies in Project 2025. 

But it is critically important that younger, college-aged voters in particular are aware of the havoc a second Trump presidency will wreak. This plan goes at the heart of their futures, and they deserve better. That’s why UFD is mobilizing young voters in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — collectively known as the “Blue Wall” — at college football’s biggest games. We’re handing out condoms and koozies directing people to Project2025.WTF, and making sure that college voters are aware of the Supreme Court’s role in laying the groundwork for the radical policy agenda of a potential second Trump term. 

Last weekend, we were at the Penn State vs. Wisconsin game as well as the Michigan vs. Michigan State games, and we’re not stopping there. This Saturday we’ll be tailgating at the Ohio State vs. Penn State game in State College, PA.

We can deliver a win for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, and we can defeat Trump again. We can do it by making it plain just how dangerous a Trump administration for ourselves, our communities, and our futures. 

If you’re in State College tomorrow, come find us!

Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose,

- Dan Kalik, Senior Advisor, United for Democracy

There are only 11 days left until Election Day, and the stakes are higher than they’ve ever been. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz represent a forward-looking vision for our country’s future, where we can restore access to abortion, protect access to contraception, protect LGBTQ+ rights, not to mention restoring the government’s ability to regulate polluters to protect our air and water, workplace protections, and gun safety.

Donald Trump represents…well, fascism. It’s easy to dismiss Trump as unserious, what with his hours-long rallies about Arnold Palmer’s anatomy; his claims that the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter is not just a real person, but a “wonderful man”; his monologues about his fear of sharks; and whatever else he’s reading about on Truth Social. But Donald Trump is not (just) deeply unserious. He’s a dangerous authoritarian who has already severely damaged our democratic institutions, like stacking the Supreme Court with like-minded MAGA justices who have implemented his agenda even after he was voted out of office in 2020. 

If Trump is re-elected, he’ll likely get the chance to confirm at least three more justices to the bench over the next four years, and they will gladly push the deeply unpopular plans from Project 2025, much to our detriment. We cannot let that happen. 

That’s why UFD and Court Accountability Now launched a new website that takes an unflinching look at Project 2025, the policy blueprint created by the far-right​ ​Heritage Foundation and endorsed by former President Trump. Project2025.wtf is backed by a six-figure ad campaign, featuring digital ads, guerrilla marketing, and creative activations, including mobile billboards that are circling Capitol Hill and the Heritage Foundation’s headquarters to call attention to the alarming policies in Project 2025. 

That’s not all. UFD is also ramping up our efforts to turn out young voters in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — the “Blue Wall” —  by meeting young people where they are: Big10 college football games. This bold, on-the-ground campaign is kicking off at three major college games, and will educate voters about the dangers of Project 2025 by blanketing these games with posters, signs, merch, and distribution of thousands of branded condoms and koozies.

With so much at stake, and so much uncertainty ahead, we wanted to make sure that this issue of Majority Opinions captures the same joy that Vice President Harris and Governor Walz have tried to infuse their campaign with. We have essays about their forward-looking vision, including what our judiciary might look like under their leadership. This is our chance to fight for a better democracy, better institutions, and a better Supreme Court. We are proud to stand alongside all of you in this fight.

-Stasha Rhodes, Executive Director, United for Democracy

This Is Our Opportunity to Help Kamala Harris Reshape Our Courts

Adapted from remarks by Chris Kang, former Chief Counsel of Demand Justice and former Deputy White House Counsel to President Obama

I've been working on judicial nominations for a long time–all the way back to fighting George W. Bush's right-wing judicial nominees, when I worked on the Senate Judiciary Committee for Senator Dick Durbin. Back when judicial nominees were important to coalitions like this one, but not on most progressives’ radar at all. But now, we’re in a moment of incredible opportunity when it comes to fighting for our courts.

I know it doesn’t necessarily feel that way because our rights are under constant attack from the right-wing MAGA justices and judges on the Supreme Court and throughout our lower courts. But we are not helpless to stop them. Because these justices have overstepped so far beyond the Constitution and the rule of law–overturning not only Roe v Wade but other important rights around gun violence prevention, a cleaner environment, and the ability to join a union–voters are more aware of the judiciary and the effect it has on all of our lives–and the role we can play in fighting back.

We have the opportunity now to talk to our neighbors, friends, and community about the courts, how to fix them, and which presidential candidate is best suited for the job. There is no question that candidate is Kamala Harris.

This is a compelling issue for us. Last month, a poll showed that 73% of Harris voters said that Supreme Court appointments are “very important to their vote” — second only to health care, and even higher than the economy! — overwhelming the only 54% of Trump voters who identify the Court as very important to their vote.

In fact, a majority of Americans now disapprove of the Supreme Court. This is the least popular Supreme Court in our history, and not just among Democrats, but among all Americans. By wide margins, Americans now understand the reality that these justices make decisions based on politics and not the law.

The American people know that we can’t have a functioning democracy if one of the branches of our government is broken, and right now the judiciary is in desperate need of repair. In response, President Biden has come out in support of Supreme Court reforms–the first time a sitting president has done so in generations. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz agree with this call for commonsense, structural reforms to the Supreme Court to impose term limits and an enforceable code of ethics.

This is our opportunity. When we think about what this bright sky future of governing could look like, it could look like finally rebalancing the power in government. Over the past couple decades, the Supreme Court has been grabbing more and more power away from the other branches of government. The MAGA justices say that the legislative branch can't legislate on issues from voting rights to gun violence prevention. They say that the executive branch can't do anything about climate change or immigration or a host of other regulatory issues. The MAGA justices are taking all this power for the judiciary, granting themselves the power to veto anything outside their far right agenda. And they are taking power away from the other two branches of government, which are the ones actually accountable to the American people.

We can and will fight back. This is a big picture, huge bright sky moment. And it reflects not just the importance of bringing balance to our democracy, but how far we've come with this opportunity to chart our course forward. The reality is, we can’t move forward at all if Donald Trump is re-elected. We have a chance for real reform, and a more equitable judiciary, if we fight for a Harris-Walz administration and for Senators and Representatives who will support it..

While the movement for structural Court reform continues to build, the most important way in which we can change the courts is by rebalancing our lower courts. Just look at the math (sorry) – there are actually about 870 lifetime federal judges across the judiciary, even though we spend almost all our time thinking about just nine. Those nine might be the most important, but we have to look at the other 861, too. Each president can appoint more than 230 of these judges – a quarter of our lifetime judges – in a single term.

Think about the extremist judges that have unfortunately become household names: Aileen Cannon, Matthew Kacsmaryk, Reed O'Connor, and James Ho. These are the MAGA loyalists who are at the front line of chipping away at our rights and undermining our democracy. Not every case makes it to the Supreme Court, but every case starts in front of a judge just like these. The person picking these judges matters. With Donald Trump, we could very well get 200 more Matthew Kacsmaryks: fanatical partisans with no fealty to the law. Just think: a majority of our lifetime federal judges could be appointed by Trump. But with Vice President Harris, we could get 200 Ketanji Brown Jacksons: brilliant, measured jurists committed to democracy. The stakes could not be more clear.

Republicans understand how important the lower courts are in protecting and advancing their unpopular agenda. That’s why they blocked dozens of President Obama’s incredibly qualified nominees during his presidency–strictly so they could leave those vacancies open for Donald Trump to fill–and then helped Trump set modern day judicial confirmation records, filling 234  seats with his wildly unqualified, extreme judges.

This is a massive problem, but it is one I know that Vice President Kamala Harris can tackle with the same thoughtfulness and rigor she always does. 

Vice President Harris has been in the courtroom more than any other president in a long time. As a former prosecutor, she knows what makes a good judge and what makes a bad judge. She knows the importance of ensuring justice and equality and the need for diversity on our courts, including diversity of experience.

I remember the first time I met Vice President Harris. She was a senator then, and I was serving as Chief Counsel at Demand Justice. Demand Justice had just launched a month prior, but we were already busy fighting against Trump’s worst judicial nominees. We hosted a rally to fight the confirmation of Thomas Farr, a former chief counsel for Jesse Helms who had orchestrated voter suppression tactics in North Carolina. We reached out to then-Senator Harris’s office and said, “There’s probably no chance you’ve heard of us, but we really admire your leadership in fighting Thomas Farr’s nomination and would like to invite you to lead our rally with civil rights organizations.” And the response was, “Sign me up.”

Kamala Harris showed up just like she always does, to fight for better courts, and she helped lead the successful fight to stop Farr from being confirmed to be a lifetime federal judge.

Those are the kind of values and principles we saw every time then-Senator Harris turned her mic on in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Whether it was questioning Brett Kavanaugh or Jeff Sessions or Amy Coney Barrett, you could clearly see her values in the way that she looks at the law and the way she understands its impact on our everyday lives. That's the integrity and strength she'll bring as president.

When I was in the Obama administration, I was excited about the progress we made when it came to diversifying the bench. More than 40% of President Obama’s judicial nominees were women, and more than a third were people of color. That was a 50% improvement over President Clinton’s record, and it took a lot of work, so I thought that it wouldn’t be easy to top. But then President Biden and Vice President Harris showed what commitment to diversity on the bench could really look like: more than 60% of their judges have been women, and nearly 60% have been people of color.

By contrast, and in a completely unsurprising turn of events, 84% of Donald Trump's judges were white, and 76% of them were men.

President Biden and Vice President Harris also have prioritized a diversity of legal experience in their judges and have successfully increased the number of judges who have represented individual people and not just corporations. They have prioritized civil rights and legal aid lawyers, public defenders, and lawyers who have experience fighting for reproductive justice, unions, and consumer safety. We need to carry forward this revolutionary shift in the kinds of judges sitting in our federal courts.

With our help, Vice President Harris and Governor Walz can continue to appoint judges who will follow the Constitution and restore the rights we have lost, and in turn restore our faith in the judiciary as a functional branch of our government. 

Every single issue you, your friends, and your neighbors care about are all at risk with a MAGA Supreme Court and judiciary that is more interested in doing favors for the wealthy than protecting everyday Americans. Everything from reproductive freedom to voting rights to  climate change to gun violence prevention to economic fairness is at risk in our judiciary, where MAGA judges and justices could have the final say

Our job for the next few weeks before Election Day is to connect the dots for voters and make sure they know that a Harris-Walz administration is the only way to fix our judiciary, and therefore protect our freedoms. 

This is our opportunity. Let’s take it.

I’m a State Representative in Minnesota. Governor Walz’s record on judicial nominees will be a huge asset to a future Harris Administration.

By: Representative Emma Greenman, member of the Minnesota House of Representatives

This is an exciting time to be a Minnesotan. For the last two years, we’ve had a DFL (Minnesota’s Democratic Farmer Labor Party) trifecta in our state government, which has allowed us to advance a significant number of our long-standing priorities, including protecting reproductive freedom, advancing voting rights, improving economic justice, and looking at ways we can make structural changes in our government and in our state judiciary so that middle class families, working class families, and just regular folks are the ones calling the shots in our governing decisions – not big corporations.  

We are overjoyed that, with the Vice President Harris’s selection of our Governor Tim Walz as her partner on the ticket, we can bring some of Minnesota’s energy and progressive policy work to the rest of the country. 

One of the underreported aspects of Gov. Walz’s tenure that’s worth paying attention to, and that’s his commitment to a more equitable judiciary in our state, a goal that he has achieved with a series of highly-qualified and diverse nominees to the bench. 

