Democrats renew calls to reform Supreme Court: ‘Fundamentally out of step’ with Americans

0:00 THE SUPREME COURT'S DECISION TO GUT SECTION 2 OF THE VOTING

0:03 RIGHTS ACT IS NOT JUST ENCOURAGING DEMOCRATS TO REDISTRICT THEMSELVES,

0:07 IT'S ALSO RENEWING calls within the party to pack the court.

0:11 And there is still a question,

0:12 of course, that remains of whether moderate Democrats,

0:14 if given the power to do so,

0:16 have an appetite for reforming the courts in that way.

0:19 Joining us, reporter at The Bulwark, Lauren Egan,

0:21 founder THIRD PRESIDENT OF THE SEARCHLIGHT INSTITUTE AND FORMER

0:24 CHIEF OF STAFF FOR SENATOR JOHN FETTERMAN, ADAM JENTILSEN.

0:27 ELANE KAYMARK IS STILL WITH US.

0:29 LAUREN, THIS IS YOUR REPORTING.

0:31 WHAT DO YOU GOT?

0:33 Thanks for having me.

0:36 Look, I think this VRA ruling last week really was kind of a jolt

0:40 for some Democrats who feel like the Supreme

0:42 Court has just increasingly become a partisan actor.

0:46 Obviously, this decline in trust in the spring

0:49 forward has been going on for years.

0:51 But that VRA ruling is essentially going to end

0:52 black political power in the South as we know it,

0:57 and that's landing really heavy in the Democratic Party.

1:00 And folks that that I talked to in the Democratic Party kind of said,

1:04 look, we've reached a point where we

1:07 have to seriously consider real court reform.

1:10 This was obviously a conversation that was

1:11 happening in the 2020 Democratic primary, but it was kind of on the fringes.

1:15 Joe Biden, who obviously won that primary, never really embraced court reform.

1:19 He's kind of the institutionalist and that was his whole brand.

1:21 But when I talked to folks in South Carolina,

1:24 which as we know it is the first primary

1:27 state that of course could change going into 2028.

1:29 But let's say South Carolina is the first primary state.

1:31 When I was talking with officials in South Carolina, they said, look,

1:35 this is a state with a lot of black Democratic primary voters.

1:37 They're going to want answers from these candidates

1:40 that are coming already to the state to visit.

1:42 They're going to want answers about how they plan to restore the VRA,

1:45 and a key component of that is probably going to be some sort of court reform,

1:50 whether that's expanding the court, term limits, what have you.

1:53 But they're looking for answers.

1:54 Let me play the conversation,

1:56 part of the conversation you had with Ro Khanna about this.

2:02 Oh, you know, it's not a full conversation.

2:04 It's a full screen.

2:05 He said to you, the Supreme Court is totally out of touch

2:07 with the racism that still exists

2:09 and racially polarized voting in the Deep South.

2:12 They dealt a severe blow to the next generation of Black leadership.

2:14 We must have term limits on justices and look at expanding the court.

2:18 Reforming the court must be one of the highest Democratic priorities.

2:21 Again, so that's repeating much of what you were saying there, Lauren.

2:26 I wonder the question we asked at the beginning is

2:29 whether moderates are going to have an appetite for this.

2:32 And Adam, you're well positioned to answer that for me.

2:35 And by the way, I just want to say as we're talking

2:37 about this, Tennessee has just approved its new maps and it's a wipeout,

2:42 nine to zero, nine Republican districts,

2:44 zero Democratic districts in that state.

2:48 Yeah, I mean, you know, what you just described and then,

2:52 you know, the course ruling last week,

2:54 I think moderates are more willing to consider a much wider

2:57 array of reforms than they were even a few years ago.

3:00 And I think that's due to the extreme politicization

3:04 we've seen of redistricting and of the Supreme Court itself.

3:08 And so this this notion that the Supreme Court is an apolitical actor,

3:12 that it is independent, has really taken a huge blow due

3:15 to the way that this conservative majority has conducted itself,

3:19 being extremely sort of transparently political in its rulings, you know,

3:23 veering one way or the other depending on the outcome that they wanted to find,

3:27 rather than sort of being consistent

3:29 in applying judicial principles or neutrality.

3:31 And I think that's opened their minds to sort of a broader array of reforms.

3:36 I think you still are going to struggle to get

3:39 to a majority for something like expanding the court.

