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It didn\u2019t land with the same kind of political explosion as Dobbs.<\/em> But the Supreme Court\u2019s decision<\/a> last year in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency<\/em> was every bit as outrageous: The six-member conservative majority, in handcuffing the EPA\u2019s regulatory authority, had \u201cdeclared war on governing,\u201d as my colleague Cristian Farias<\/strong> put it at the time\u2014and underscored, for Doug Lindner,<\/strong> the desperate need for judicial reform.<\/p>\n \u201cWe decided that that was a step too far,\u201d says Lindner, senior director of judiciary and democracy at the League of Conservation Voters, the influential environmental advocacy group. The Court, he tells me, was \u201cserving the interests of the polluters,\u201d and had not only shifted too far to the right\u2014it had become too powerful.<\/p>\n Lindner is hardly alone in that sentiment; he\u2019s part of a growing recognition on the left that progress in the policy arena could be entirely undermined by an activist, right-wing court that has come to seem less like a judicial body and more like an unelected \u201csuperlegislature,\u201d as Democratic representative Ritchie Torres<\/strong> put it<\/a> last week. That\u2019s why a diverse coalition of advocacy organizations\u2014including the League of Conservation Voters\u2014has banded together recently to form United for Democracy, which hopes to move the needle on Supreme Court reform. Stasha Rhodes,<\/strong> the director of the campaign, acknowledges that \u201cit\u2019s not an easy fight.\u201d The Supreme Court is \u201cbroken,\u201d she says, and Democrats can\u2019t fix it right now without the support of the very Republicans who helped break it. But Rhodes tells me that she remains \u201chopeful that the momentum will turn into something.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIssue groups that may have been hesitant to weigh in on the Supreme Court before now understand that they don\u2019t have a choice, because the Supreme Court impacts all of our issues, from pollution and the water we drink to safety in our communities to our most personal health care decisions,\u201d Rhodes says of the effort, which has so far sought to build public pressure on lawmakers to act. \u201cAs we start to increase the drumbeat on this issue, and include more people outside of Washington in the conversation, I think we feel really good about our ability to move Congress in a way that they start to take action.\u201d<\/p>\n The campaign\u2014which launched<\/a> in mid-June, before the conservative majority further undermined<\/a> the Environmental Protection Agency; struck down Joe Biden<\/strong>\u2019s student loan forgiveness plan<\/a> and affirmative action in college admissions<\/a>; and effectively authorized discrimination against LGBTQ+ Americans<\/a>\u2014includes a number of progressive heavy hitters, including NARAL Pro-Choice America and the Service Employees International Union, one of the largest and most influential unions in the country. The hope, for Rhodes and the groups involved, is that there will be strength in numbers\u2014that these disparate organizations will be able to highlight, for Democratic- and Republican-leaning voters alike, the Court\u2019s \u201cwillingness to break those traditional norms, showing that they\u2019re too powerful, too political, and unfit to meet today\u2019s challenges,\u201d Rhodes explains.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not going to stand by as corrupt justices repeal our fundamental rights,\u201d echoes SEIU president Mary Kay Henry,<\/strong> \u201cwhile acting like the rules don\u2019t apply to them.\u201d<\/p>\n That could add to the already growing momentum around Supreme Court reform that has built up in the wake of devastating decisions like Dobbs<\/em> and the conflict of interest scandals that have erupted around Clarence Thomas<\/strong> and Samuel Alito,<\/strong> two stalwarts of the right-wing supermajority. The question now is: How can the campaign best channel that momentum? And will it be enough to actually effect change?<\/p>\n Legal fights have always been instrumental to movements for labor, abortion, gun control, civil rights, and beyond. But Dobbs<\/em>\u2014which overturned half a century of precedent last year in ending the federal right to an abortion\u2014threw the Supreme Court\u2019s outsize role in those battles into stark relief. It\u2019s as if \u201cthere\u2019s this one massive national veto pen, basically, in the Supreme Court, that can change or dictate our rights on a whim,\u201d says Angela Vasquez-Giroux,<\/strong> vice president of communications and research at NARAL Pro-Choice America.<\/p>\n So far, several proposals have gained traction on the left\u2014from adding seats to the bench to imposing stricter, more common-sense ethics and transparency rules\u2014to avoid further politicizing the scandal-plagued court. Even Nancy Pelosi<\/strong>\u2014the former House Speaker who\u2019s often at loggerheads with her progressive flank\u2014has recently come out in favor of term-limiting justices<\/a>.<\/p>\n But those reforms have hit a brick wall in Washington: Chief Justice John Roberts<\/strong> and his colleagues have brushed off<\/a> concerns about ethics scandals and partisan rulings; Republicans have accused<\/a> Democrats of mounting political attacks on the conservative majority; and President Joe Biden has so far refused to embrace major reform<\/a>, even as he correctly laments that the Roberts court is \u201cnot a normal court.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, popular outrage and growing activism around reform over the past year do seem to be having an impact, at least on the Democratic lawmakers who have become more assertive in their calls for Supreme Court overhauls. Meanwhile, some of the most influential issue groups in the country\u2014including Planned Parenthood, which endorsed<\/a> Supreme Court expansion, term limits, and ethics reform in May\u2014are adding even more fuel to the fire.<\/p>\n This content can also be viewed on the site it originates<\/a> from.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n To be sure, the path forward for reform is very rocky. Public trust in the Supreme Court has been at a historic<\/a> low<\/a>, and that has so far seemed to have little effect on the conservative justices and their Republican defenders, who have made change all but impossible in the current Congress.<\/p>\n Any substantive action, then, will likely depend on Democrats winning back the House, expanding their majority in the Senate, and retaining the presidency in 2024. That\u2019s not impossible: The GOP already suffered the public\u2019s outrage at the Court last cycle, and could pay the price again next fall<\/a>. But unless and until that happens, the hope for reform will continue to butt up against the reality of a divided Washington. \u201cI wish that Supreme Court ethics weren\u2019t a partisan issue,\u201d Lindner says. \u201cEthics never should be a partisan issue. But then again, neither should clean air, clean water, or voting rights be partisan issues, and yet here we are.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\nTwitter content<\/h4>\n