Minnesota uses a de facto hybrid system when choosing its judges, meaning that while there are non-partisan judicial elections and when a judge leaves the bench mid-term, the Governor has the power to appoint replacements. Those appointed judges then run as incumbents on the ballot and are often retained through judicial elections, which is why the Governor’s process for selection and judicial appointments are so important. Walz’s picks have been exceptional, and it’s been incredibly heartening to see his judicial philosophy and his values shape our courts. He is not a lawyer, and yet he understands how critical these appointments are better than many. Frankly, the fact that he isn’t a lawyer is something of an asset – it means he listens intently to the grassroots, legal experts, and regular Minnesotans to ensure their values are represented in our judiciary.

Gov. Walz’s judicial selections fit squarely into his “One Minnesota” plan, which aims to “improve the lives of all Minnesotans by working collaboratively to implement policies that achieve results.” His nominees are a diverse set of candidates across the board: demographically, geographically, and professionally. Having that full set of experiences that reflect more closely the lives of the Minnesotans who may find themselves in front of these judges means a lot to Minnesotans, and serves to build legitimacy and trust in the bench.

When it comes to Walz’s commitment to diversity, the proof is really in the pudding. In the last six years of his governorship, Walz has made 121 appointments, which accounts for 37% of the entire judicial branch. At the district court level. 60% of his appointments have been women. Twenty-five percent of Walz’s nominees have been people of color, and they have been appointed from all across Minnesota, ensuring geographical diversity across the state.

Governor Walz has also:

• Appointed the first woman of color to serve as the Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court - Justice Natalie Hudson 

• Appointed the first Native American woman to the Minnesota Supreme Court - Justice Anne McKeig 

• Appointed a majority-female Minnesota Supreme Court

When I think about the people I want on the court making decisions about campaign finance laws and money in politics, criminal justice, reproductive rights, workers’ rights, and so many other critical issues, I want to know that we have judges who have experience working on these issues and not just the typical background in corporate lawyering or criminal prosecution. 

This matters, because the courts – federal and state – are intertwined with the ongoing health of our democracy. At a time when the federal judiciary – currently stacked with Trump appointees more interested in extreme right-wing ideology and doing favors for corporations and the wealthy few – is issuing rulings designed to undermine our democratic processes and the freedom to vote, Gov. Walz has ensured that the Minnesota courts will stand as a firewall for voting rights, democracy, and fairness. 

For example, in the last two years with our DFL trifecta, our legislature passed dozens of democracy bills, many of which I authored, including the Minnesota Voting Rights Act, restoring the right to vote for folks on probation and parole, automatic voter registration, a prohibition against deceptive practices, and election interference prevention policies. We also passed a set of provisions to get money out of our politics including requiring disclosure of dark money spending and banning foreign-influenced corporations from spending to influence voters. 

Naturally, our progress in the legislative process provoked a loud response from wealthy, dark money actors with unpopular agendas who can’t win through normal, small-d democratic means so they sue to overturn the provisions in federal court. Not unlike Project 2025 and other unpopular MAGA policies, what they are pushing is unpopular and would never win in the court of public opinion. 

These forces rely on dark money to try and influence political outcomes through other means, and often rely on the courts to do their dirty work for them. Dark money groups have had success in federal courts, thanks to some well-placed MAGA judges, but they have been less successful interfering with popular policy in Minnesota courts. Our courts have upheld our voting rights restoration policy and they’ve rejected attacks on provisions protecting voters from deceptive practices in our elections. 

In Minnesota, thanks to Gov. Walz’s nominees, we can trust that the legal outcomes issued by our courts will be fair and rooted within a valid legal and constitutional framework. 

But we know that our progress still faces threats in the federal courts. That’s why it’s so important to support a ticket that has an established record in nominating and confirming judges who are committed to the law, the constitution, and to our democracy. That’s what a Harris-Walz administration offers. 

I’ve seen Gov. Walz’s commitment to the judiciary up close, and now he will bring those same Minnesota values as Vice President. 

Rep. Emma Greenman represents the communities of South Minneapolis (District 63B) in the Minnesota House of Representatives. She is a voting rights lawyer with over 15 years of experience working on democracy and justice issues as an attorney, a policy expert, and an advocate. In the Minnesota legislature, she is the chief author of the Democracy for the People Act and a leader in the effort to expand democratic participation and rights in our workplaces, our communities, and our government. Before entering the legislature, she led the Center for Popular Democracy’s national voting rights and democracy program. Rep. Greenman also practiced law as a public defender and as a civil litigator and holds a law degree from UC Berkeley School of Law, a Master in Public Administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, a BA from George Washington University, and is a proud Minneapolis South High graduate.

If there’s one thing that’s become crystal clear these past few years, it’s that conservatives are far ahead when it comes to translating Americans’ displeasure over Supreme Court decisions into winning issues in their campaigns and top priorities for their elected officials. Progressives are far behind on this work, but we have an opportunity to turn this around – and we can’t afford to let it go to waste.

We must spend these next months shouting from the rooftops: President Trump and his MAGA allies created and empowered this broken and corrupt Supreme Court, and if you don’t like what they’re doing to our country – you have the power to change it. 

Yesterday we saw a great example of this in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania as teachers, students, advocates, workers, and community leaders joined together to raise awareness of how the broken Supreme Court has eliminated our right to abortion, made it harder to prevent school shootings, allowed massive corporations to pollute our air and water, helped politicians suppress people's votes, and so much more — all while accepting lavish 'gifts' from their billionaire donors. And with one strong voice, these Pennsylvanians called on Congress to stop this relentless power grab – and fix the broken Court.

Today’s issue of Majority Opinions is dedicated to uplifting key voices and their perspectives on how they believe the movement should connect these dots for people across the country, why that is so important, and what is at stake. Because we – all of us – have the power to make sure the MAGA Republicans who own this broken and corrupt Supreme Court are held accountable in ways that will make a real difference this year, next year, and beyond. And we are so excited to stand by your side for this critical work in the months ahead.

- Stasha Rhodes, Campaign Director of United For Democracy

Republicans control the Supreme Court. It’s time to make them own it.

By: Jamison Foser, Progressive strategist and an advisor to Take Back The Court Action Fund

Republican appointees have constituted a majority of the Supreme Court for 55 consecutive years, and – thanks to an unprecedented scheme by Mitch McConnell and the GOP that resulted in Donald Trump appointing fully a third of the current court – now hold a 6-3 supermajority on the court. From gutting voting rights to overturning Roe v Wade’s guarantee of abortion rights, the Supreme Court’s right-wing supermajority acts as both the legal department and policy department of the RNC, helping Republicans win elections and imposing their narrow ideological agenda on the rest of us even when they lose. Republicans are fully in control of the Supreme Court, and they’re using it ruthlessly. 

Now Democrats must make Republicans own the court electorally, too – by campaigning aggressively against the Supreme Court and making clear Republican candidates are responsible for the court’s deeply unpopular decisions that hurt everyday Americans and its flagrant corruption that gives the justices’ billionaire benefactors exclusive VIP access. 

The court as an institution is deeply unpopular among a broad swath of the electorate: Disapproval of the Supreme Court exceeds 60 percent among Democrats, Independents, liberals, and moderates – everyone except Republicans, more than 60 percent of whom approve of the court. Individual justices – particularly Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and Samuel Alito – make for classic campaign villains, issuing cruel and unpopular decisions while hobnobbing with billionaires on all-expenses-paid luxury vacations. All of that adds up to a rare opportunity for Democrats to appeal to the left and the center simultaneously with an aggressive campaign critique of the Supreme Court. It can be both a persuasion and a turnout message – and because Republican candidates and voters like the court and revere justices like Clarence Thomas, GOP candidates can’t easily co-opt or duck such a critique. 

Most importantly, campaigning against the Supreme Court complements the Democrats’ key campaign themes and messages, from issues like abortion and environmental protection to government corruption to democracy. Telling voters the truth about how the GOP uses the courts to seize and wield power is a way to hold accountable Republican politicians who deploy the courts to do their dirty work – and it can even add credibility to Democrats’ policy solutions.

Take abortion for example. The GOP’s desperate attempts to run and hide from their own past actions and future plans to ban abortion illustrate both the benefits of campaigning against the court and the risks of failing to do so. A recent Data for Progress poll found that while half of likely voters hold the Supreme Court responsible for new abortion bans, only a third hold state and congressional Republicans responsible and a mere 24 percent hold Trump responsible – not much more than the 14 percent who hold Joe Biden responsible. 

Telling voters clearly and consistently what the Supreme Court and other GOP-dominated courts have done to dismantle abortion rights – and that Republicans packed the courts for that exact reason – can help ensure voters know who to hold accountable. And by vowing to reform and democratize the court, Democrats can show they take the harm the court has done seriously and have solutions sufficient to the scale of the problem. Responses to harmful court decisions like codifying Roe or passing a new Voting Rights Act are important steps to slow the right-wing assault on our rights – but because they are subject to judicial review by the same court, they aren’t sufficient. If the only responses Democrats offer to the court’s harmful decisions are solutions that are themselves vulnerable to the right-wing court, Democrats risk appearing short-sighted and weak to some voters. By campaigning against the court, and embracing court reform, they can show they take the harm the court does seriously, and are prepared to do what is necessary to reverse it.

The right-wing Supreme Court has already done immeasurable harm to the American people – just as the GOP intended. Democrats have already benefited from voter outrage about some of the court’s decisions, particularly on abortion. In order to maximize that benefit, they must leave no doubt that the court is simply an arm of the Republican Party, doing what Republicans running for office intended it to do.

18th-Century Democracy Doesn’t Work For Our 21st-Century Country

By: Steph Sterling, Executive Director of Democracy Revival Center

Our political system is broken. We’re not just encountering some turbulence. The problem isn’t simply that our elected leaders aren’t good enough. It’s not even just former President Trump, the MAGA movement, or their very real threats of authoritarianism. It’s far bigger than that – and until we address the widening cracks in the foundation of our political system, with solutions that match the scale of the problem, it’s only going to get worse. 

The Supreme Court is a perfect example of how our 18th century democracy is simply no longer working for our 21st century country. When the Dobbs ruling was handed down in 2022, people across the country were shocked. Even those of us who had been fighting for reproductive rights for years, and who knew something like this was coming, were forced to grapple with the impact this ruling would have on millions of people across the country–and what it meant  for the political system far too many of us had thought we could count on to protect our rights. 

The Dobbs ruling may have been this Supreme Court’s most high-profile case, but it was not the only case even that year in which the extreme majority made a mockery of our democracy. During the 2021 term, the Court issued Bruen, which invented a new constitutional right to carry a gun. They struck down environmental regulations by creating a new doctrine, the “major questions doctrine,” which the Supreme Court can now use to invalidate virtually any regulation significant enough to generate political contestation. And in the years since, those attacks have and will only continue – on voting rights, on workers’ rights to organize, LGBT+ rights, and so much more. 

This Supreme Court supermajority is able to rewrite our nation’s laws and overrule the will of the people despite the fact that half of them were nominated by a president who lost the popular vote and confirmed by a Senate majority that represented significantly fewer Americans than the minority. And when this illegitimate majority eliminated the right to abortion, they had the gall to declare in their decision that, in the name of democracy, “it is time to return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.” 

The reality is that we have a political system that consistently fails to translate the will of the people into policy. Our current political system gives white, rural voters disproportionate power and dilutes the power of Black and Latino voters. It gives undue power to an authoritarian minority and makes it harder for the feminist, multiracial majority we’ve become to enact our popular agenda. It is structurally biased towards the interests of the wealthy elite and prevents the working class from claiming their fair share of the economy. And, with the help of this Supreme Court majority, it’s breaking down faster and faster – and hurting more and more people as it does. 