3:41 If you have sort of a very narrow Senate majority, 51 seats or 52 seats,

3:46 I think if any sort of major reform to the courts

3:49 is going to require Democrats to win many more Senate seats,

3:52 somewhere in the range of 55, 56, 57,

3:55 somewhere approaching a supermajority to actually have

3:58 the votes to pass something like that.

4:00 I think inevitably there will be defections and you have

4:01 to compensate for that in the number of seats that you win.

4:04 So Elaine, is there anything else beyond adding

4:07 more Supreme Court justices that the Democrats might pursue?

4:10 Well, I think term limits on Supreme Court justices

4:13 is something that the Democrats might pursue or age limits, something like that.

4:18 I mean, given the, you know, the problem with Joe Biden and how he aged right

4:24 before us and had to drop out of the presidential race,

4:27 I think that given that experience, a lot of Americans are saying, you know,

4:32 maybe we ought to look seriously at either

4:34 age limits or term limits or something like that.

4:37 So I think that's probably more reasonable,

4:40 maybe more doable than actually adding more justices.

4:44 Remember that Franklin Roosevelt, the hero, one of our great presidents,

4:48 couldn't manage to expand the Supreme Court.

4:51 So I don't know that anybody else coming up will.

4:54 Do you, can you argue, Elaine,

4:56 or do you believe that the court does need to be expanded, given this moment?

5:01 I think either expand━I do.

5:03 And I'm a big moderate Democrat, always have been.

5:07 I think that this is really not━they are really

5:10 not representing the United States of America in its totality,

5:13 and that it does need to change somehow,

5:17 either expanded or term-limited or age-limited or something.

5:21 Because if we go on like this, they're going to be,

5:24 they are fundamentally out of step with where America is.

5:28 We saw that when they repealed Roe v.

5:30 Wade and we're seeing it again in many other decisions.

5:35 Is this something that Democrats feel comfortable, Lauren, campaigning on?

5:39 I'm hearing Ro Khanna talk about it.

5:41 Are other Democrats going to be using this in the campaign trail?

5:45 That's a really good question.

5:46 I think that there's still some

5:47 uncomfortableness with talking about this publicly.

5:49 Some Democratic strategists that I spoke with said, you know,

5:53 I actually kind of wish that we wouldn't talk about this publicly.

5:56 I just want us to do this once Democrats have a trifecta again.

6:00 So there is some recognition in that, that even though Democrats, I think,

6:05 as Adam kind of spoke to, that this is becoming more mainstream,

6:09 these ideas, there is some recognition that it could potentially be politically

6:14 toxic or just a bit controversial in some competitive parts of the country.

6:19 So Ro Khanna obviously very comfortable talking about this, but I think

6:23 we still have a long way to go to see other Democrats,

6:26 other potential 2028 candidates fully embrace this in a really public way.

6:31 Let me play Chief Justice John Roberts talking

6:36 about how he━I'm going to actually read it, how he sees the courts.

6:39 He says, I think at a very basic level,

6:42 people think we're making policy decisions.

6:44 We're saying we think this is how things should

6:47 be as opposed to what the law provides, he said.

6:50 I think they view us as purely political actors,

6:52 which I don't think is an accurate understanding of what we do.

6:57 Elaine, do you think that's fair?

6:59 No.

7:02 I mean, I think that I think that they are acting as purely political actors.

7:07 I mean, they're overturning precedent right and left.

7:12 And that's where I go back to the decision on abortion.

7:15 That was, first of FIRST OF ALL, MANY,

7:17 MANY YEARS AGO, THE ENTIRE SOCIETY HAD INCORPORATED IT,

7:23 WAS ACTING ON IT AND THEY OVERTURNED IT THAT'S NOT THE WAY THE COURT

7:30 USUALLY OPERATES AND SO I THINK THEY ALL HAVE BECOME POLITICIZED AND BY THE WAY,

7:36 I DON'T KNOW WHETHER OR NOT THIS CAN BE DONE IS ONE BUT I

7:40 DON'T THINK IT HURTS DEMOCRATS TO RUN ON THIS BECAUSE I THINK OUR BASE,

7:45 OUR AFRICAN-AMERICAN BASE IS SO OUTRAGED BY THIS DECISION, THE LOUISIANA V.

7:51 CALI, THEY ARE SO OUTRAGED BY IT THAT IT

7:55 IS ONLY GOOD FOR DEMOCRATS TO DRAW ATTENTION TO IT.

7:57 ALL RIGHT, ELLAINE AND LAUREN,