Just a brief note to recommend a recent Think Progress piece: “Five Democratic senators just declared all-out war on the Supreme Court.”
Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) filed a brief this past Monday in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York, New York, No. 18-280.
The brief itself is less a legal document than a declaration of war. Though parts of it argue that the high court lacks jurisdiction over this case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York, the thrust of the brief is that the Supreme Court is dominated by political hacks selected by the Federalist Society, and promoted by the National Rifle Association — and that if those hacks don’t watch out, the American people are going to rebel against them.
Seriously.
Sen. Whitehouse, who signed the brief as Counsel of Record, summarized his argument strongly:
The judiciary was not intended to settle hypothetical disagreements. The Framers designed Article III courts to adjudicate actual controversies brought by plaintiffs who suffer real-world harm. This reflects the Framers’ intent that the judiciary “may truly be said to have neither force nor will but merely judgment.” The Federalist No. 78, 464(C. Rossiter ed. 2003) (A. Hamilton) (capitalization altered).
The rationale for this long-settled principle is simple: “this Court is not a legislature.” … In short, courts do not undertake political “projects.” Or at least they should not. Yet this is precisely—and explicitly—what petitioners ask the Court to do in this case, in the wake of a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign to shape this Court’s composition, no less, and an industrial-strength influence campaign aimed at this Court. Indeed, petitioners and their allies have made perfectly clear that they seek a partner in a “project” to expand the Second Amendment and thwart gun-safety regulations. Particularly in an environment where a growing majority of Americans believes this Court is “motivated mainly by politics,” rather than by adherence to the law, the Court should resist petitioners’ invitation.
And he ended just as strongly:
The Supreme Court is not well. And the people know it. Perhaps the Court can heal itself before the public demands it be “restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics.” Particularly on the urgent issue of gun control, a nation desperately needs it to heal.