Americans know that something is deeply wrong. According to recent polling, only 4% of Americans say the political system is working extremely or very well. Nearly three-quarters say it isn’t working well or at all. And 85% of Americans believe the political system needs major changes or to be entirely reformed.

So we are in a moment when the American people are open to a conversation about our broken Supreme Court and the cracks in our democracy’s foundation that allowed its majority’s extreme and unpopular agenda to be imposed upon us. We shouldn’t shy away from this or offer solutions that wouldn’t credibly meet the scale of the problem. We must demand action – to reform this broken Supreme Court, to fix the cracks in the foundations of our democracy, and to return power to the people it’s been stolen from.

• Stop The Relentless Power Grab: Virtual Community Kickoff. Join organizers, advocates, and community members from across the country on Wednesday, April 24 at 8:00 pm ET to leverage the power in our collective voice and demand our members of Congress show they stand with us, not the MAGA justices, by committing to fix the broken and corrupt Court. Spread the word with our toolkit here, RSVP here, and tune in here.  

• May SCOTUS Coordinating Call. Join United For Democracy for our monthly, off-the-record Coordinating Call on Wednesday, May 15, at 12:30 pm ET to get the toplines on what’s moving at the Court and how you can engage. 

• Messaging the Moment:  

  • Since then-President Trump appointed three justices to the Supreme Court, the MAGA supermajority has overturned abortion rights, weakened voter access, blocked student loan relief, made it harder to fight the climate crisis, easier to put guns back in our communities, and so much more. 

  • Now, the Supreme Court’s MAGA supermajority threatens to use their power to rewrite the rules in favor of special interests, billionaires, and major corporations — helping the ultra rich get richer and the powerful gain more power — at the expense of the American people. This is a relentless power grab in action. 

  • We deserve better — a Court that serves as the protector of our democracy, guardian of our fundamental freedoms, and that puts our communities above the profits and political agendas of an elite few. And better is possible.

  • Congress has a choice: Stand with their constituents by committing to fix the Supreme Court OR stand with the MAGA justices by enabling them to do more harm to our communities.  

  • Stop the relentless power grab. Power back to the people. 

• Tweeting the Moment.  

  • With three Trump-appointed justices, the Supreme Court is rewriting the rules to help the ultra rich & powerful get richer & more powerful.

  • The American people are done paying the price of this #RelentlessPowerGrab.

  • It's time Congress commits to fixing the broken Court.

• #JusticeCantWait. As the Supreme Court prepares to hear Trump v. United States — the immunity case the justices should have never agreed to hear — add your voice to the call for a ‘decision by May 20 to ensure justice delayed does not become democracy destroyed.’ On Thursday, April 25 join Women’s March at 9:30 am outside the Supreme Court for their Feminists v. Fascists rally and participate in Court Accountability’s online day of action by posting on social media with the help of this toolkit. 

• Abortion Always, Abortion Is Health Care. Join the National Women’s Law Center outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday, April 24 at 9:00 am to protect EMTALA (The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act) and call to safeguard pregnant individuals’ rights to access emergency abortion care. RSVP here. 

• Housing Not Handcuffs. Today, the Supreme Court will hear Johnson v. Grants Pass, which will decide whether cities can arrest and fine people for things like sleeping outside with a pillow or blanket, even when there are no safe shelter options. Join The National Homelessness Law Center and the National Coalition for the Homeless outside the Court today at 10:00 am for their main rally. RSVP here. 

• Hill Happenings. Senate Majority Leader Schumer led the introduction of the End Judge Shopping Act; Chairman Dick Durbin’s Senate Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena to Leonard Leo; and Senator Joe Manchin shared his support for Supreme Court term limits. This comes as the Supreme Court prepares to issue its decisions in a series of cases — including many sent up from the Fifth Circuit, which functions as the shining example of judge shopping under Trump-appointee Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk — that could further strip Americans of our rights and freedoms. 

• Medical Providers Perspective. Last week, the Center for American Progress hosted a discussion with physician storytellers from Idaho and Ohio on the criminalization of abortion care, the future of EMTALA, and how the interference of the U.S. Supreme Court in their daily medical practice has changed their personal and professional lives. Watch here.

• Stop the Relentless Power Grab. Protect Our Freedoms and Families. On Sunday, April 21, Action Together NEPA brought neighbors, teachers, students, advocates, workers, and community leaders together for a rally in Public Square in Wilkes-Barre, PA. During the event, speakers shared their stories about the impact that Supreme Court decisions have had on their families and communities, and called on Congress to fix the Court. Check out photos from the event here. 

• The New York Times, Laura Riley, April 21, 2024: “Do Not Make Survival Even More Difficult for People on the Streets”

• Huffpost, Alanna Vagianos, April 21, 2024: “The Supreme Court Is About To Debate Whether States Can Outlaw Life-Saving Abortions”

• USA Today, Maureen Groppe, April 20, 2024: “On the heels of historic Volkswagen union vote, Starbucks asks Supreme Court to curb labor's power”

• The Washington Examiner, Kaelan Deese, April 18, 2024: “McConnell’s ‘force of will’ shaped the federal judiciary” 

• The American Prospect, Hassan Ali Kanu, April 15, 2024: “America’s Fifth Circuit Problem”

• CNN, Melissa Quinn, April 15, 2024: “Supreme Court allows Idaho to enforce ban on gender-affirming care for nearly all transgender minors for now”

• Vox, Ian Milhiser, April 15, 2024: “The Supreme Court effectively abolishes the right to mass protest in three US states”

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There are few areas in which this broken and corrupt Supreme Court has impacted people’s lives more than their right to control their bodies, health care decisions, and access to reproductive care.

Thankfully there are incredible reproductive rights, health, and justice leaders who have been guiding and leading our communities through these ongoing attacks on abortion access and reproductive freedom.

Today’s issue of Majority Opinions features the thoughts and perspectives of just a few of those leaders. And we, at United for Democracy, are more energized than ever to stand by their side and make it clear to this Supreme Court and the politicians who enable them that we’re fighting back.

- Stasha Rhodes, Campaign Director of United For Democracy

The Mifepristone Case is About Control

By: Alexis McGill Johnson, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund

Tomorrow, yet again, the U.S. Supreme Court will be asked to consider a case that will determine millions of people’s ability to control their own bodies and lives. The Court is hearing arguments in a case that could restrict access to mifepristone, one of two medications used in more than half of abortions in the U.S. 

Mifepristone was approved by the FDA more than 20 years ago, and more than 5 million people have used it to safely and effectively end early pregnancies. Patients often choose medication abortion because it allows them to end their pregnancies early, on their own schedule, and in the privacy of their own home. When given information about all their options, nearly 70% of abortion patients at Planned Parenthood health centers choose medication abortion instead of in-clinic abortion. 

And as some lawmakers succeed in putting up more barriers to abortion, mifepristone is essential to protecting access to care. In 19 states where abortion is still legal, Planned Parenthood affiliates provide medication abortion via telehealth, allowing people who live far from health centers in those states to get the care they need without taking the time and resources to travel. This also means more appointments are available in health centers for people who need or want in-clinic abortions — desperately needed since the Court’s Dobbs decision.

If the Court sides with the anti-abortion groups bringing these cases, and rolls back access to mifepristone, it will close these avenues for abortion care nationwide. As they have closed so many others. Women, trans and nonbinary people are running out of options. We need our leaders — in elected office, business, media, art, and culture — to understand the stakes of this case and others, like the EMTALA case about providing emergency care to pregnant people also at the Supreme Court this term. These are all fronts in the same fight for basic freedom.

We know, and the Court knows, that the American people do not want abortion to be banned. The anti-abortion groups trying to take mifepristone off the shelves know that the majority of Americans want it to stay available. And while some anti-abortion lawmakers and politicians claim they would be content to ban abortion at 15 or 16 weeks of pregnancy, these groups are trying to end access to the method used for the majority of abortions before 11 weeks. There is no line they won’t cross.

Absolutely nothing about the safety or effectiveness of mifepristone has changed in the more than two decades since the FDA approved it. In fact, there has since been additional research about its safety and efficacy, in telemedicine and otherwise. It’s under attack now only because of the control it gives people over their bodies. It’s under attack for the same reason that IVF, birth control, gender-affirming care, and preventive care at Planned Parenthood health centers are under attack — because this is how women, trans and nonbinary people take control of our bodies.

It’s not about health or safety. It’s about control. It always has been.

Reproductive Freedom is on SCOTUS’s Docket Again—and So Is Its Legitimacy

By: Mini Timmaraju, President and CEO of Reproductive Freedom For All

Over the next six weeks, the Supreme Court will hear two cases on abortion that could further block access to care nationwide. 

As we call attention to the impact these decisions will have on our lives, rights, and futures, we also need to recognize we didn’t get here by accident. These latest attacks on reproductive freedom exemplify the right-wing strategy of rigging the game to advance their extreme, unpopular agenda through the courts—no matter the cost. 

These cases landed before the Supreme Court following years of plotting from Trump and MAGA Republicans, who spent four years stacking the federal judiciary with ideologues to overturn Roe v. Wade and ensure that they maintained power. Their ploy was part of the GOP’s decades-long strategy to get their way—and it was an attack on our democracy, plain and simple.

Anti-abortion extremists never planned to stop after overturning Roe. Three months after the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion, GOP operatives were eager to press their advantage. They formed the anti-abortion Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM), which filed lawsuits threatening access to mifepristone, one of two medications used in medication abortion. 

AHM is, simply put, a sham organization comprised of discredited extremists hawking pseudoscience. It is a coalition of anti-abortion organizations that have received millions in funding from Leonard Leo—a well-known architect of the GOP’s co-opting of our judicial system. And the lawyers arguing on their defense are from the Alliance for Defending Freedom (ADF), a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group that drafted and defended

Mississippi’s abortion ban in Dobbs—the case that ended the federal right to abortion. 

ADF has perfected the tactic of manufacturing lawsuits, choosing to file in a court where it was practically guaranteed to go before a sympathetic judge—like Trump-appointee Matthew Kacsmaryk in the Fifth Circuit—and then watching as cases far outside the mainstream move all the way up to a sympathetic majority on the Supreme Court. 

This baseless lawsuit seeking to block access to a safe and effective medication is a symptom of a larger problem. The Supreme Court’s anti-abortion supermajority has opened the floodgates to attacks on our fundamental rights, signaling to Trump-appointed judges and anti-abortion extremists that there is no legal strategy too extreme to pursue.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs already proved that its conservative justices cannot be trusted to hand down fair and impartial decisions. Far-right megadonors puppeteer its majority, even as scandal after scandal comes to light,  exposing serious conflicts of interest among the justices. 

Meanwhile, the American people continue to suffer the reckless and dangerous consequences of the Supreme Court’s actions as 21 states and counting have eliminated or restricted access because of abortion bans.

We can’t and we won’t allow extremists to continue manipulating the courts to impose their anti-abortion agenda on our country. We need Supreme Court reform, including Court expansion— full stop.

The Case for Imagination

By: Nourbese Flint, President of All* Above All

Not since the Jackson 5 era has abortion been so restricted, nor has the overall sense of dread been felt by communities across America. Ahead of a consequential election, it can feel hard to imagine what it means to create the conditions for all people to achieve their full potential, and even harder to weave into our hearts and minds how democracy and abortion access play a major part in that future. What I stress is that this is exactly the time we should be dreaming and then implementing strategies to push us closer to this world. To quote one of my favorite fantasy shows, “Chaos is a ladder, and all we can do is climb it.” We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to not only define what we are against but to push toward a future that is inclusive of the communities that are left behind by our current systems. In the ashes of Roe v. Wade, and as we struggle to hold on to the last threads of our democracy, we are faced with a decision—do we build back what was, or lay out a new future? 

