Nobody Cares When Republicans Pack The Court

Welcome to Radio Free America, Aaron Kleinman’s take on stories that matter in state politics but aren't getting enough attention. 

Also, heads up: Next week’s edition will come out on Friday.

The Supreme Court’s recent decisions have put a dagger at the throat of democracy. Trump v. United States (2024) has given the president impunity in pursuing an extrajudicial agenda. Now, there’s no criminal recourse against him for siccing DOJ against his political opponents or plunging the globe into chaos by repeatedly threatening unauthorized military action. And the court’s use of the shadow docket to bless Trump’s unconstitutional actions — like withholding congressionally appropriated funds, implementing personally devised tariffs and the widespread use of Kavanaugh stops — has led to a president who acts like a dictator and frequently gets away with it.

This is a constitutional crisis with a painfully obvious solution: The next time that Democrats hold the Senate and the presidency, they should confirm four additional judges who will uphold the rule of law and end the court’s Billionaire Captivity Era. The last time Democrats attempted to pack the court, it failed. And even though there isn’t a single Democratic U.S. senator who was alive when it happened in 1937, the party’s attempts to reform the court since then haven’t gone anywhere. But if they’re worried about blowback from voters, they shouldn’t be.

We know this because Republicans change the composition and role of the judiciary fairly often at the state level. Wyoming and Utah Republicans are currently considering bills that’d change the size of their courts. Arizona and Georgia Republicans added judges in 2016 to make their courts more conservative. Florida’s Republican governor gamed the rules on how it nominates judges to make them more partisan, while Kansas Republicans consider a similar change. North Carolina Republicans implemented partisan elections for their state Supreme Court to shift it to the right, a change that has led to a seemingly unprecedented change in state constitutional law. And Iowa Republicans will consider a constitutional amendment that eliminates judicial review entirely.

And none of these actions have backfired on them! Democrats have not won control of the state legislatures in any of these states since Republicans sought to consolidate power over the judicial branch. Granted, many of them are solidly Republican or heavily gerrymandered but in Arizona Republicans have been able to maintain their legislative majority even though they’re fighting on a fair map in a purple state. A former Arizona judge told me they doubted voters even knew it was happening. 

Democrats should understand why Republicans haven’t paid the price for state level changes to the judiciary. After all, they ran on protecting democratic institutions in 2024, but it just wasn’t as important to voters as fighting inflation. Why would it work for Republicans if Democrats try to rein in an increasingly unpopular Supreme Court?

In the Trump era, Democrats frequently get into a reflexive crouch around institutions that have failed them because they fear that something worse could replace them, and that includes the Supreme Court. But if they want to repair the damage that Trump has done, then they need to embrace reshaping the judiciary; Republicans don’t have a problem with doing so, and voters don’t seem to mind. The only thing that’d stop them from doing so when they return to power is a lack of political will.

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If you’re anything like me, you’re on Bluesky, the retirement home for geriatric millennials. In which case, you should check out where you are on the Bluesky Map. I was elated to find myself near Vince Mancini (for our shared love of Caught Stealing) and Albert Burneko (for our shared love of turning in work on time)

America, América by Greg Grandin is the best book that I’ve read all year. It’s not just that it’s the magisterial history of everything in America’s relationship with América from first contact to the Super Bowl LX halftime show. It thoroughly proves its thesis that América is where humanity finds its redemption. 

Of particular relevance for us is how FDR cobbled together his 1936 landslide coalition by, in part, opening up free trade to the rest of Americas as part of his Good Neighbor policy that promoted Latin American autonomy and cooperation. Old-fashioned businesses that relied on a protective tariff stayed in the Republican column, but ones that wanted to expand into newer markets, like Coca-Cola, Pan Am, IBM, General Electric and RCA, flocked to him. 

So in 2028 lawmakers could try to build a winning coalition by peeling off people who work in industries harmed by tariffs by promoting intra-American cooperation. A new Good Neighbor policy would have the added benefit of stanching immigration not by creating an unaccountable secret police force but by improving the material conditions where immigrants already live. America can once again seek its redemption south of the Rio Grande.

Thanks to everyone for suggesting cars I could compare Dodge Chargers too — as one of our comments pointed out, I should use the model that has had similar sales numbers in the U.S., not the one with the most similar drives. So I guess I have to be on the lookout for Jeep Grand Waggoneers.

For this week, I want to talk about the worst thing I’ve heard over the past month, the bath rock cover version of Everybody Wants to Rule the World that the NBA has been using to promote the All-Star Game. Is it the worst song in commercial history? Pomplamoose and Saved by Zero are more likely to hurl a shoe at my TV. Am I missing an even more execrable song? Or is the NBA the new WOAT? Hit reply and tell me what you think.

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