In 1983, an ambitious young lawyer in Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department wrote a memo about a hypothetical constitutional amendment to reform the judiciary. “Setting a term of, say, fifteen years would ensure that federal judges would not lose all touch with reality through decades of ivory tower existence,” he wrote. “It would also provide a more regular and greater degree of turnover among the judges.”
That lawyer’s name was John Roberts.
Just a few years ago, a clear majority of Americans trusted the Supreme Court. Now, a month after Roe v. Wade was overturned, poll after poll shows that a clear majority of Americans do not.To which many of the Court’s closest observers would say, “What took so long?”For more than a decade, the Court has issued narrow rulings, decided by slim majorities, that align with Republican political goals. Five Justices unleashed dark money in politics.
In the oddly managerial language of military analysts, Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is currently “behind schedule.” But it’s not just his military that’s struggled so far. Putin’s global propaganda machine—TV channels, social-media bot networks, government-sponsored hackers, and official mouthpieces—has floundered.This was not expected to happen.
To hear Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema tell it, they hoped to defend voting rights. They also hoped, even more fervently, to defend the Senate filibuster.In the end, they did neither.It’s true that by joining their Republican colleagues this week to reject a rules change and block a pair of voting-rights bills, the two Democrats ensured that the filibuster remains temporarily intact.
“The Constitution is neither pro-choice nor pro-life.” So said Justice Brett Kavanaugh, not once, not twice, but three times during last week’s oral argument in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. It’s the judicial equivalent of a poll-tested line, an attempt to message the overturning of Roe v. Wade as fundamentally pro-democratic, something for voters to decide.
Updated at 9:34 p.m. ET on November 9, 2021.About six hours after the polls closed on Election Day, the Associated Press made a call in the close race for Virginia governor: Democrat Terry McAuliffe had lost. McAuliffe conceded Wednesday morning, when it became clear he had no realistic path to victory.The same has not happened in New Jersey, where the Democratic incumbent, Phil Murphy, defeated the Republican Jack Ciattarelli, a former state assemblyman.
In order to secure his vote on the most significant voting-rights legislation in more than half a century, Senator Joe Manchin is demanding that every American be required to show identification in order to vote. Democrats shouldn’t hold their nose and take that deal.They should embrace it with open arms.Manchin has been frequently and fairly criticized for incoherence on democracy issues.
Last week the House of Representatives passed H.R. 1, a bill that would make voter registration automatic, end partisan gerrymandering, strengthen campaign-finance law, and bolster oversight of lobbyists. It’s the most sweeping package of democracy reforms in generations. Yet the mood among most democracy reformers was not giddy excitement but resigned dismay: Although H.R.