Even with Roe, abortion access leading up to Dobbs was dodgy at best. Targeted Regulations of Abortion Providers, known as TRAP laws, coverage bans, forced waiting periods, so-called “fetal personhood,” criminalization of pregnancy loss, forced parental and spousal notifications, and other bans and restrictions have made abortion access impossible for some, extremely hard for many, and outright dangerous for others. Coupled with the Hyde Amendment, which since 1976 has denied insurance coverage of abortion care for people covered by the federal government, it’s clear that Roe was never enough. But because it was what we had, we worked with it, around it, and oftentimes despite it to ensure people could get the care that they needed and deserved. Now is the perfect time for us to reimagine what abortion care can and should be like.

Furthermore, what was once implicit about the link between abortion access and democracy is now explicit, something reproductive justice leaders have always connected. 

My colleague Lourdes Rivera, President of Pregnancy Justice, laid it out plainly, “Abortion bans and fetal personhood seek to control women; to surveil, criminalize and further marginalize those who are deemed a threat to prevailing hierarchies; and diminish their ability to participate in public and civic life by establishing legal and constitutional protections for fetuses that are being denied to them — a threat to democracy as clear as day.”

Certainly, our once thriving democracy is hanging on by a thread. A recent Pew Research Center report shows that trust in government is at an all-time low. The majority of people are angered and frustrated, experiencing the government as not working for them. And in many ways, it’s not. Even with more money in the progressive movement, technological advancements, and a shifting cultural narrative, disparities remain for communities of color that move them further away from a thriving, equitable society rather than closer to it. 

The powers that be want us to believe that the future just happens, that the systems we live in are intrinsic and there is not much we can do about it. Dr. Ruha Benjamin, a professor, writer, and activist at Princeton University, offers another frame, “I want us to take seriously the notion that there are, in fact, competing imaginaries that are fighting over our collective future. The incredible filmmaker, Alex Rivera, put it best: ‘The battle over real power tomorrow begins with the struggle over who gets to dream today.’”

In the wreckage of what was, we have an opportunity to design new systems that work for our communities. To galvanize people around what it means to live in a society where people have the rights and dignity to choose whether, if, when, how, and with whom they start a family. To live in a society that is supported by a truly representative government. This requires bold action to end the Hyde Amendment; support comprehensive solutions for abortion access like the Abortion Justice Act; pass comprehensive democracy reform, including removing the filibuster; invest in making access to voting easier; and, court reform.  

There is no progress without vision, and all good visions start with imagination. Our communities are counting on us to imagine boldly. The urgency of this moment demands it.

• April SCOTUS Coordinating Call. Join United For Democracy for our monthly, off-the-record Coordinating Call on Wednesday, April 17, at 12:30 pm ET to get the toplines on what’s moving at the Court and how you can engage. 

• Messaging the Moment: 

  • In FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the MAGA justices are once again in a position to ignore fact and precedent and could undermine access to safe, effective abortion medication.

  • This case never should have made it this far, and it didn’t happen by accident. As Donald Trump appointed three right-wing justices to the Supreme Court jammed the lower courts with MAGA judges, extreme right-wing megadonors and judicial activists got ready to move their extreme agenda through our judicial system — including by propping up sham organizations like Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine.

  • Now, from threatening access to mifepristone to using the lower courts to try to shut down Planned Parenthood in Texas, anti-abortion politicians and right-wing judicial activists are weaponizing our courts to push an agenda the vast majority of Americans reject, including restricting access to reproductive health care.  

• Tweeting the Moment: From threatening access to mifepristone to trying to shut down Planned Parenthood in TX, anti-abortion politicians & activists are weaponizing our courts to push their anti-abortion agenda. Reproductive freedom will remain under attack unless Congress reins in the Court.

• Rally For Mifepristone. Tomorrow, Tuesday, March 26 from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm ET, as the justices hear oral arguments in FDA v. Alliance Health Medicine, join the ACLU, Center for Popular Democracy, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and Reproductive Freedom For All outside the Supreme Court to rally for abortion access. RSVP here. 

• We Need Court Reform. Reproductive Freedom For All is circulating a ‘We Need Court Reform’ petition to protect reproductive freedom, safeguard our democracy, and restore trust in our courts. Add your voice here. 

• 263 Members of Congress. ICYMI, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (WA) led 263 Members of Congress in submitting an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in the mifepristone case. Read more here and watch the Senators’ video amplifying their message here. 

• Far-Right Forces Behind Mifepristone Challenge. Accountable.US, Alliance for Justice, and the Lawyering Project hosted a press call to dissect the alarming tactics that Leonard-Leo backed legal group Alliance Defending Freedom employs in its tried and tested strategy of manufacturing lawsuits to advance its right-wing agenda — this time to severely restrict access to the widely-used abortion pill. Watch here. 

• In a Post-Dobbs America: The Senate Judiciary Committee recently held a hearing, “The Continued Assault on Reproductive Freedoms in a Post-Dobbs America,” which featured testimony from Pregnancy Justice President Lourdes A. Rivera, IVF Patient Jamie Heard from Alabama, and Texan OB-GYN Dr. Austin Dennard. Watch and read the testimony here. 

• Live Oral Arguments Coverage. As an OB/GYN, formerly at Jackson Women’s Health Center, Dr. Cheryl Hamlin knows that abortion is a critical part of healthcare. Tune in tomorrow, Tuesday, March 26 at 10:00 am ET of her speaking truth to power at SCOTUS for FDA v. Alliance, with Center For American Progress, Doctors For America, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and ACLU. Follow along here. 

• Report Card. As the Court returns to abortion issues, rePROs Fight Back, an initiative of the nonprofit Population Institute, released its 50 State Report Card on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. In the report card’s 12 year history, the number of failing states has skyrocketed—from nine in 2012 to 25 this year. Read here. 

• Threat to Access, Need For Expansion. Senator Elizabeth Warren (MA) and Representative Jasmine Crockett (TX-30) joined advocates fighting for abortion access and Supreme Court reform at Abortion Access Missouri, Reproductive Equity Now, and Take Back the Court for a press conference on the threat of the mifepristone case and why court expansion is essential to protect reproductive rights. Watch here. 

• READING LIST REFRESHER: Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak, The New York Times, Dec. 15, 2023: “Behind the Scenes at the Dismantling of Roe v. Wade”

• The Guardian, Carter Sherman, March 24, 2024: “‘Cruel’: the supreme court could send one-time abortion deserts like Hawaii back in time”

• HuffPost, Sarah Boboltz, March 23, 2024: “How The Far Right Engineered An Assault On Abortion Access, Even In Blue States”

• Politico, Heidi Przybyla, March 23, 2024: “What happens when an AG dares to investigate Leonard Leo’s network” 

• The Washington Post, Editorial Board, March 23, 2024: “The Supreme Court’s latest abortion case has an obvious answer” 

• The New York Times, Jamelle Bouie, March 22, 2024: “The Supreme Court Is Playing a Dangerous Game”

• Vox, Ian Milhiser, March 21, 2024: “The Supreme Court’s abortion pills case, explained”

• Slate, Paul R. Gugliuzza and J. Jonas Anderson, March 20, 2024: “The New Judge Shopping Fix Has Two Huge Loopholes”

• The View, March 19, 2024: “Dr. Christine Blasey Ford opens up about Kavanaugh testimony in 1st live TV interview” 

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A solid majority of Americans support comprehensive gun violence prevention, but the Senate filibuster prevents any serious votes on meaningful legislation, and the Supreme Court is actively working to make it more challenging to pass stricter gun laws in states.

The vast majority of Americans support a constitutional right to abortion. Not only did this Supreme Court take that away in their recent Dobbs ruling, but now they are coming after mifepristone to take away more freedom from people across the country – and inspiring other courts to go even further and attack people using IVF to start families. 

And an overwhelming majority of Americans think it should be easier to vote, not harder. But this Supreme Court knew exactly what it was doing in Shelby County v. Holder when it made voting harder for people of color in 2013 – a recent study from the Brennan Center showed that the racial turnout gap has grown faster in the places impacted by this decision, and it continues to widen.

So it’s no surprise that last week, despite a total lack of legal precedent and universal rejection by lower courts, the MAGA Justices on the Supreme Court decided to hear Trump’s claims of absolute presidential immunity. They are relentlessly rigging the rules to gain power for a few while we all reap the consequences.

Today’s Supreme Court is more biased, corrupt, and way too powerful and is stripping away our freedoms and radically reshaping our country. 

We’re already flooded with legal analysis of President Trump’s claims and speculation about how the Supreme Court may rule based on their previous comments and legal precedents. But regardless of how the Court ultimately rules, it has already helped Trump delay his trial and avoid accountability for his crimes. And we all know that this court will ignore the rule of law and legal precedent to further the rest of the MAGA agenda.

The real question is whether we will be as relentless in defending our freedoms as they have been in taking them away.

- Stasha Rhodes, Campaign Director of United For Democracy

The Roberts Court’s ‘Cherry-Picked’ Versions of History

By: Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island

The Supreme Court has given the American public substantial reason to doubt the Roberts Court’s commitment to principled judicial decision-making.  Plenty of attention has been paid to the Court’s fair-weather approach to originalism, textualism, and other so-called conservative tenets.  But the Republican-appointed justices on the Roberts Court have used another trick to reach decisions that benefit their partisan Republican and corporate interests. My latest law review article, published in the Ohio State Law Journal, documents how the Supreme Court has disregarded longstanding guardrails on fact-finding by appellate courts; and has done so in ways that allowed it to steer outcomes in cases like Shelby County v. Holder and Citizens United – and more recently in cases like Dobbs and Bruen.

Our judicial system generally leaves fact-finding to Congress or trial courts.  Within the judiciary, trial courts are best positioned to hear from witnesses, assess credibility, and compile a factual record supporting legislation or a judgment in a case. Appellate courts like the Supreme Court review these records only for clear error, and typically defer to the facts found by the court below.  These guardrails on fact-finding improve judicial decision-making and protect the Constitution’s separation of powers by keeping the Court tethered to “cases or controversies” based on specific, proven facts.

The Roberts Court has repeatedly violated these limits to hand down disastrous decisions premised on false facts contradicted by overwhelming evidence assembled by Congress or lower courts. These “facts” include Shelby County’s idea that racial discrimination in the South no longer justified the Voting Rights Act and Citizens United’s finding that the unlimited campaign spending would be “independent” and “transparent.”  When these facts were proven false and brought to the Court’s attention, the Court refused to correct itself or repair the damage, with the result being profound harm to our democracy.

The Supreme Court’s new focus on “history and tradition” in Dobbs and Bruen opens new fields of false fact-finding, allowing the Court to cherry-pick a version of “history” that supports the outcomes the Republican appointees favor. We’ve already seen this cherry-picking in Dobbs and Bruen, and we should expect it to get worse.

These fact-finding abuses are too dangerous to ignore. Even if Congress passes legislation like my Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act to solve the ethics problem at the Court, and even if we find a way to unpack the Court after its capture by right-wing billionaires, the Roberts Court’s legacy cases – Shelby County, Citizens United, Dobbs, Bruen, and others – will continue on like zombies—unless we are prepared with a legal theory to undo them. My article offers one such theory: cases built upon facts that have been proven false, and that were found in violation of longstanding principles of judicial fact-finding, should not stand.  

