A Year After The Fall of Roe v Wade, Calls Grow for Supreme Court Reform
High court is enmeshed in a "political crisis," former Republican congressman says
A year ago Saturday, the US Supreme Court set off a political earthquake when it struck down the landmark Roe v Wade decision, and overturned a half-century of guaranteed abortion rights nationwide.
Striking down Roe has been a startlingly unpopular decision across the country, and on the eve of that momentous decision, voices are speaking out anew for reform of the federal judiciary, starting with the highest court in the land.
The decision to do away with the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v Wade in its decision last June, Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization, has spawned new limitations and severe limits to abortion rights that amount to essential bans against the procedure in wide swaths of the country, in states controlled by Republicans.
That Dobbs decision is deeply disapproved of, with 61 percent of Americans — including 60 percent of political independents — oppose the reversal of Roe, according to one recent public opinion poll.
Between that decision — and ethics scandals involving several members of the high court — there's new talk about court reform.
“I’m deeply concerned about it, and while I agree with you, it would be best for the court to adopt its own code of ethics, they’re not doing it. And I would have Congress impose it if they won’t,” Rep Adam Schiff (D-Calif) said of a need for improved ethics on the Supreme Court. “More than that, I think we need term limits for justices, and I favor expanding the Supreme Court.
“I’m one of the lead authors of the bill in the House to do that along with [Rep] Hank Johnson and I’ll tell you why. And that is, [Sen] Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump stacked the court,” Schiff added. “They didn’t have to enlarge it, but they stacked it by withholding an appointment from Barack Obama, and then jamming one down the country in direct and hypocritical contradiction in the latter days of Donald Trump.
“And that stacked the court and unless we’re willing to accept that for another generation, we need to do something about it, and to me, that means expand the court,” he said.
And the call for reform is not only a Democratic issue.
The high court is in the midst of a remarkable crisis, according a prominent TV host and former Republican congressman, who expects that court reform ultimately will be a bipartisan effort.
“The United States Supreme Court, in a political crisis unlike any political crisis it’s been in, at least in my lifetime, even after the 2000 recount, their approval ratings recovered very quickly after that and they were respected and trusted again,” said Joe Scarborough, co-host of MSNBC's Morning Joe and a one-time lawmaker from Florida. “But you look at just how rigged the process has been — and I don’t want to go through all the things that happened in the United States Senate with Merrick Garland and others — you look at the billions of dollars that people are pouring in now to influence this, you look at the will of the people, like 65 percent, 70 percent of Americans being ignored, and overturning a 50-year precedent, unfortunately, they have destroyed the credibility of the court, the far right has.
“And my prediction is, it’s coming. There is going to be reform in the judicial branch. And I don’t know what that reform looks like, but I think it’s going to start with the United States Supreme Court because their approval rating is going to just keep going down as it gets more and more politicized, and let’s face it, bought off by an element that has billions of dollars,” he added. “They’re using billions of dollars to buy off these Supreme Court fights, and at the same time, with the Supreme Court right now that’s just running roughshod over the ethics, just basic ethical considerations. So, again, they’re doing this to themselves.
“And when there is reform and when people talk about a new Supreme Court that’s going to be less political and more representative of the country, they can scream and yell all they want. It’s going to be their fault,” Scarborough said.
The coming reform won't be the kind of partisan court-packing President Franklin Delano Roosevelt attempted nearly a century ago, Scarborough predicted.
“This is going to be, I predict, a bipartisan group of people that are going to have to come together and say, ‘How do we reform this court and take the vicious politics and the billions and billions of dollars’” out of the judiciary, he said.
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