A year after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade and after months of dangerous protests at the homes of Justices, liberal manufactured ethics scandals, and failure to disclose who leaked the Dobbs opinion, media and political pundits alike have joined in a reckless campaign to delegitimize the Court and its decisions.
Calls from the left to change the structure of the court reached a crescendo with more than 30 “progressive” groups joining together recently in the left’s latest effort to “save democracy” through restructuring the court to achieve their preferred partisan outcomes.
Americans, however, strongly reject these dangerous efforts.
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According to the Wall Street Journal, a remarkable 91% of Americans believe an independent judiciary is a crucial safeguard of our civil liberties. The just-released Mason-Dixon poll also shows that 72% of Americans believe that the politicization of the Supreme Court threatens judicial independence and 59% oppose attacks on the integrity of some of the justices.
Despite repeated media stories questioning the ethics of some members of the Court, particularly Justice Clarence Thomas, 69% of Americans do not want Congress taking over and setting rules for judicial ethics. The Mason-Dixon poll, commissioned by First Liberty Institute, surveyed 1,100 registered voters nationally between May 30-June 2.
For all its griping about a conservative Supreme Court and wild new accusations of ethical misconduct, all in a desperate attempt for the Democratic Senate to take over the ethics governance of the Supreme Court, the radical left has failed to convince the public in its dangerous attack on the legitimacy of the Court.
Thankfully, Americans see these threats and schemes for what they are: acts of pure political revenge that threaten the civil liberties of all Americans.
Opposition to the left’s most radical idea, court-packing, continues to be strong, with 68% of Americans opposed.
Until now, President Joe Biden has been agnostic toward restructuring the court.
“The last thing we need to do is turn the Supreme Court into just a political football, whoever has the most votes gets whatever they want,” Biden said in a “60 Minutes” interview just before the 2020 election. “Presidents come and go. Supreme Court justices stay for generations.”
Even so, in 2021 the president created a 34-member commission of legal experts and academics to review multiple proposals to change the court, including adding seats and establishing term limits. But in its final report, the commission made no significant recommendations.
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In recent months, however, the progressive left’s focus has been squarely on the court’s more conservative Justices, especially Justice Clarence Thomas. Anger over Thomas’s consistent originalist perspective boiled over into ridiculous accusations of unethical behavior and even calls that he resign.
The Senate Judiciary Committee launched an investigation and liberals have introduced legislation that would put the Supreme Court under ethics rules, violating the Constitution’s separation of powers.
Despite the continued fervor from the left, Americans understand that preserving the independence of the judiciary is essential to preserving our constitutional republic. Americans understand that if the politically motivated efforts to restructure our judicial system works, judges will lose their ability to enforce the rule of law with impartiality, and the last safeguard to our civil liberties will be gone.
The message of the American people to Congress couldn’t be clearer: leave the Court alone.
The founders recognized the separation of each branch of government as essential to preserving our civil liberties, and so should our modern-day politicians. Efforts to delegitimize the court pose a dangerous threat to all our freedoms.
If American democracy is in peril, it’s not from a conservative Supreme Court trying to do its duty but from those who would trample the rule of law and constitutional norms through threats of intimidation, restructuring the Court, and attacks on its integrity. For now, the American people are not buying what the radical left has been selling.