My article argues that Congress and lower courts ought not be helpless in the face of a stubbornly wrong Supreme Court. If the Court refuses to correct its mistakes, Congress and lower courts can and should explore ways to push back. There is no one right answer to these problems, but it’s important to confront these problems head-on to stem the damage done by the Court’s deliberate factual errors and to prevent future abuses.

Our Bodies to Our Votes — The Attack on Our Individual Freedoms

By: Jocelyn Frye, President of the National Partnership for Women & Families

The Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson overturning Roe v. Wade continues to be a painful reminder of the extremism of the current Court and its willingness to upend decades of case law to further an ideological agenda to ban abortion access. But the decision also poses a fundamental threat to key pillars of a functioning democracy by diluting constitutional and federal protections, preferencing state power over individual freedoms, and handing over greater control to existing — and often, biased — power structures so they can inflict their views upon others without constraint and maintain the status quo.  

The post-Dobbs narrative, mimicking the arguments in Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion, has tried to elevate a false picture of how our democracy works, who has power and who does not, and the essential tools needed to create a democracy that is truly inclusive. And, if left unchecked, this narrative threatens to unravel critical progress and the overall integrity of our political system. 

The Dobbs ruling stripped women and all birthing people of their constitutional right to access abortion. Its rationale included a blithe assertion that women could restore this freedom on a state-by-state basis by voting for pro-abortion legislation. Yet this reasoning is flawed and disingenuous.  

The reality is that many states have a long history of intentionally trying to limit women from exercising their political power, especially by making it harder to vote. This is particularly true for women of color — and, specifically, Black women — who are disproportionately harmed by the abortion bans enacted in the wake of Dobbs.  It is not an accident that states with restrictive voting laws such as Georgia, Texas, and Alabama have also sought to curb access to abortion.   

Furthermore, despite Alito’s arguments, gender-based barriers continue to prevent women from attaining elected office.  This has resulted in gender-based power imbalances in many state legislatures and, often, poorer policy outcomes for women on vital issues like abortion.  

In fact, recent analysis from the National Partnership for Women & Families found that many of the states with the most draconian abortion laws are the same states that possess the lowest levels of female representation in their state legislatures. On the flip side, states that have a greater proportion of female representatives in their state legislatures are much more likely to have stronger measures on their books which protect women’s access to abortion.  

It is disingenuous and dangerous to call on women to leverage their electoral and political power to preserve abortion access while simultaneously over-empowering extremist policymakers with the ability to impose their personal political preferences and enact restrictions that take away women’s individual freedom.  

Instead, we must fight back — and remind ourselves that the movement to defend reproductive justice and the effort to preserve and expand our democratic rights are inextricably linked.   

The Hippocratic Oath In a Post-Dobbs World

By: Sabrina Talukder, Director of the Women's Initiative at Center for American Progress

Cases like Idaho v U.S. underscore that Idaho is dangerous for pregnant women and their loved ones. 

Few cases highlight the mess that the Supreme Court has made after eradicating the constitutional right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization quite like Idaho v U.S. The specific legal question in Idaho v. United States is whether Idaho’s near total abortion ban criminalizes medical care that is required under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), which in turn triggers the issue of “preemption” under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Idaho’s near-total abortion ban outlaws abortion at almost every point in pregnancy and subjects medical providers to severe criminal and civil sanctions with three narrowly defined carve-outs: an ectopic or molar pregnancy; a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest; or a pregnancy to save the life of a pregnant women. Conversely, EMTALA requires stabilizing treatment for any emergency medical condition for a patient that enters an emergency care department, which goes far beyond the narrow carve-outs in the Idaho statute. When an abortion is necessary to stabilize the health of a pregnant woman experiencing an emergency medical condition, a physician must provide an abortion under EMTALA with the patient’s express consent

The irreconcilable conflict between Idaho’s state law and EMTALA puts medical providers in an untenable position: either withhold critical stabilizing treatment required under EMTALA or risk criminal prosecution and potential loss of their professional license. 

Idaho is already experiencing a maternal mortality crisis. Idaho’s maternal mortality rate has more than doubled from 18.1 deaths per 100,000 births in 2019 to 40.1 deaths per 100,000 births in 2021. As a direct result of the criminalization of abortion care, Idaho is experiencing an exodus of over fifty OB-GYNs and maternal care professionals, and two Idaho labor and delivery units closed in 2023 - one of them citing the state’s ‘legal and political climate’ for the closure. 

This means that pregnant women in Idaho will have less access to prenatal and postnatal pregnancy care, be more reliant on emergency care for basic pregnancy needs,  and drive even farther for help during one of the most vulnerable times in their lives.

However, this decision does not just impact women in Idaho. The outcome of Idaho v U.S. extends to every pregnant woman, medical provider, and EMTALA-certified facility in the United States. This decision will impact every state, even where voters have fought to ensure that abortion is legal. 

Learn more here and get the latest from CAP’s Women’s Initiative by signing up for their newsletter and following @CAPwomen.

Taking Our Power Back 

By: Tristin Brown and Molly Coleman, People’s Parity Project

The Supreme Court has too much power. Readers of this newsletter have followed the “power grab” that is Loper Bright and Relentless—cases that could overturn the long-standing Chevron doctrine and further concentrate policy-making power in the Supreme Court—and seen how the Court’s lack of a binding code of ethics have led justices to behave as though they are above the law. The justices of the Supreme Court are unelected, unaccountable, and currently unchecked by the other branches of government. They’re using that power to enact a far-right, pro-corporate agenda—and the rest of us are stuck paying the price.

The problem of a court with too much power has a name: judicial supremacy. It has long threatened the work of building a more just, democratic nation. In 1820, Thomas Jefferson said that, “Judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.” Just a few decades later, Abraham Lincoln said that to allow the Court to serve as the country’s ultimate policymaker would mean that “the people will have ceased to be their own rulers.” And yet modern progressives have failed to heed those warnings, tacitly accepting the concentration of policy-making power in the hands of the least democratic branch of government. 

In the last 200 years, the Court has demonstrated that when it is entrusted with too much power, it will, far more often than not, use it to regressive ends. From Dred Scott, when the Court prohibited Congress from banning the spread of slavery, to Shelby County, in which the Court prevented Congress from protecting voting rights, the Court has acted to limit the scope or application of pro-people legislation. By contrast, when the other branches of the federal government use their power to harmful ends—such as when either Congress or the President has attempted to exclude immigrants on the basis of religion, race, or nationality—the Court has historically failed to intervene. In the words of Harvard Law professor Niko Bowie, “the principal ‘minority’ most often protected by the Court is the wealthy”—not those who are actually deserving of protection in a truly just society.

To concentrate outsized amounts of power in the hands of undemocratic, conservative actors is a choice—and we have the power to make a different one. In our fight to reform the Supreme Court, we can choose to prioritize reforms that make our country more democratic, rather than ones that strengthen judicial supremacy. These reforms include protecting democratically enacted legislation from being struck down by unelected judges through jurisdiction stripping or channeling provisions; allowing democratically accountable actors to quickly undo harmful judicial decisions; requiring a supermajority of the Supreme Court, rather than a bare majority, to strike down acts of Congress; and many more. While these tools operate in different ways, their objective is similar: ensuring that the people, through their elected representatives, are able to build a better, more just world, without undue interference by unelected, unaccountable lawyers in robes. In our work to build a stronger democracy, it is critical that our means match our ends—and that must entail putting power back in the hands of the people, not the courts.

The MOHELA Papers

By: Persis Yu, Deputy Executive Director and Managing Counsel, Student Borrower Protection Center

Last week, on the anniversary of the oral arguments in Biden v. Nebraska, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) released the MOHELA Papers—the results of a years-long investigation into MOHELA, the company at the center of the U.S. Supreme Court case that resulted in 40 million Americans losing out on student loan debt relief.

SBPC and AFT tell the story of what happened next. Their investigation exposed a scheme to deny service to millions of working people with student debt by MOHELA– the student loan company responsible for handling the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. The investigation uncovered internal documents and records showing that student loan servicing giant MOHELA executed a previously unknown “call deflection” strategy—denying service to borrowers harmed by the firm’s mishandling of millions of student loan accounts. AFT and SBPC estimate that more than four-in-ten student loan borrowers in repayment with loans serviced by MOHELA have experienced a servicing failure since loan payments resumed in September 2023, after a three-and-a-half-year-long pause on bills and interest charges. The report and documents can be viewed at mohelapapers.org.

MOHELA is infamous for its central role in Biden v. Nebraska in which the Missouri’s Attorney General, along with five other states, sued to stop President Biden’s plan to provide up to $20,000 in debt relief to tens of millions of student loan borrowers. The district court judge initially dismissed the suit and legal scholars questioned whether the state of Missouri had standing to bring the case given that MOHELA was established as an independent entity and was not a plaintiff itself. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court determined that the State of Missouri had standing because of its connection to MOHELA. Ruling in favor of right-wing state officials, it ripped away critical student debt relief from 40 million borrowers, holding that cancellation violated Major Question Doctrine, and the Administration exceeded its authority by instituting such a program.

• March SCOTUS Coordinating Call. Join United For Democracy for our monthly, off-the-record Coordinating Call on Wednesday, March 20, at 12:30 pm ET to get the toplines on what’s moving at the Court and how you can engage. 

• Messaging the Moment: Check out ASO Communication’s Freedom Over Fascism Toolkit, which now features language on the Supreme Court’s decision to hear Trump’s immunity claim.  

• Tweeting the Moment. 

Despite a unanimous & bipartisan lower court ruling, legal precedents & common sense, the MAGA justices decided to entertain Trump's fiction that presidents are free to commit crimes.

These justices continue to weaponize the Court for political aims. Congress must rein them in.

• Contacting Congress: Congress has the responsibility to stand up to this out-of-control Supreme Court and stop their relentless power grab. Send a message to Congress using this tool.

• American Autocracy Threat Tracker. Just Security released a new, continuously updated, and comprehensive catalog to track the promises, plans, and pronouncements Donald Trump has made if he returns to office. Read here. 

• Bad Neighbors. Sierra Club’s analysis, “Bad Neighbors: How Big Polluters and the Supreme Court Threaten Our Air,” explains the significance of and challenges to the plan at the heart of the Ohio v. EPA case. Read here. 

• Courting Change. Alliance for Justice released its report, “Courting Change: 2023 Momentum for Movement Law,” which reflects on last year’s federal judicial nominations and forecasts what’s ahead and what’s needed for the Supreme Court. Read here.  

• Expose Project 2025. Accountable.US launched its “Expose Project 2025” campaign to expose the extremists — including Leonard Leo  — behind the effort. The associated, upcoming paid media buy connects the Project’s radical reproductive rights plans with the Alabama Supreme Court’s bombshell IVF decision. Learn more here.

• Judicial Conference. Campaign Legal Center sent the Judicial Conference a supplemental letter to explain why Justice Thomas should be referred to the U.S. attorney general. Read here. 

• Right-Wing Media Response. Media Matters compiled a new report after the Alabama Supreme Court’s IVF ruling to track the anti-abortion and right-wing narratives that are forming. Read here. 

• J. David Goodman, March 3, 2024, “Appeals Court Intervenes in Legal Showdown on the Texas Border”

• Vox, Ian Millhiser, March 2, 2024: “The courts were never going to save America from Donald Trump”

• Politico, Peter S. Canellos, Feb. 29, 2024: “McConnell Built Today’s Supreme Court. Will He Come to Regret It?”

