Recently, with Louisiana Republican Governor Landry's cancellation of state primaries allowing for illegal partisan gerrymandered district maps to replace "illegally" drawn racially gerrymandered maps, it should have been a signal to Democrats that we no longer have a functioning Supreme Court. Derelict conservative members have brazenly declared that they have the power to uphold constitutional bans on "racial" gerrymandering, but for some mysterious reason, not the partisan variety! The liberal justices clearly disagree. Thus technically, we are left with a three judge Supreme Court, the other six, obviously, having voluntarily recused themselves, claiming that they no longer have authority as justices. Thus the message to Democrats is that Trump is not the ultimate existential threat to our Republic as he will be gone in a few years. No, the real threats are a totally corrupted SCOTUS majority completely under the thumb of Leonard Leo and a fractured Democratic party too subsumed with ideology to function pragmatically, even to win elections!
Somehow, apparently progressives and moderate Democrats have not yet found a way to join together in a united front capable of implementing some sort of enforceable ethical code on the Court. First, we have to get elected! To do this, Democrats need to pay attention not to just what we pretentiously consider to be the needs of voters, but to the voters themselves! This is something Bernie Sanders used to do in his famous town hall meetings, ensuring that he included people with whom he disagreed. Meanwhile, issues such as full, free payback of student loans, transgender participation in sports, even socialized medicine are topics that need to be temporarily sidelined. Instead we must focus on immediate existential threats important to all voters. Environmentalists, for example, need to admit that we cannot sustain the electrical grid at this time with renewables and emphasize that, if only for a short time, we actually need to increase production of fossil fuels while also drastically increasing current research and development of renewables. It is the only way to expose Trump's ridiculous, massive dark-money financed and illogical attack on perfectly acceptable non-fossil fuel alternatives. Moreover, temporarily flooding Europe with cheap fossil fuel would have already ended the Russian assault on Ukraine! Then there is the "immigration" issue in which most Democrats and even some Republicans are in agreement on a reasonable policy, but cannot even get it on the docket!!! However, unless we compromise with each other as Democrats and take over at least the House, this issue, like so many others, is completely out of our hands.
Meanwhile, if we can capture the House, it will be a time to act as "grown-ups," not adolescents seeking revenge on a president who admittedly acts like a fascist. For the time being, we must forget about the "outcome" of an impeachment proceeding by concentrating on the "process!" Employing the House of Representatives as a virtual "grand jury," not only can subpoenas be issued to all those participating in the president's "official acts," but to the justices themselves exposing their "official acts!! Without even impeaching any members of the SCOTUS, they can be subpoenaed in a Trump impeachment to testify about things such as justices purposely delaying the Trump insurrection trial until after the election. With their impeachment, the shadow docket, the strange abdication of judicial power on select voting rights issues as well as identifying who constructs the regular docket come into play as well as subpoenas for Leo and other generous illicit donors to Court members.
Now, before you even ask, you are correct! It is highly unlikely that any of the conservative justices will agree to testify, but the liberals probably will. Their frustration has clearly been building with each of the conservatives' decisions, evidence for the vast majority of the decisions of which can be found nowhere in our entire Constitution! The liberal dissenters have become far less cordial, actively voicing significant alarm of late and a formal subpoena would unburden them of the accusation that they were "tattling" on their colleagues, but instead "salvaging the system." I suspect that by now, they are as shocked as any of us at the blatant attempts by the conservatives to create a clearly authoritarian presidency. I am not, by any means, a Constitutional authority, but I can remember when each of the conservatives except for Clarence Thomas were at least competent jurists who paid some attention to the law. What has clearly changed is probably not the total loss of the conservative conscience. In fact, it would seem to be the Federalist Society and their ramped up dark-money campaign either paying off or blackmailing the jurists. Obviously, nothing of recent origin is more obvious than the internationally mocked Citizens United decision, marking one of the lowest levels of integrity of the Court since Dred Scott!
Then, there is, as usual, the obvious! Donald Trump, with a fourth or fifth grade reading level and a concentration span too short for anything but grifting, could not possibly orchestrate the shenanigans of the present Supreme Court! Thus, the entire charade must be directed by the man who ultimately runs the government, Leonard Leo! Why Democrats have not actively enlightened the public about Mr. Leo is a mystery to me. Sort of, that is... My question is how much dirt does Leo have on prominent Democrats, who for so long have used as their excuse for not investigating Republican election fixing, that it would ruin the voters' confidence in the process? Yeah... right!
The good news is, that if Democrats take over the House, they can determine Leo's involvement even if they have to threaten impeachment of Supreme Court Justices for accepting possible bribes! Of course, the excuse that their impeachment would undermine the functioning of the Court might seem like a bad joke in light of the present threat to the very existence, not only of the Court, but of our fragile democratic republic itself.
Al Finkelstein, 5/3/2026
