SCOTUS has always been anti small d democratic. The most onerous decisions that undermine the Constitution have come from that institution. Only in the 20th Century was there a sustained period of SCOTUS rulings that uplifted the common man. /1
What coincided with that period? A 50 year run of Democratic supermajorities in both houses of Congress. In the early 20th Century SCOTUS produced a series of opinions that were anti-common man. They held that states don't have to uphold the Bill of Rights /2
They held that the Constitution does not guarantee economic rights. SCOTUS says that American citizens don't have the right to food, housing, medical care or education. However, most other countries in the world with constitutions do guarantee these rights for their citizens. /3
The Roberts court grants 30-50% of its shrinking document to corporate cases. Guess what word doesn't appear in the Constitution? You guessed it. Corporation. /4
But back to that golden era of the court that most people remember of SCOTUS - it occurred after the court had to start to rule on the New Deal cases in the 1930's. And for a long time after that rights expanded. Until about 1980 when Republicans started winning Congress /5
And since then, the meager legislation that has been produced has been mostly probusiness and anti-citizen, and the court follows that with a retrenchment of all of the gains of the 20th Century. /6
So, if you really want to swing the court back to small d democratic, you have to start with solid majorities in Congress that produce legislation that is pro-people. The more regressive the Congress the more regressive the Courts. /7
There are plenty of smart people that are writing about this. @thomhartmann wrote a book about it called The history of the Supreme Court and its betrayal of the American people - or something like that. /8
I learned a lot of it from a professor - the late Russell Galloway - who loved the court and went to oral argument as often as he could per term - while still being a teacher. If we want to change the Court, we must first change Congress. /9 #VoteThemAllOut2022
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