• The Economist, Feb. 28, 2024: “The Supreme Court puzzles over social-media regulations”

• Slate, Mark Joseph Stern, Feb. 28, 2024: “Amy Coney Barrett Gets to Decide If Machine Guns Are Actually Legal”  

• Bloomberg Law, Riddhi Setty and Ryan Autullo, Feb. 27, 2024: “Texas Judge Strikes Blow to Covid-Era Congress Proxy Voting (1)”

• ProPublica, Marilyn W. Thompson, Feb. 27, 2024: “Republicans Hatched a Secret Assault on the Voting Rights Act in Washington State”

• USA Today, Maureen Groppe, Feb. 21, 2024: “Good neighbor? Polluting states want Supreme Court to pause Biden's plan to reduce smog” 

• New York Times, Abbie VanSickle, Feb. 20, 2024: “Justice Alito Renews Criticism of Landmark Ruling on Same-Sex Marriage”

• Reuters, Daniel Wiessner, Feb. 20: “Florida can challenge Biden 'catch and release' border policy, judge rules” 

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This is a good thing; Advocates, activists, and people across the country are focused on our ailing democracy like never before and are getting engaged in the fight to protect it. 

But there’s one thing that is not getting as much attention as it deserves: Our democracy cannot and will not be fixed unless we find a way to address the broken and captured Supreme Court. 

The crisis in our democracy won’t end simply by defeating anti-democratic politicians, as President Biden suggested in his speech. And it won’t end just by passing legislation to protect voting rights or fix our broken campaign finance laws. Those are important, but they won’t be enough. Because right now, the Supreme Court stands as a brick wall protecting the MAGA agenda and blocking any potential progress, no matter what happens in November and beyond.

This may seem obvious to those of us engaged in SCOTUS reform. But as we continue our work over the coming months, we must keep making this case – loudly and aggressively. And we can’t afford to wait – we need to dial up the pressure on justices to exercise restraint this term. At the same time, we still have a chance to increase public awareness of the negative impact the Court is having on their lives and lay the foundation for future reform as soon as a window opens.  

It's very easy for Supreme Court issues to be communicated in ways that come across as academic, legalistic, or abstract. But the only way we will achieve real change is if we – all of us across our movement – help people understand this Court's actual impact on their lives, families, communities, and freedoms and keep our focus on breaking down the MAGA brick wall.

- Stasha Rhodes, Campaign Director of United For Democracy

The Other Trump Absolute Immunity Case that the Supreme Court Should Reject

By: Norman Eisen, Jacob Kovacs-Goodman, and Matthew Seligman

Today is the deadline for Donald Trump to file a petition for certiorari in the Supreme Court seeking review of the D.C. Circuit’s December decision in Blassingame v. Trump. It held that the former president does not enjoy immunity from civil suit for damages for his actions on Jan. 6, 2021. We anticipate that Trump will seek cert based on his seemingly insatiable appetite for delay in litigation against him. A loss is likely, whether or not the Supreme Court grants his petition. It is just a question of when. 

In Blassingame, the court of appeals consolidated three cases in which Capitol police officers and members of the House of Representatives are seeking damages for physical injuries and emotional distress. The plaintiffs brought those claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1985, a federal statute that prohibits among other things anyone from conspiring to prevent a person from holding a federal office. The complaint is based upon the horrifying violence that the nation witnessed on live TV and in the footage released by the House Select Committee to investigate January 6. In one instance, the crowd on Jan. 6 crushed one of the plaintiffs, Officer Hemby, against the doors of the Capitol and sprayed him with chemicals, injuring his face and hands.

The question in the case is whether Trump’s conduct counted as “official action,” and therefore falls within the scope of the civil immunity doctrine the Supreme Court first recognized in the 1970s. In Nixon v. Fitzgerald, the Court established the quintessential test that presidents are entitled to immunity from damages liability “for acts within the ‘outer perimeter’ of… official responsibility.” Twenty years later in Clinton v. Jones, the Court reaffirmed that the president enjoys only qualified immunity for official, but not unofficial, acts. In Blassingame, the district court rejected Trump’s immunity argument on the ground that Trump’s words and actions did not fall within his official responsibilities as president. The court of appeals affirmed, holding that Trump acted as an office-seeker rather than as an office-holder. The panel explained that a president’s campaign actions to win re-election are not official acts, nor are “his post-election efforts to alter the declared results in his favor.”

Blassingame raises a different, but related, issue from his imminent appeal in his criminal case brought by Special Prosecutor Jack Smith. In that appeal, a different panel of the D.C. Circuit rejected Trump’s argument that he is immune from criminal prosecution for his actions related to January 6. The cases, to some extent, focus on distinct aspects of those actions—in the criminal case, Smith was careful not to charge Trump with inciting the violence. The civil case, by contrast, alleges precisely that. More importantly, as a legal matter presidential immunity in civil cases is well-established—the only question is whether that immunity applies to the facts of this case. Trump’s path-breaking criminality, by contrast, has presented for the first time in American history the question of whether a former president is immune from federal criminal prosecution as well.

By all rights, the Supreme Court should deny review in both Blassingame and in Trump’s criminal appeal. The Court typically declines to review “fact-bound” decisions that raise no novel issues of law nor divide the lower courts on an important issue. The Blassingame appeal fits that to a T. The criminal appeal, though raising a novel issue, also does not warrant the Court’s review. And the D.C. Circuit’s decision rejecting his extreme and autocratic view of presidential prerogatives is ironclad. The Supreme Court granting review would lend an absurd legal argument more credence than it deserves. (One of us, Seligman, served as counsel on an amicus brief by a distinguished group of former government officials and conservative lawyers in support of the Special Counsel’s position.)

Nonetheless, the Supreme Court might feel that it should take the criminal case simply because of its historical importance. And in light of the Court’s eroding standing with the public, especially in the aftermath of its controversial opinion in Dobbs that erased the right to abortion, it might welcome the opportunity to rule against the presumptive Republican nominee. That impulse to split the difference may be all the greater as the Court appears poised to reject the attempt to remove Trump from the ballot because he “engaged in insurrection” and is thus disqualified under the Fourteenth Amendment. 

Even if the Court does not agree to review Blassingame, this Term is already shaping up to be unprecedented in American history. Never before has a former president and current candidate’s myriad legal woes, with potential penalties ranging from hundreds of millions of dollars to decades in federal prison, flooded the Court’s docket as it has this year. And hopefully, it never again will.

Fake Plaintiffs, Fake Evidence, Real Consequences

By: Sarah Lipton-Lubet, President at Take Back The Court; Alexa Barrett is Director of Communications.

Last week, a medical journal retracted several so-called “studies” on mifepristone, the abortion pill, because “expert reviewers found that the studies demonstrate a lack of scientific rigor that invalidates or renders unreliable the authors' conclusions.” But calling it a lack of rigor is far too generous. In reality, they are little more than propaganda pieces in a concerted right-wing effort to restrict abortion access.

The bogus studies blatantly misrepresent and inflate the potential side effects of mifepristone. Yet Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk cited them repeatedly in overturning the FDA’s approval of the widely-used, overwhelmingly safe and effective medication.

Now the studies that were the basis for Kacsmaryk’s decision have been debunked for faulty methodology, incorrect data analysis, and poor study design. But Americans’ medical freedom still hangs in the balance.

It comes as no surprise that Kacsmaryk would rely on fake science and fabricated evidence. After all, he was more than happy to rule for fake plaintiffs. Kacsmaryk and the MAGA judges on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals have turned the federal bench in Texas into a springboard for wacky and regressive conservative legal challenges.

Take the Mifepristone case. On paper, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine — which claims to represent doctors — brought this lawsuit through the pipeline and up to the Supreme Court. In reality, the Alliance is a phony organization cooked up by right-wing activists with the sole purpose of filing suit in Amarillo, Texas, where every federal case is now heard by a single hard-line conservative judge: Matthew Kacsmaryk.

How can we be sure? For one thing, the group’s website went live in July 2022, just a month after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and a month before it was even incorporated in a region under Kacsmaryk’s jurisdiction. The group is backed by the Alliance Defending Freedom — a self-described “Christian law firm” that spends $100 million a year driving countless conservative legal challenges to same-sex marriage rights, abortion rights, and more.

It's no shock, then, that Kacsmaryk is also at the center of the right-wing campaign to undermine Planned Parenthood. Since their non-stop effort to abolish Planned Parenthood has failed, conservatives are trying to bankrupt it instead — by making up a ridiculous lawsuit to sue the organization for $1.8 billion.

The thing is, there is no Planned Parenthood affiliate health center — not to mention, no relevant witnesses or providers — in Amarillo, Texas, where the lawsuit was filed. And the person bringing the suit just happens to be the same “anonymous” guy who tried to get Planned Parenthood shut down by fabricating videos. None of that stopped Judge Kacsmaryk from ruling against Planned Parenthood. (In an appeal related to this case, the Fifth Circuit is scheduled to hear oral arguments on March 13th.) 

The list of cases in the Kacsmaryk-to-5th-Circuit-to-dark-ages pipeline is long. In Deanda v. Becerra, a challenge to Title X, Judge Kacsmaryk demolished  privacy rights for young people (and decades of precedent) by setting aside a provision guaranteeing confidentiality for minors receiving family planning services at Title X clinics.

When the case was appealed, the radical Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals judges made several comments during oral arguments that reveal their mindset, including:

• Judge Haynes: “It’s my understanding periods can start pretty young, not five, but some even I think 8- or 9-year-olds get their periods. So it’s not 15. 10 is pretty common. So it is not that old that these young girls need to be old enough to get pregnant should they have this interaction with this other guy. […] Because once she’s gone and had sex with someone, she’s not a virgin when she gets married.”

• Judge Duncan: “If she did receive contraceptives without my knowledge, that interferes in a dramatic way with my ability to parent, because the child now has a means of engaging in sexual activity and avoiding certain consequences of it.”

This is the kind of dehumanizing, anti-science legal landscape that the Supreme Court has invited. Fake plaintiffs, fake evidence, real consequences.

This is the new right-wing legal strategy: unable to rely on good-faith interpretation of the law to roll back our rights, they simply invent plaintiffs, fabricate evidence, and make a mockery of our judicial system in order to tee up cases for their collaborators on the bench. It’s a strategy that will succeed more often than it should until we rebalance the Supreme Court and disempower the conservative activists that have seized control of it.

The Federalist Society Majority

By: Michael Podhorzer, Founder of Research Collaborative

When Samuel Alito declared in the Dobbs decision that Roe v. Wade had been “wrongly decided,” he succinctly stated the credo of a resurgent revanchist coalition that believes the entire 20th century was wrongly decided. 

This coalition has two factions. One faction is the MAGA industrial complex – a symbiotic combination of white grievance media (e.g. Fox, Breitbart); white Evangelical churches and their white Christian nationalist political expressions; and supremacist militias and the NRA. The other faction consists of plutocrats and rapacious capitalists – the sponsors and corporate interests of the GOP and allied Super PACS, who also created and continue to fund the Federalist Society. 

The Federalist Society, a “conservative” legal juggernaut sponsored by right wing billionaires and corporations, is perhaps the coalition’s most important tool. Its successful goal was to capture the legal system – the best way to implement the coalition’s agenda, since the majority of Americans were unlikely to vote against their own rights and freedoms. We don’t have a “conservative” majority on the Supreme Court; we have a Federalist Society majority of six justices who are all members of that group, and who were only nominated by Republican presidents after being vetted by that group. Alito, Coney Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Roberts, and Thomas are team players, not impartial umpires calling balls and strikes. They have routinely decided cases that abandon “conservative” or “originalist” judicial principles in order to achieve an outcome that benefits Republican politicians, enables corporate abuses, or guts individual or collective rights. 

