The Real Supreme Court Scandal

Democrats seeking to discredit the conservative Supreme Court with allegations of corruption are missing a far bigger potential scandal – perhaps intentionally

Yesterday, following months of hints and speculation, President Joe Biden unveiled his proposal to radically alter the Supreme Court. His three-pronged revision of the country’s top court includes term limits for justices, a Supreme Court ethics code, plus a constitutional amendment limiting presidential immunity. It’s been met with praise from Democrats and denunciations by Republicans, as expected.

Constitutional law isn’t my wheelhouse but it’s hilarious that Joe Biden, who’s been in Washington for over a half-century, can recommend term limits for anybody with a straight face. Neither are Biden’s reforms a practical suggestion, since they come in the last months of his presidency, after he announced he is no longer seeking reelection. The elderly Biden is now the lamest of lame ducks. The point of this exercise is point-scoring in an election year. Not missing a beat, Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, backed Biden’s proposal on the grounds that “there is a clear crisis of confidence facing the Supreme Court.”

This supposed crisis represents an intriguing turn of events for anyone interested in the intersection of politics and propaganda. It started in June 2022 with the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which overturned its previous 1973 and 1992 rulings on abortion. Dobbs returned the highly contested abortion issue to the states, setting off a political firestorm which boosted Democrats in the 2022 midterm election.

The Dobbs decision looms large over this year’s election too, with Harris and her surrogates speaking about abortion rights prominently in the Democrats’ rematch against former President Donald Trump. The bigger lesson which Democrats took from Dobbs is that the Supreme Court isn’t legitimate when it’s dominated by conservative-leaning justices. There was nothing wrong with the Supreme Court for many decades, when it was dominated by more liberal-leaning justices. In fact, that court was a reliable ally to Democrats in remaking American society. But now, with the court tilting 6-3 rightward, it’s suddenly a threat to democracy itself.