Below is my column on Fox.com on House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries declaring the Supreme Court “illegitimate.” It is a statement that has dangerously moved beyond the mere hyperbolic as Democrats push to pack or even eliminate the Court.
Here is the column:
The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais took 36 pages to explain why Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is about combating intentional racial discrimination, not allowing racial gerrymandering. However, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrapped it up in one word: “illegitimate.”
Jeffries was not speaking of the case, but the Court. The man who would become the next Speaker of the House if Democrats retake power in November has joined other radicals in denying the legitimacy of the nation’s highest court.
Just for the record, the Supreme Court did not strike down Section 2, but said that neither the law nor the Constitution allows legislators to manipulate district lines to guarantee that candidates of a particular race will be elected. It was written not to give any race an advantage, but to prevent a state from creating a disadvantage to voters based on their race. The Act prevents any State from intentionally drawing districts “to afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race.”
This is a matter upon which people of good faith can disagree. Many of the justices have been long opposed to racial criteria in areas ranging from college admissions to voting districts. Chief Justice John Roberts stated it bluntly in 2006 that “It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.” Like others, Roberts abhors racial discrimination but declared in another case that “way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
You will find no such distinctions in much of the press where experts declared the death of equal voting laws in America. UCLA Law Professor Richard Hasen dispenses with any nuance and simply ran a Slate column titled “The Slaying of the Voting Rights Act by the Coward Alito.”
For years, liberal law professors have been trashing conservative justices, including Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, who called them “partisan hacks.”
However, the name-calling has mutated into a movement to scrap the Court or the Constitution, or both. Chemerinsky wrote a book recently titled “No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) joined Jeffries in calling for changing the Supreme Court after the decision: “we’re going to have to try to transform the way the Supreme Court has been gerrymandered itself and stacked and packed with MAGA appointees.”
There was, of course, no such movement during the decades with a liberal majority that set aside an array of long-standing cases. It was only when a stable conservative majority emerged that law professors declared the Court illegitimate or dangerous, with many calling for packing the Court with an instant liberal majority once Democrats retake power.
I discuss some of these voices as the “new Jacobins” in my book Rage and the Republic, figures echoing the radical concepts or means used in France before what became known as “The Terror.”
Law professors Ryan D. Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale have called for the nation to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.” Last December, they published a column titled “It’s Time to Accept that the US Supreme Court is Illegitimate and Must be Replaced.”
They insist that citizens must be rid of this meddlesome court: “remaking institutions like the US supreme court so that Americans don’t have to suffer future decades of oligarchy-facilitating rule that makes a parody of the democracy they were promised.”
Many Democrats realize that the public is rather attached to both the Constitution and its core institutions. That is why various Democratic politicians and pundits have been pledging to pack the Court once they are back in power. Some have suggested that, if they are going to change the political system and retain power, they will have to do it with the help of a compliant Court.
Democratic strategist James Carville stated matter-of-factly, “They’re going to recommend that the number of Supreme Court justices go from nine to 13. That’s going to happen, people.” He added recently, “Don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it. Just do it.”
To do that, you must first delegitimate the Court. You must attack both the individual justices and the institution itself. You need true rage to get a people to tear apart the core institution of a Republic on its 250th anniversary.
Now you have the next possible Speaker of the United States declaring the Supreme Court illegitimate because he disagrees with its interpretation of the law.
What these figures do not mention is that the majority of opinions by the Supreme Court are unanimous or nearly unanimous. A comparably few cases break along strict ideological 6-3 lines. Indeed, just last week, it was President Donald Trump who was denouncing the conservative justices as disloyal and weak for, again, ruling against his Administration.
It is not the voting record nor the underlying interpretations that are motivating this campaign of delegitimation. It is power. Former Attorney General Eric Holder explained it most clearly recently in pushing the packing plan after the Democrats retake power: “[We’re] talking about the acquisition and the use of power, if there is a Democratic trifecta in 2028.”
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
Demos-cracy is aborted at the twilight fringe.
Completely Off Topic ~ But this is a fun read none the less … (Juicy Litigation)
The craziest part of Musk v. Altman happened while the jury was out of the room
Jared Birchall, Musk’s money manager, answered a question he wasn’t supposed to. It’s unclear what the consequences will be.
By: Elizabeth Lopatto ~ April 30, 2026
theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/921713/musk-v-altman-jared-birchall-screw-up-xai
Democrats are looking longingly at the EU where the lack of a Constitution allows them to imprison you for posting an opinion on social media contrary to theirs and their police state goals.
We saw this coming in Shelby CountyvHolder, 570 U.S. 529(2013)( yes, the same Eric Holder) when the Court sunsetted §5 of the Voting Rights Act. No more need for DOJ pre clearance of southern states for past discrimination. Callais isn’t about illegitimacy. It’s about Milton Friedman. To stop discrimination on the basis of race by ending discrimination on the basis of race. By taking it out of the political money supply.
If/when the Democrats gain control of the White House and the Senate again, the GOP-appointed judges will need tighter security than ever. The attempt on Justice Kavanagh’s life may not be a “one-off.” The “illegitimate” justices have been told that they’ll “reap the whirlwind” by the leader of the Jacobins, and he’s not radical enough for the rest of their crew.
TAKE IT AWAY – Give the Democrats (Rep. Jefferies) what they want, No More SCOTUS.
Niccolo Machiavelli says They’ll be wanting it back in place just as soon as it was taken away.