We often hear that MAGA Republicans want to take America back to the 1950s. But the golden age that the MAGA/plutocrat coalition really wants to recapture is the 1920’s – when not only white supremacy and patriarchy reigned unchallenged, but also plutocracy ruled the day, corporate power ran rampantly unchecked, and many elites openly sympathized with fascism and antisemitism. Peter Thiel is a latter-day Henry Ford.

The highest priorities of the MAGA and plutocrat wings don’t much overlap, but they can agree on the need to reshape political institutions and voting rules to advantage Republicans and to drastically limit the federal government’s ability to protect the rest of us from their excesses. There are limits to this agreement, however; we’ve seen the corporate faction bring MAGA to heel somewhat in cases like Moore v. Harper and Trump’s post-election lawsuits. 

The Supreme Court’s power is almost uncheckable, given MAGA’s abuse of the Senate filibuster rules to veto almost every policy initiative. The Federalist Society justices know and eagerly exploit this fact. The Supreme Court is an unelected super-legislature; it has effectively replaced Congress as our most significant lawmaking body. Yet the media has thoroughly acquiesced to this legislative coup – only discussing its consequences around the time of rulings, and the rest of the time devoting extensive daily coverage to partisan bickering of no consequence. 

Most media coverage of SCOTUS continues to focus on the details of the individual cases on the docket: the arguments each side is putting forth, the likelihood that certain justices will find those arguments persuasive, and what a “win” for either side could look like. In the context of our current crisis, however, doing this is like narrating each segment of a bullet’s trajectory without naming the assassin or his target. The campaign to repeal and replace the 20th century is an extremely well-funded enterprise, organized by people who have never made any secret of their plans. None of this is happening by accident.

The Federalist Society majority has dismantled the Voting Rights Act, opened the floodgates to billionaires’ campaign spending, and greenlighted the egregious partisan gerrymandering that literally gave four seats to MAGA Republicans in 2022.

We must stop normalizing those decisions by treating each election as if it were as free and fair as the ones before those decisions; “democracy advocates” do MAGA’s work for them when they grandfather those injustices. The “Black Knight” scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail explains our problem brilliantly – every time the Federalist Society justices hack off another limb of democracy, we keep insisting ‘tis but a scratch and move on. 

Tell the Senate: Issue subpoenas now

By: Alex Aronson, Executive Director of Court Accountability 

Last November, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to authorize subpoenas against Harlan Crow, the billionaire dark-money political donor, and Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society court-fixer at the center of the corruption scandal engulfing far-right Supreme Court justices. The move provoked howls from committee Republicans who, doing the bidding of these same special interests, grasped for objections to this vitally important oversight. But Chair Dick Durbin held firm and committee Democrats were unified in authorizing the subpoenas, giving the other side a taste of their own hardball procedural medicine.     

Nearly three months later, however, Durbin’s issuance of the Leo and Crow subpoenas appears to have stalled as the Committee navigates its next steps amid challenging and complex dynamics across Congress. Republicans have promised to use the filibuster to obstruct a floor vote, a step required by federal law to enforce the subpoenas in court. But the Senate has other options to incentivize compliance and secure accountability, including issuing a criminal contempt certification of a defiant subpoena target to the DOJ. Although criminal contempt certifications have typically included a vote of the full chamber, as a statutory legal matter, there is nothing in the statute that requires that full floor vote, leaving plenty of room for Durbin to pursue accountability in the face of Leo and Crow’s obscene stonewalling.  

Whatever procedural uncertainties or right-wing histrionics may lie ahead, it’s imperative that Durbin fulfill his promise to issue the subpoenas, without which the targets have no legal obligation to respond. Americans have already been harmed enormously by the corrupting influence that Crow and Leo have leveled upon our judicial system. Now, people are resoundingly demanding that Congress step up to confront this threat. Left unchecked, there is no limit to the damage these bought-and-paid-for justices will cause to our democracy and way of life.

Our community should continue to amplify and applaud Chair Durbin’s oversight efforts while calling him to issue these subpoenas now. Join us in uplifting the 85+ organization sign on letter, led by Court Accountability and United For Democracy, urging Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Chair Durbin to issue the pending subpoenas and widen their investigation into allegations of ethical violations by Supreme Court justices. The letter also calls for the Senate to advance a comprehensive anti-corruption bill to protect the rights and freedoms of the American people.

• February SCOTUS Coordinating Call. Join United For Democracy for our monthly, off-the-record Coordinating Call on, Wednesday, February 21, at 12:30 pm ET to get the toplines on what’s moving at the Court and how you can engage. 

• Tweeting the Moment. Check out the full digital toolkit here.  

  We are in a judicial crisis and need to act like it.

  Senator Durbin: It's been over 75 days since @JudiciaryDems authorized the subpoenas for Leonard Leo & Harlan Crow. 

  There is no reason for delay. Issue the subpoenas and pursue enforcement today.

• Uplift the Call for Bold Senate Action: Over 85 organizations, led by United For Democracy and Court Accountability, sent Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin a letter calling on the Senate to ramp up efforts to combat court corruption, including issuing the subpoenas. Amplify the letter here.

• Clarence Thomas Has No Shame. True North Research Founder and Executive Director Lisa Graves maps out the dangerous conflict of interest and corruption at the heart of Justice Clarence Thomas’ refusal to recuse from Trump v. Anderson. Read more here. 

• Holding Court. Join Alliance For Justice President Rakim H.D. Brooks on Wednesday, February 21 at 3:00 pm ET for a conversation with author and professor, Dr. Juliet Hooker, for “Black Grief/White Grievance.” Register here. 

• Leonard Leo’s Profits. A new report from Accountable.US reveals how nonprofits closely tied to Leonard Leo paid his for-profit consulting firm over $104 Million over the past decade. Read more here. 

• Pandora’s Box. Ahead of oral arguments in Corner Post v. Federal Reserve, Center For American Progress released a new report highlighting how the case could open Pandora’s Box in endangering key regulations. Read more here. 

• Past Their Shelf Life. Stand Up America launched a mobile billboard in Washington D.C. and a six-figure national digital advertising campaign to mark the 18th anniversary of Justice Samuel Alito's confirmation to the Supreme Court. Read more here. 

• The 14th and 22nd Amendments. Protect Democracy Co-Founder and Executive Director Ian Bassin raises the question of whether Supreme Court justices who do not enforce the insurrection clause will enforce the presidential term limit. Read more here. 

• Subpoena Amplification. To mark the 75 days since subpoenas were authorized but not issued, Free Speech For People launched an email tool and Patriotic Millionaires launched a petition calling on Senate Judiciary Chair Durbin to act. 

• Forbes, Kyle Mullins, Feb. 12:  “How Samuel Alito Became The Second-Richest Supreme Court Justice.” 

• Politico, Declan Harty, Feb. 12: “SEC’s ‘Gag Rule’ denounced as ‘occupational death sentence’”

• LA Times, Michael Hiltzik, Feb. 10, “COLUMN: Two key antiabortion studies have been retracted as junk science. Will the Supreme Court care?”

• Reuters, Nate Raymond, Feb. 8: “Republican US senators seek info on Illinois judges' diversity policies”

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This newsletter is designed to further support that coordination by providing regular updates on Supreme Court corruption, background and updates on current cases and other judicial happenings, smart analysis from legal scholars and issue experts, and messaging tools. We are also excited to share actions, events, and resources from partners and allies across the movement. 

If you know someone interested in receiving this newsletter, please forward this to them so they can sign up here.

Thank you for reading.  If you have any ideas for this newsletter or have content, actions, resources, or analysis you’d like us to include in upcoming editions –  drop a note here. 

Let’s dive in!

- Stasha Rhodes, Campaign Director of United For Democracy

The Trump Term

By: Steve Vladeck, Charles Alan Wright Chair in Federal Courts at the University of Texas School of Law

By the time the Supreme Court rises for its summer recess this June, it will have decided at least two, and possibly three, major cases implicating efforts to hold former President Trump accountable for his efforts to undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election. And however those cases are ultimately resolved, it will be impossible for the Court to not play a major role, one way or the other, in what becomes of the criminal prosecutions against Trump and the efforts to disqualify him under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The first of the three cases, Fischer v. United States, involves the scope of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)—one of the most common charges brought against January 6 defendants, including Trump. At issue is whether the statute, which prohibits obstruction of official proceedings, is limited to obstruction related to the manipulation or destruction of evidence, or whether it encompasses any interference. The D.C. federal appeals court divided 2-1 in adopting the latter interpretation, and it’s possible that the Supreme Court granted certiorari to embrace the former. Ironically, though, even if such a holding casts doubt on some of the January 6 prosecutions, it likely would have no effect on the case against former President Trump—where part of the claim is that Trump was involved in efforts to submit fraudulent electoral votes, i.e., to manipulate the evidence.

The second case, and the one that has, to date, received the most headlines, is Trump v. Anderson—Trump’s appeal of the Colorado Supreme Court decision holding that his actions leading up to and on January 6 disqualify him from holding future office under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment because he “engaged in insurrection.” When the justices agreed to take up Trump’s appeal, they also set the case for especially expedited consideration—with the Court set to hear argument on February 8. With the Colorado primary scheduled for March 5, it’s a decent bet that the Court will try to hand down a decision before then.

Finally, the D.C. Circuit will shortly rule (and may have ruled, by the time this newsletter goes to press) on former President Trump’s claim that he is immune from criminal prosecution for acts undertaken while he was President, including anything and everything in the run up to January 6. The court of appeals heard argument on January 9—and seemed unsympathetic to Trump’s claims. Assuming it rules against Trump, Trump will presumably ask the Supreme Court to intervene. And although the justices could conceivably stay out of this case—especially if the ideologically diverse court of appeals panel is unanimous—it seems just as plausible that the Court will also want to settle this issue, once and for all, before the January 6 prosecution can go to trial.

The upside is that the Supreme Court is now stuck between a rock and a hard place—where it can’t avoid all of the Trump cases, but where any ruling is likely to be deeply controversial. As I wrote in my Supreme Court newsletter, “One First,” “Some of that is a problem of the justices’ own making; a Court with more credibility, and that was seen less as a partisan lightning rod, would presumably have . . . far more capital to spend even in such highly charged and deeply fraught election cases . . . . But whoever’s fault it is, it’s now the Supreme Court that is left to navigate this swamp.”

The Loper Bright & Relentless Cases Again Prove the Supreme Court is a Threat to Democracy

By: Patrick Gaspard, Chief Executive Officer of the Center for American Progress Action Fund

Last week, the Supreme Court’s extreme majority yet again showed its animosity to a government that can serve the people—and demonstrated just how beholden they are to their wealthy and corporate benefactors. In the combined Loper Bright and Relentless cases, the justices showed a readiness to overturn the Chevron doctrine that for decades has deferred to agency experts in implementing broadly-worded laws. Should they decide to undo decades of precedent, it would be the crowning accomplishment for corporate lobbyists seeking to undermine commonsense regulations to protect workers, consumers, health care, air and water quality, and civil rights—popular protections that can’t easily be repealed by Congress. Thus, the attack in these cases affects all our work and must be a shared priority for us.

Questions from the right-wing justices during oral argument made clear that they’re itching to do the bidding of Koch or Leonard Leo-affiliated groups serving as counsel to the plaintiffs and submitting amicus briefs supporting their corporate interests.  

