MAD Joins Call to Unpack SCOTUS, Reform the Courts
The American courts are in a deep crisis. This month, the Supreme Court undermined one of our most important American values: rule of law. The American experiment has long relied on the principle that every person is equal before the law, no matter how powerful. The United States has no kings; it was created in response to a king that oppressed the future United States. And the radical right-wing majority on this Supreme Court threw that principle in the garbage bin in service of protecting their president, Donald Trump.
This summer finds us in a new world, where our courts are now an actively anti-democracy, pro-autocracy force. That has critical implications for the core mission of the Media and Democracy Project — namely, it has implications for media, and for our democracy.
This month MAD joined 34 national organizations concerned about the rule of law and signed a letter to Congress from Stand Up America calling for Supreme Court term limits, an enforceable ethics code, and expanding the size of the Court. All are critically needed reforms.
Our Supreme Court has been captured by a Christian nationalist movement funded by right wing oligarchs. This effort has been coordinated through the Federalist Society (Fed Soc), an organization which has fused radical illiberal Christian ideas with radical illiberal libertarian ideas which benefit the extremely wealthy.
The problems are not just with the Supreme Court. Fed Soc judges have been installed by Republican presidents at all levels of our federal courts. The Fifth Circuit is notable for its pro-authoritarian, pro-Republican party bent, but other circuits and district judges — throughout the nation and especially in states like Texas, Florida, and Louisiana — are also Fed Soc-selected.
This Court has not only shredded rule of law to protect a Republican president who public facts indicate committed numerous crimes. This Supreme Court has also advanced a set of other pro-oligarch and pro-Christian-extremism changes to our laws and our Constitution. The ability of agencies to regulate clean air and safe airplanes, the ability of the SEC to hold Wall Street fraudsters accountable, both have been decimated this Supreme Court term. These decisions go hand in hand with the Fed Soc Supreme Court's past decisions — to allow political bribery and give power to billionaires to influence our elections through dark money, to give billions to Paul Singer, a billionaire who paid Samuel Alito with a free fishing vacation, and to use the First Amendment as a weapon to empower corporations. As Justice John Paul Stevens said, "the distinction between corporate and human speakers is significant." Corporations are not people and should not enjoy "free speech" rights.
And that takes us to the effects on our media. The Fed Soc SCOTUS's perversion of the First Amendment to empower corporations threatens any future action to improve our media. Because the Supreme Court is advancing a Republican agenda, all efforts to build a better media now are in danger by a Supreme Court that is aligned with a Republican party that wants the media status quo — wants Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg to influence the public, and wants billionaires like Charles Koch, Philip Anschutz, Paul Singer, John C Malone, David Smith, and Rupert Murdoch to use their money to own and control media and thus influence public discourse.
The Roberts court has done immeasurable harm to the Supreme Court itself and has compromised its own legitimacy as a judicial body. The radical SCOTUS supermajority has eviscerated stare decisis. Chief Justice Roberts has tolerated stunning conflicts of interest and partisanship and refusals to recuse. The Court has been packed by Fed Soc and billionaires leading to the stunning slate of anti-democratic pro-business rulings. We need to unpack the Court.
Reforming the courts and removing the hard-right influence of the Fed Soc on our judicial system is vital to creating a stronger democracy and restoring legitimacy to the Court. We fully support these calls for court reform.