And Rep. Hakeem Jeffries will be the one at fault for it.
… “reclaim America from constitutionalism.” Um, what was America before the Contitution and ‘contitutionalism’ to “reclaim”?
(I obviously need to proof-read by own posts better) LOL
The Democrats decry the lack of Black representation and yet they voted for the white CIA agent against Winsome Sears, a Black woman???
The left decries the lack of women in political positions of power and yet they will vote for the Nazi tattooed MAN who blamed women for their own rapes against a very moderate, some would say almost liberal, WOMAN??
Watch as Emily’s List, a grifting group formed ostensibly to get women elected to office comes out is support of the MAN with a Nazi tattoo over a WOMAN.
Watch as the left, who continually scream about the lack of diversity in the halls of power, end up supporting Newsome, a man who cheated on his wife and who just happens to be WHITE.
It is all about power, that is all the preening, virtue signaling left cares about. The demand, and I do mean demand, DEI hiring in all the places where minorities are underrepresented but skip over places where they are over represented. DO they demand more male nurses? More male teachers? More white guys in the NBA?
Do it now. DJT can appoint 4 new justices. ☺. What a great idea hakem or maybe 2 at 11. Get some mire like ketanj thinking allegiance means following the law in Japan.
^^^^ more, not mire..
Jesus H. Christ
This loose language by Jeffries, Carville, Holder, et al., tends to dull or jade some of us into ambivalence and dismissive eye-rolling, –which then leads to the escalated use of stronger, threatening language and actions against the Constitution, SCOTUS, the rule of law, and the inspiration of extremism–the very “rage” that the good professor warns of.
Do we really want the unraveling of our nation’s 250-year-old fabric caused by the intemperance of contemporary mortals (“domestic and foreign”) who seek power and control above all else through fragmentation and obsolescence? The fabric is fragile enough, -having dealt with fires and freezes, storms, and UV damage over two centuries, -but threads can be pulled out and woven back in with new ones, -without pulling out the strong and good threads which provide the structure and shape that define(s) us.
As we approach our national holidays over the next few weeks and months, let us “…[prove] through the night that our flag [is] still there.”
Hakeem is a MORON…and Democrats LOVE Morons!
Sadly GOP are gutless.
Reminder they IMPEACHED Trump for ASKING about Biden’s crimes…which were CRIMES
They fined Trump $500 Million for paying back a loan
Time to go scorched earth and start jailing democrats for the endless crime…not just remove them…including their lawless judges!
Turnabout IS fair play!
Fascist Democrats are lawless and need to be destroyed!
What is particularly annoying is the fallacìus technique that Jeffries uses to convince the ill informed of the merits of his position. He name calls. He throws a word like “illegitimate” out there and thinks he won the argument. He doesn’t tell us why its illegitimate. Or why his interpretation of the law is superior to that of the legal scholars on SCOTUS. No, that would require some academic rigor. Instead, he just rants nonsense and misleading rage like a spoiled child.
“that would require some academic rigor”
It would also require an IQ >70, which would evidently disqualify Jeffries at least as quickly.
More hypocrisy from Turley. Trump says far worse things about SCOTUS and Turley is fine with that.
sally…you are a LIAR!
Sally: True, Trump says some off the wall things about SCOTUS, but most of us come to recognize his usual blow hard hyperbole for what it is: mere political venting. What separates him from Jeffries, on the other hand, is that Trump doesn’t want to increase the size of the Court in order to pack it. Trump operates within the existing framework and believes the Court to be quite “legitimate.”
Expanding the court is perfectly legal and withing the current frame work. It is a bad idea because it does not address the core problems. Also Trump does not get a pass on saying awful things just because he always says awful things. Trump’s insults at the court are far worse than what Jeffries said.
Sally: Your saying that Trump’s criticisms of SCOTUS is far worse than what Jeffries says is a mere naked assertion. And is flat out wrong. There is a huge difference between being unhappy with a decision and wanting to change the Court’s makeup because of it. While, it may be legal to alter the Court’s makeup, legality does not lend any credibility to a claim of illegitimacy.
Chemerinsky has disgusted me for a long while.
Like uncle,like nephew. Do not
send to know who was elected. Rather send who know who voted. It isnot the office holders who are responsible for the failures of government. It is they who sent them there Therein lies the rub.
“. It isnot the office holders who are responsible for the failures of government. It is they who sent them there”
“Chicken or egg: which came first” observations are not of much practical use once a self-perpetuating system has been set into motion. Recommendations for tactics of a tire-slashing/gear-jamming/train derailing nature that could potentially halt that system would be much more helpful .
Gee now the democrats embracing race-baiting since losing the civil war makes a lot of sense!
Dividing Americans are all the democrats are good for in the UNITED States, the least racist country on earth.
The proof is in the graves of those that fought the democrat’s civil war.
“Just for the record, the Supreme Court did not strike down Section 2, but said that neither the law nor the Constitution allows legislators to manipulate district lines to guarantee that candidates of a particular race will be elected. It was written not to give any race an advantage, but to prevent a state from creating a disadvantage to voters based on their race. The Act prevents any State from intentionally drawing districts “to afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race.”
They didn’t strike it down. They made it useless. I would allow states to gerrymander minorities out of a meaningful representation which is what southern states always wanted.
We enjoy an open society and I’m all for commies spouting their power-mad ideas in the land of the free.
The contrast is all American voters need.
It’s why the democrats aren’t doing so good now, they went full commie. Freedom and communism don’t mix.