What’s important to understand is that the Supreme Court is making a power grab that will allow unelected judges to follow their ideological and political preferences when deciding if rules designed to protect Americans can stand.  They are trying to grab power away from the FDA to decide how much lead is acceptable in baby food or how drugs should be approved. They’re grabbing power away from the EPA to decide how many carcinogens can be released from factories into our air and water. They’re grabbing the power to decide which workers should qualify for overtime, how workers can and can’t organize, how Medicare benefits are administered to senior citizens and hospitals, and so much more. The rightwing justices are taking the power to legislate away from those elected to government—Congress and the president as head of the Executive Branch—and amassing it to themselves in a way not seen in the last century. All the while, with lifetime appointments and no binding code of ethics, the Supreme Court remains unaccountable.

We can no longer act like the Supreme Court is above politics and beyond the reach of money’s influence.  We need to shout to the public about the dangers of these cases to hamstring government’s ability to solve Americans’ problems and to threaten a stable legal system upon which our economic prosperity has been based for decades. We need to press the Biden Administration to stand resolute and refuse to abandon or weaken their regulatory agenda, asking them to draft strong rules that we support with an outpouring of public comments.  

Congress must also reclaim its co-equal role in interpreting our Constitution. Let’s press our lawmakers to use clear language in laws and explicitly give discretion to agencies. Let’s press them to reclaim their constitutional power to make our nation’s policies by passing a law dictating how the courts should read and interpret the meaning of their statutes. And where the courts go outside their lane and substitute their own policy preferences, Congress must be pressed to quickly pass laws reversing bad decisions—as it has done in the past.

Most importantly, Americans now worry that one day they’ll wake up, and their long-cherished rights and protections will have disappeared overnight.  We need to channel those justified fears into a movement for change that can restore accountability and reason to the court.  We will be pushing on an open door of public support for 18-year term limits, a binding, enforceable code of ethics, and reforms to restore how the court does its business. We need to call on Congress to do everything in its power to rein in a Supreme Court that is growing drunk with power. The time to act is now.

Why Clarence Thomas Must Go — And We Need to Lead the Fight

By Rakim Brooks, President of Alliance for Justice

As the Supreme Court prepares to consider whether President Trump provided “aid and comfort” in support of the January 6 insurrection, we find ourselves again drawn into the world of the Thomases. Because while Justice Thomas was gallivanting around the world with billionaires in yachts (the boarding school tuition and RV loans came earlier), his wife Ginni was indeed providing aid and comfort to the insurrectionists. Just check Mark Meadows’s text messages. That trail has led advocates to call for Justice Thomas’s recusal from the upcoming Fourteenth Amendment insurrection cases. 

But are we forgetting—after months of Pulitzer-prize-worthy investigative journalism documenting grift and obvious corruption—that Thomas is not an episodic problem but a perpetual one? Why limit our call to Thomas’s recusal in one case when we should be calling on him to resign and permanently recuse himself from our democracy?

At the Alliance for Justice, we’ve been calling for Justice Thomas’s resignation since the first ProPublica piece about his pay-to-play operations dropped last April. Since then, we have learned he worked in concert with Republican lawmakers to make him more financially comfortable so that he could stay on the Court and advance their shared ultra-conservative biases. That, folks, is corruption, worthy of far more than recusal in certain cases. 

Still, we seem hesitant to call for Thomas’s resignation—even though the likelihood of his resignation is exactly equal to the likelihood of his recusal. To recuse would be an admission of Ginni’s substantial involvement in insurrection. But more than that, Thomas is a general in the right-wing project that threatens our democracy. In case you missed it, The New York Times recently took an in-depth look at Thomas’s network of former clerks. Not only does this group stay in close contact and pursue deeply conservative causes, but also it turns out that Ginni Thomas is directly involved in facilitating the group (They clearly don’t keep the boundaries at home that they claim).  Add to this that court-rigger Leonard Leo helped funnel money to Ginni’s consulting work and the picture becomes clear: The Thomases and the right-wing movement are painting on the same canvas. He’s not just going to stand down at this crucial moment.

So again, why stop at recusal? Thomas missed that bus stop a long time ago and now it’s time for him to go entirely. His corruption threatens not only our rights, livelihoods, and well-being, but also democracy itself. Every day that Thomas remains on the bench is another day the Court’s legitimacy and the rule of law crumbles. This moment calls for more than an everyday recusal. It’s time to stand up for what’s right and call on Thomas to stand down for good.

We Are The Cavalry

By: Alex Aronson, Executive Director of Court Accountability 

We have work to do. For even as investigative reporters have finally begun to expose the dark-money rot that defines today’s Supreme Court, elite media continue to struggle with the notion that the Federalist Society’s chapter at One First Street might be anything other than a neutral tribunal for the good-faith resolution of America’s most important legal issues. 

Dueling coverage last week in the New York Times illustrated the cognitive dissonance in legal journalism that has so many scratching their heads. Last Tuesday, the Times’s Hiroko Tabuchi exposed Charles Koch's orchestration of the blockbuster Supreme Court case Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the likely culmination of the fossil-fuel billionaire’s decadeslong war on the Chevron doctrine. Tabuchi revealed a web of Koch ties to the anti-regulatory groups behind the case, which have framed the dispute as one about the plight of today’s commercial fishermen and the burden of fishing inspector fees. (Thanks to ProPublica, we already knew that Clarence Thomas secretly participated in Koch and Harlan Crow retreats and addressed the fate of Chevron at least once. He then reversed his previous adherence to the precedent. You’ll be shocked that Thomas did not recuse from Loper Bright.) 

But Tabuchi’s excellent scoop was hard to square with the previous day’s higher profile curtain-raiser from the paper of record, which swallowed Koch’s bait. Bemoaning the fishermen’s hardships and “uncritically parrot[ing] the arguments of Chevron critics,” the Times’ longtime Supreme Court reporter, Adam Liptak, mentioned a Koch connection as barely an afterthought.  

Thanks to digging like Tabuchi’s and clear-eyed advocacy from coalitions like United for Democracy, Americans are beginning to understand the urgent threat that a billionaire-bought Supreme Court poses to their freedoms and dreams of shared prosperity. But against decades of entrenched cultural reverence for the Court and its justices, it’s up to us to ensure this message breaks through.

Bruen Opened The Door

By: Po Murray, Chairwoman of Newtown Action Alliance

On the first day of classes in 2024, the Perry High School community was forced to join the far-too-big club of school shooting survivors and loved ones forever altered by the tragedy of gun violence. It’s a club my community, Newtown, has belonged to since we lost 26 of our own at Sandy Hook Elementary School due to our nation’s weak gun laws. Our induction moved me to help establish the Newtown Action Alliance over 11 years ago.

I am proud of the gun violence prevention movement’s collective progress but we have further to go to strengthen our gun laws to save our children’s lives. The NRA-backed justices on the Supreme Court, however, set back the clocks on progress with their extreme Bruen test. This test prompted an unprecedented number of lawsuits filed to challenge local, state, and federal gun laws and 450 decisions applying the test. 

In the last two and a half months alone, with the Bruen test as the guide, judges in California, Maryland, Oregon, and Pennsylvania struck down laws designed to make our communities safer: 

• California: A new state law prohibiting firearms in a number of public places  

• Maryland: A 10-year old law on handgun licensing requirements  

• Oregon: A voter-approved ballot measure prohibiting high-capacity magazines and requiring background checks and training to obtain gun permits

• Pennsylvania: Laws that ban 18- to 20-year-olds from carrying firearms in public during a state of emergency

That these state laws were struck down in lower courts shows a dark effort at play—an effort to insulate lawmaking from the will of the people. 

Though people across the political spectrum want stronger measures to keep our communities safe—too many children are getting hunted and killed by shooters walking into their schools with weapons of war—the gun lobby aided the decades-long capture of our judiciary and helped install unaccountable justices and judges to do their bidding. Bruen was proof of their successful capture. The rulings in California, Maryland, Oregon, and Pennsylvania are proof that Bruen opened the door—they’re just getting started.

Unless Congress takes bold action now, the Court will only continue to move our gun safety laws to the right or maintain the status quo — a status quo in which the already too-large club of school shooting survivors continues to grow. 

• January SCOTUS Coordinating Call. Join United For Democracy for our monthly, off-the-record Coordinating Call  tomorrow, Wednesday, January 24, at 12:30 pm ET to get the toplines on what’s moving at the Court and how you can engage. 

• Messaging the Moment. Relentless Inc. v. Department of Commerce and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo are part central cases in the extreme right-wing justices’ Relentless power grab.

  The MAGA justices on the Supreme Court are threatening to overturn 40 years of legal precedent and grant partisan, corrupt, life-tenured judges authority to substitute their own views for those of elected officials and non-partisan expert public servants on nearly every policy issue affecting the American people. 

  This is a Relentless power grab by the MAGA supermajority on behalf of their billionaire and corporate benefactors who are co-opting our judicial system at every level. 

  This captured Court has already taken away our most personal healthcare choices, weakened our right to vote, and made it more difficult to keep our families and communities safe from violence. They have done enough harm. It’s time to stop this Relentless power grab before they have even more control over our freedoms, communities, and democracy.

  Find more messaging guidance here. 

• Tweeting the Moment.  

  The MAGA justices have taken away reproductive freedom, weakened the right to vote, and made it more difficult to keep our communities safe from violence. 

  It's time to stop the #Relentless power grab before they can do even more harm to our freedoms, communities, and democracy.

• Contacting Congress: Congress has the responsibility to stand up to this out-of-control Supreme Court and stop the power grab. Send a message to your Members using this tool.

• Historians Council on the Constitution. The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law announced the formation of the Historians Council on the Constitution to counter the U.S. Supreme Court’s misuses and mischaracterizations of history to decide major constitutional issues. Learn more here. 

• Holding Court. Join AFJ President Rakim Brooks today, Tuesday, Jan. 23, at 2:00 pm ET for Holding Court with Joel Anderson, staff writer for Slate and host of the podcast Slow Burn: Becoming Justice Thomas. Register here. 

• Honoring Dr. King’s Legacy. Martin Luther King III and Arndrea Waters King marked this year’s MLK Day with an op-ed in The Guardian naming the Supreme Court’s role in unraveling Black political power. Read here. 

• Relentless Resources. Relentless Resources. Check out analysis from Center For American Progress, Coalition For Sensible Safeguards’ new resource landing page, a digital roundtable from Demand Justice, and summary from Democracy Forward to help break down the nearly 3.5 hours of oral arguments.

• Report of the Proceedings. Last week, Campaign Legal Center requested that the Judicial Conference of the United States publish its Report of the Proceedings from its September 2023 meeting. The report was released and states there is: “ongoing review of public written allegations of errors or omissions in a filer’s financial disclosure reports.” Read more here.

• Politico Magazine, Lara Bazelon, Jan. 21: “An ‘Execute-Them-At-Any-Cost Mentality’: The Supreme Court’s New, Bloodthirsty Era” (Note: update on a related order)

• Salon, Conor Lynch, Jan. 20: “The Supreme Court looks set to make Steve Bannon's dream come true”

• The Nation, Elie Mystal, Jan. 18: “We Are Witnessing the Biggest Judicial Power Grab Since 1803”

• Slate, Mark Joseph Stern, Jan 18: “The Supreme Court Is Now Complicit in Texas’ Armed Standoff With the Feds” (Note: update on a related order)

• Finding Gravity, Jamison Foser, Jan. 18: “Republicans again ask the Supreme Court to do their dirty work”

• CNN, Joan Biskupic, Jan. 17: “Neil Gorsuch has a grudge against federal agencies. He holds their fate in his hands”

• The Hill, David Doniger, Jan. 17: “The Supreme Court ruled against me to empower federal agencies. They got it right.”

• Democracy Docket, Rachel Selzer, Jan. 17: “How the 5th Circuit Is Dismantling Democracy”

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