SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
just majority
'An Inflection Point': Planned Parenthood Applauded for Backing US Supreme Court Expansion
"A few short years ago, we were told court expansion was a pipe dream," said one advocate. "With support from groups boldly advocating at the state level to leading national organizations, our movement is growing stronger every day."
May 15, 2023
Justice advocates marked what they called a "huge" development in the fight for court reform on Monday as Planned Parenthood joined a national coalition that's pushing for the expansion of the U.S. Supreme Court, with the president of the reproductive rights organization saying the court's "capture" by the far right calls for "structural" change.
Alexis McGill Johnson, who leads the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said Monday that the group is joining Just Majority, a coalition including more than 35 groups that are currently on a nationwide tour highlighting ethics violations at the Supreme Court and how reforms including expansion could help protect democracy and secure justice on the highest judicial panel in the country.
"We should be able to make our own decisions about our lives, bodies, and futures," said Johnson in a statement Monday. "The unrelenting attacks on our basic freedoms—including through the courts—demand that we reform our federal court system. Abortion rights, voting rights, LGBTQ+ rights, our democratic institutions, and so much more are at stake."
Johnson spoke toMSNBC's "Inside With Jen Psaki" on Sunday about Planned Parenthood's decision to join the court expansion movement, as other rights groups including NARAL Pro-Choice America, Latino Victory, and Newtown Action Alliance have in recent weeks.
The group was pushed toward its decision, she said, as U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled last month that mifepristone, a pill used in medication abortions, should be taken off the market.
"The reality is, the court now has been fully captured in so many areas," Johnson said. "The fact that you have, again, this lone Texas judge, that can now bring cases, you can form shop there, bring cases to the Fifth Circuit, which is also conservative and up to the Supreme Court now, which has a conservative supermajority... And that is a way to circumvent the way in which popularly elected decisions are made."
"We need to see expanded courts, from the lower courts all the way up to the Supreme Court," she added. "We need to see term limits. We need to see ethical reforms."
\u201cNEWS: @PPact is endorsing Supreme Court expansion.\n\n"The way in which the system has been captured requires us to engage in structural reform." -- @alexismcgill tells @jrpsaki\u201d— Demand Justice (@Demand Justice) 1684083423
Planned Parenthood's decision to join the court expansion movement, which has been led by groups including Demand Justice and Take Back the Court, comes as right-wing Supreme Court justices, particularly Justice Clarence Thomas, have faced intense criticism over alleged ethics violations. Recent reports have pointed to evidence that Thomas has for years received financial gifts from Texas Republican megadonor Harlan Crow without disclosing those financial ties as required by federal law, and Justices Neil Gorsuch and John Roberts have also faced scrutiny about their failure to disclose financial transactions and payments.
"It's really important to call for structural reforms that sustain progress," said Johnson. "It would be one thing to call for a justice to step down for whatever reason, but the reality is that the way in which the system has been captured requires us to engage in structural reform in a different way."
On social media, Johnson said Planned Parenthood's "expanded position" on the courts reflects an expansion of its "commitment" to protecting reproductive rights.
\u201cAs we continue to face unrelenting attacks on our basic freedoms, Planned Parenthood refuses to accept that our courts can only exist as they do now. Our expanded position only expands our commitment to you.\n\nhttps://t.co/ws38by9Io0\u201d— Alexis McGill Johnson (@Alexis McGill Johnson) 1684089002
Demand Justice called Planned Parenthood's decision "an inflection point for the Supreme Court reform movement."
"The endorsement of key groups in the progressive ecosystem like Planned Parenthood shows just how far this campaign has come," said Brian Fallon, executive director of the group. "The public has awoken to the dangers of a captured, corrupt judiciary and is demanding solutions. The composition of the court will obviously not be changed overnight, but the consensus about the need for bold, sweeping reforms is growing by the day, and the salience of the court as a political issue has never been higher."
