The Legitimacy of the Supreme Court is at Stake in November

With a little over a month to go until Election Day, there’s been a constant drumbeat of warnings that this election will be the most important election of our lifetime. This feeling hasn’t just come out of nowhere. 

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, the American people have felt an impending sense of doom. In his Dobbs concurrence, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that Dobbs could be used to reevaluate other landmark civil rights cases: Griswold, which protects the use of contraceptives without government restrictions; Lawrence, which ruled that same-sex sexual conduct could not be criminalized and Obergefell, which legalized same-sex marriage. 

Our individual freedoms and rights are hanging on a thin wire, at the mercy of the corrupt, corporate-captured Supreme Court. It’s particularly alarming when billionaires and shadowy special interests make it clear that they can — and have — bought access into our highest court and are using it to perpetuate their pro-corporate, far-right agenda. And the MAGA justices have made no attempt to hide the fact that they’re acting more so on behalf of their benefactors than the actual U.S. Constitution. 

Roe was only overturned after Leonard Leo and other dark money groups spent $1.1 billion — $600 million to capture the Supreme Court and $500 million on lobbying, advertising and organizing against the right to choose.

The cases and rulings from this past term clearly lay out an extreme roadmap. One by one, billionaires and corporations targeted the federal agencies that protect us.

We are facing a true crisis in the Supreme Court. Corrupt bought-and-paid-for justices will do anything to maintain the status quo; from refusing to recuse themselves when they have conflicts of interest to enacting a self-policing code of conduct. Ginni Thomas, Justice Thomas’ wife and a key organizer of Stop the Steal efforts, recently thanked First Liberty Institute for their efforts in blocking Supreme Court ethics reform. She said the quiet part out loud — these justices are getting rich by selling out the American people. 

And voters across the country have noticed. 

Between this blatant and deep-seated corruption and the Court completely breaking with precedent, our latest polling found voters reject the idea that the Supreme Court is fair, independent and impartial. 

They know they cannot trust the justices to put the rule of law above the demands of their wealthy donors. They know that if former President Donald Trump is reelected and any of the conservative justices retire, conservative kingpin Leonard Leo will hand select the next justice who is all but guaranteed to be even more extreme than the last.

President Biden’s support for Supreme Court reform breathes new life into the fight and couldn’t come at a more crucial time.

Until there are comprehensive reforms put in place, corrupt justices will continue to sell our freedoms to the highest bidder and the Supreme Court will continue taking us backwards. 

And voters are ready for change. End Citizens United and Court Accountability recently found that two-thirds of congressional battleground voters support Supreme Court justices being subject to more oversight and accountability. The polling also found that a majority of voters believe the Court has become more conservative over the past five years. 

This directly contributed to the overall feeling of distrust towards Washington, D.C. — the American people know that they cannot trust our government to protect them when they’re beholden to wealthy donors. They’ve lost hope that the great experiment of democracy is actually working for them. 

It’s past time to enact comprehensive reform that will increase accountability and transparency in the judiciary. The American people want to see systemic change in our Supreme Court, to know that justice is truly blind and to ensure that their rights aren’t being sold to the highest bidder. Our polling also found that voters would rather support a candidate who will prioritize Supreme Court reform — by a 38 point margin.  

Despite what they want you to think, Congress has the power to make these changes. Lawmakers can easily implement term limits, a stricter code of ethics and third-party investigations to potential conflicts of interests — and they have the legislation for it. Before President Joe Biden proposed his Supreme Court reform package, a plethora of bills, like the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency (SCERT) Act and Supreme Court Tenure Establishment and Retirement Modernization (TERM) Act had been introduced to keep the Court fair and just, but they were shot down by the GOP.

Though Republicans are determined to block reform at any opportunity they get, hope is not lost. President Biden’s support for Supreme Court reform breathes new life into the fight and couldn’t come at a more crucial time. 

This November, we the people, have the opportunity to elect reform champions up and down the ballot. If we elect Vice President Kamala Harris as president, hold the Senate and flip the House, we can finally pass these crucial reforms. Not only would this ensure justices do their job properly, without interference or bribery, but it would also restore Americans’ faith in the Supreme Court. 

Democracy lies within the judiciary — we need to do everything in our power to protect it and support the champions looking to strengthen it. 

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Tiffany Muller is the president of End Citizens United / Let America Vote, the leading anti-corruption and voting rights organization with more than four million members nationwide.