#SCOTUS has become powerful. But largely because we (our politics) have asked it, even required it to become so. We can take that power back - it starts with Congress not delegating away so much of its power through ambiguous statutes or statutes enforced through litigation. 1/
2/ but it also involves a recognition from public interest lawyers, social movements and their founders that #SCOTUS is neither a reliable nor safe alternative to the hard work of grassroots organizing, state by state strategies and lobbying. We have to get back to politics.
3/ now might be a good time to read some classics like Gerald Rosenberg’s “The Hollow Hope,” Gordon Silverstein’s “Law’s Allure” that illustrate the perils of choosing courts over legislatures to achieve policy aims.
4/ the left can not unilaterally disarm and stop engaging with the courts, of course. But it can be more strategic about how and when it used them (for defense versus offense). The Warren Court was an anomaly but it mismanaged generations of lawyers’ expectations about
5/ the potential of courts to be a source of powerful and radical social progress. The courts will not save us. They never really could. But we can save ourselves by getting back to Politics. /end/