Sarah Lipton-Lubet, president of Take Back the Court, said Planned Parenthood's joining of the movement shows how court expansion has become "a mainstream progressive policy goal with the support of more than 60 members of Congress and some of the most respected and powerful abortion rights champions in our movement."
"A few short years ago, we were told court expansion was a pipe dream," said Lipton-Lubet. "With support from groups boldly advocating at the state level to leading national organizations, our movement is growing stronger every day. The right-wing extremists on the Court can try to rip our rights away, but we're fighting back even stronger—and we're going to win."
The Supreme Court has been expanded seven times in the past. Reform advocates also called for an addition of seats of lower federal courts to reflect growth in population, diversity, and the number of cases that judges hear.
"It won't be easy and it won't happen overnight but we WILL expand the Supreme Court," said Doug Lindner, senior director of judiciary and democracy for the League of Conservation Voters. "We WILL protect our abortion rights and our climate from these extremists. And we WILL pass on a vibrant, multiracial democracy to the next generation."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Watchdog Sends Mobile Billboard to Roberts' Country Club, Demanding: 'Clean Up Court'
"It's never a bad day to remind SCOTUS Chief Justice Roberts of the rampant corruption and scandals that plague his Court," said Accountable.US.
Apr 29, 2023
As the latest polling showed a majority of Americans believe U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas should step down from his lifetime appointment, government watchdog Accountable.US deployed several trucks to Capitol Hill Saturday to display mobile billboards plastered with Thomas' and other right-wing justices' images and recent headlines regarding allegations of ethics violations.
An image of Thomas was shown alongside a headline reading, "America's Supreme Court Faces a Legitimacy Crisis," while Chief Justice John Roberts was displayed with the message: "Justice Roberts: Clean Up Your Court."
"It's never a bad day to remind SCOTUS Chief Justice Roberts of the rampant corruption and scandals that plague his Court," said the group, which also sent a mobile billboard to Roberts' country club.
\u201cIt\u2019s never a bad day to remind SCOTUS Chief Justice Roberts of the rampant corruption and scandals that plague his Court\u2026\n\n\u2026and we went to some of his fave spots (hello country club) to make sure he got the message.\u201d— Accountable.US (@Accountable.US) 1682792645
The campaign took place a day after progressive think tank Data for Progress published survey results showing that 53% of respondents believed Thomas should resign following revelations that he's financially benefited for years from trips and other gifts given to him by Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, as well as from a property sale to Crow.
Seventy percent of people told Data for Progress the previously undisclosed property sale was unethical and 64% said the same about his vacations and gifts.
Thomas was the first right-wing judge in recent weeks to come under scrutiny for his failure to disclose his financial ties—a violation of federal law, according to legal experts.
Earlier this week Politico reported that Justice Neil Gorsuch sold a property to a law firm CEO days after being confirmed to the court—but didn't disclose the name of the buyer on federal forms. The CEO's firm has been involved in nearly two dozen cases that have gone before the court since Gorsuch was appointed.
On Friday, whistleblower documents sparked renewed interest in the earnings of Roberts' wife, Jane Sullivan Roberts, who made $10.3 million in commissions from a legal recruiting firm she worked at between 2007 and 2014, placing lawyers at firms—including at least one that argued a case before the high court. Roberts did not specify that his wife had earned that money in commissions from law firms on his federal disclosure forms.
"In addition to Clarence Thomas and his issues, we have Justice Gorsuch and his issues, and we've got the chief justice's wife and her issues," said U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) on Saturday at a stop for the Just Majority campaign, a nationwide tour organized by 30 progressive groups to demand accountability on the high court. "It tells you that unaccountability leads to corruption. The American people need and deserve a fair and ethical Supreme Court."
Watson Coleman also called for an expansion of the court, which has been endorsed by numerous progressives in Congress and legal advocacy groups.
The Supreme Court is not bound by a code of ethics, as other federal courts are. Forty-eight percent of respondents told Data for Progress that they supported binding rules, including 67% of Democrats.
