The Supreme Court is a supreme threat to American democracy. That was Abraham Lincoln’s view in light of the Dred Scott decision, expressed in his First Inaugural Address. And the threat continued after his assassination: 2/18
It’s not just abortion. On guns, environmental protection, discrimination, labor rights, affirmative action, student debt relief and mant other issues SCOTUS has squashed majority rule. 3/18
“Court reform should be something that's built by the people. Part of this project is thinking about how we end judicial supremacy, how we make sure that the people have power, and not just unelected, unaccountable judges." -- @peoplesparity.bsky.social Ex Dir @mollycoleman.bsky.social: 5/18
“Really thinking about transforming the court felt politically inconceivable a few years ago," said @corinneblalock.bsky.social Ex Dir of @lpeproject.bsky.social. Now that Dobbs & other decisions have raised the stakes, "Our role is helping people connect that to a set of political ideas”: 6/18
"We felt there was an important void to fill, to take some of these ideas that are being discussed in the legal academy or by historians and bring them to the mainstream of progressive organizing spaces.” @mollycoleman.bsky.social said. 7/18
The series began with Harvard Law prof @nikobowie.bsky.social addressing the foundation of the problem: the wildly disproportionate power of the Supreme Court. It's rooted in the legendary Marbury vs. Madison decision. The wider story casts it as a high-level coup: 8/18
When Federalists passed the wildly unconstitutional Alien & Sedition Acts, Jefferson's Democratic Republicans didn't go to the Federalist-controlled court. They went to the people. And the story unfolded from there: 9/18
In the end, the position held by a minority in Congress became the law of the land — and not on some narrow legalistic point, but on the fundamental question of who is allowed to interpret the Constitution. 11/18