"These revelations have renewed pressure on the court to follow an explicit code of conduct," said the think tank. "While all nine justices have so far been resistant to the idea, voters clearly support ensuring that the Supreme Court justices are held to an ethical standard, and also support consequences for justices who fail to do so."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'I Will Say What Needs to Be Said': Sen. Ed Markey Calls on Clarence Thomas to Resign
Thomas "cannot judge right from wrong, so why should he be judging the country's most important cases on its highest court?" asked the Democrat.
Apr 26, 2023
Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts on Monday echoed other members of Congress who have urged U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to step down over mounting evidence of unethical behavior, and he also reiterated progressives' long-standing demand to expand the court.
"I will say what needs to be said: Clarence Thomas should resign from the Supreme Court of the United States," said Markey. "His reputation is unsalvageable. It is evident that he cannot judge right from wrong, so why should he be judging the country's most important cases on its highest court?"
Markey spoke alongside Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in Boston, at the launch of their "Just Majority" bus tour, which is designed to highlight how, in Markey's words, "conservative special interests have hijacked our justice system and laid siege to our most fundamental human rights."
The 20-stop tour comes in the wake of multiple revelations about the gifts Thomas secretly accepted for decades from Harlan Crow, a billionaire real estate magnate, collector of Nazi memorabilia, and megadonor to the Republican Party. Crow's undisclosed financial ties to Thomas include all-expenses-paid luxury vacations and the purchase of a property owned by Thomas, which Crow upgraded while Thomas' mother still lived in it. Crow has connections to right-wing groups that have been involved in Supreme Court cases since Thomas was first confirmed to the bench in 1991.
Thomas is far from alone when it comes to conflicts of interest on the high court. One day after the Massachusetts lawmakers' kick-off event, it was revealed that roughly a week after his April 2017 confirmation, Justice Neil Gorsuch and his business partners sold a 40-acre Colorado ranch for almost $2 million to an undisclosed buyer. The purchaser, Brian Duffy, is the CEO of a law firm that has since been involved in 22 cases before the court.
Despite growing evidence of corruption, Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday refused to accept an invitation to testify at an upcoming Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the need for Supreme Court ethics reforms.
With his Monday remarks, Markey joined Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and a handful of House Democrats—including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.)—who had previously implored Thomas to leave the court.
In addition to demanding Thomas' resignation, Markey joined Pressley and Warren in calling for wide-ranging reforms to the nation's chief judicial body, including adding seats and implementing robust ethical standards.
\u201cI was proud to kick off the Just Majority bus tour yesterday to make clear that conservative special-interests have hijacked our justice system and laid siege to our most fundamental human rights\u2014but we aren't going to let them win. We will expand the Court and secure our rights.\u201d— Ed Markey (@Ed Markey) 1682459571
As The New Republicreported Tuesday: "Markey assailed the court as being 'broken,' with justices flouting financial restrictions and ethical standards while the court inflicts 'painful real-world consequences' upon people. He listed an array of cases as evidence of how people's 'most fundamentally held freedoms are under siege.'"
In 2022, the high court's reactionary supermajority eliminated the constitutional right to abortion care, opening the door to further attacks on rights long safeguarded by the 14th Amendment's substantive due process clause; weakened gun restrictions; undermined the separation of church and state; eroded hard-won civil liberties; and curbed the authority of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, potentially gutting federal regulatory power in general.
"But when something is broken, we don't just agonize, we organize," Markey said Monday.
Markey, Pressley, and Warren all proposed increasing the size of the court—a move that has been made seven times throughout U.S. history—and enacting much stronger ethics rules.
While only a few members of Congress have called on Thomas to resign, there is a large appetite among voters for meaningful Supreme Court reform.
Polling data shows that public approval of the Supreme Court has been dwindling for months. According to a survey conducted last week, nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults no longer have confidence in the high court.
"We have to ensure that the mockery which Justice Clarence Thomas is actually committing is corrected because it is a violation of public trust," Markey said Monday. "Clarence Thomas is serving on the high court with the highest level of corruption."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular