Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA) has been struggling with other members of the Democratic establishment to appease the far-left radicals in her party. Last week, she insisted that she was not concerned about the rising socialist movement in her party. Sixty-five percent of Democratic voters now support socialism and a shocking 60% would support a military coup. Now Dean is throwing the Supreme Court to the mob, declaring that the institution is “corrupted,” the common claim of court-packers to justify a hostile takeover of the Court. She has joined an ignoble list of politicians who choose personal power over our constitutional principles.
Dean went on MS NOW to show her radical bona fides in an interview with host Jonathan Capehart, who raised the favorite talking point of how the Republicans were seeking to steal the next election.
Dean immediately turned the question into an attack on the Court, expressing her concern “about a United States Supreme Court that has been so corrupted.”
It is a narrative that is entirely unconnected to reality. As I discussed in a recent column, the Court continues not only to rule against this president in major cases but also to rule unanimously or nearly unanimously in the vast majority of cases.
Dean’s criticism of the Court is particularly ironic in the same week the Court again ruled against Republicans in an election case by rejecting, for a third time, the effort to redesign voting districts before the midterm elections.
The false narrative is part of a concerted effort by Democratic politicians to condition voters into accepting court packing. Professors and pundits are now demanding that court-packing be an actual litmus test for Democratic candidates.
The reason is a sad statement about the state of American politics. Presented with the prospect of guaranteeing power for years by rejecting our constitutional values and traditions, politicians like Dean are choosing power.
Former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder has put packing the Supreme Court front and center, explaining, “[We’re] talking about the acquisition and the use of power if there is a Democratic trifecta in 2028.”
It is the Nike School of Constitutional Law. Democratic leaders are pledging to “just do it” to appease the mob. Of course, some of these measures would be challenged if done without constitutional amendment. The Supreme Court would then have to rule on the effort to pack or limit its members. The expansion can be done by legislative vote. Although most Americans oppose court packing, Democrats view control of the Court as essential to pushing through a radical agenda to change the political system to their advantage.
Years ago, Harvard professor Michael Klarman laid out a radical agenda to change the system to guarantee Republicans “will never win another election.” However, he warned that “the Supreme Court could strike down everything I just described.” Therefore, the court must be packed in advance to make these changes possible.
In the same way that a vast majority of Democratic voters now say that they would favor a military coup in the name of “saving democracy,” Democratic politicians are claiming to protect our constitutional system by destroying it with court packing.
Every leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination has now embraced court-packing, a new litmus test for the far left.
It is the ultimate form of corruption … in politicians like Rep. Dean. Presented with a clear choice between power and principle, they choose power.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
This might be a good time to review Prof. Turley’s proposal for a 19-member SCOTUS: https://buckleybeacon.com/2017/11/16/jonathan-turley-on-expanding-the-supreme-court/
(I’ve stayed at the Omni Hotel. It’s a convenient few blocks from the courthouse and has all the office amenities you might need for document preparation and production.)
Antonin Scalia was confirmed to the Supreme Court in 1986 before the Senate lifted the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees in 2017. In between he championed originalism to find the law of the Constitution, and textualism to find the meaning of statutes. Legislative history was not seen as a reliable guide. So persuasive was his approach, in 2015 Justice Elaina Kagan said “we’re all textualists now”, although in 2022 she said “it seems I was wrong” in disagreement with how a majority opinion treated textualism. With the filibuster gone and a conservative majority on the Court, it is no surprise that Democrats return- again- to the FDR era idea of court packing. That’s all that’s left to get their political policy preferences back into play in the counter majoritarian side of the triangle branches of government. There is an expression in Texas that when the Legislature is in session the life, liberty and property of no one is safe. Along with that tongue in cheek expression is the suggestion that our Constitution of 1876 has a typo. It reads that the Legislature convenes regular session for 10 weeks every 2 years. It should read 2 weeks every 10 years. That said, this writer submits that the real issue is what way of finding the law begets limited government. Limits that seek to maximize our liberty. For example the Bruen decision on the 2d Amendment. Or the Major Questions doctrine for statutes. In each instance the law says there is a way to do it right. You just haven’t done it. In one, take the trouble to amend the Constitution. In the other, Congress, if you want it, say so clearly. How much truth in adjudication is delivered from a “living constitution” or cobbling together “legislative history”?
“She has joined an ignoble list of politicians who choose personal power over our constitutional principles.”
Turley can sometimes make me laugh. Like many columnists, he frequently appears to be ivory tower isolated, and/or naive: quite distant from the vantage point of a typical objective observer of political events. In my considered opinion, the above statement is a pretty much textbook definition of all politicians, period. The only variable is what a specific politician calculates will enhance or detract from his or her personal power at any given time.
Another example is this stunning revelation from Ken Buck of the Epoch Times (by way of Tyler Durden on Zero Hedge):
“The Socialist Indoctrination Machine: Schools Are Teaching Young People To Embrace Big Government, Hate Capitalism”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/socialist-indoctrination-machine-schools-are-teaching-young-people-embrace-big-government
No, seriously? That has only been pervasive in the US public education system for 60 years in my personal experience, and I suspect it started significantly before I was aware of it.
Grima Squeakersen is Estovir.
The enthusiasm for “socialism” is rather authoritarianism’s path for enhancing capitalism’s death grip on the working class. Democratic politicians don social justice rhetoric the same way that prostitutes apply lipstick and perfume. The Democratic Party is a corporate entity that purchases (and otherwise enforces) mass delusion. The Kama LaLa experience should have been sobering to the mass of voters such that she would never show her face in public again, and all of her supporters would have retired from electoral politics permanently. Democrats are leftists in the sense that Hitler was a patriot. The cleansing is well under weigh.
Pure, non-legal opinion from me today.
This whole thing about “socialism” has reached a level of farcity (is that a word? farcism? The plain word of farce seemed insufficient).
True that socialism used to feed the fervor of have-nots and wannabes that wanted to share the wealth they never earned or contributed to.
But in the last decade or so, the movement seems to have been increasingly led by a class of highly visible, often wealthy persons who continue to take control of academia, business, media, and governmental offices. (The takeover of MSM is to me the most consequential. Now add to that the expansion of the SCOTUS Judicial branch to cement a new interpretation of law.)
To what end?
Is it truly altruism and “equality” that motivates this? ?
Or is it self-promotion and power, using the useful idiots of altruistic Equality and Justice as the more respectable, palatable vehicles to achieve control?
The misuse of the word “democracy” has been a serious tool in advancing this movement. The sleight of hand evolution of our country’s formation from amorphism, to bipartisanship, to semantic gamesmanship and overlap, to One Party control–spreads beneath us, like a sink hole waiting to find the weakest terrain.
lin is Estovir.
Lin, Cindy Bragg, and Catherine Cassidy are pioneer stock. You’re a frosted cupcake.
Any person who has been paying attention knows that the court is way out of it’s Constitutional bounds by imposing their political preferences instead of the law.
Sally is Estovir.
Anyone? I’ve paid attention for a long time and you aren’t accurate in your assumption. You’re saying anyone who disagrees with you is not worthy of credibility—that’s closed mindedness
I think the Prof is trying to make too much of the admittedly shocking single poll result that suggest a majority of Dems would favor a military coup. As in every science replication of results is important to assure that the results are accurate and meaningful. (Admittedly assigning polling the status of a science may be a stretch) In general, can you imagine leftist Dems relying on the military? Torches and pitchforks, sure, but the military? I’m just not buying that poll, and Turley risks fanning the rage flames that he claims to decry.
Liberal women also claimed they’d rather meet a bear in the wild than a white male. I kind of doubt that’s true, too, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they voted for hungry bears on a ballot just out of spite.
I’m thinking about starting the Grizzly Woman Party. To join, one has to take an elevator with a hungry bear. Natural selection will decide who gets in.
“Liberal women also claimed they’d rather meet a bear in the wild than a white male. ”
I never saw that poll. Is it possible that the majority of respondents were lesbians merely expressing a preference to be schlepped rather than schtupped?
LOL! Possibly. Thanks for the laugh 😉
Professor Turley is not only making too much of the poll he is not describing the polling question related to the military in an objective and accurate manner even though many commenters in his September 24 blog post told him about this problem.
Ah yes, Eve’s Apple —> computers.
Got get back to work! Adieu me hardys. ☺
This election should be strongly framed as a choice between an American’s personal liberty as outlined in our founding principles versus the collectivism of socialism. Doing so would more likely than not help independent, free-thinking voters make their decision.
Vicente and Edward Mahl are Estovir.
The object of the Democrats is not to expand the Court. That has failed before. The object is to intimidate the current members of the Court into greenlighting unconstitutional legislation, e.g., a wealth tax. That kind if intimidation DID work before.
Prof. Turley should be clearer in the sources of his survey information and the population actually surveyed.
Was this an online survey in Mother Jones? Or a phone survey of some breadth and a degree of validation?
Were these likely voters? In what way did they identify themselves as Democrats? What I have seen is that the current breakdown is 30% Democrat, 30% Republican, 40% Independent. So, a 60% response in 30% of the population gives an 18% response. Still oddly high, but not as alarming. How many Independents support a military coup?
Inflating numbers is one propaganda method for inciting the rage he cautions about.
Rep. Madeleine Dean
Representative for Pennsylvania’s 4th District
Dean is the representative for Pennsylvania’s 4th congressional district and is a Democrat. She has served since Jan. 3, 2019. Dean is next up for reelection in 2026 and serves until Jan. 3, 2027. She is 67 years old.
Biography:
Madeline Dean was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1959.[1] She earned her B.A. in English language and literature from La Salle University in 1981 and her J.D. from Widener University School of Law in 1984. Her professional experience includes working as a professor, as a lawyer, and as a columnist. She served in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 2012 to 2018.
Dist. Map: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/PA/4
Ref.:
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/madeleine_dean/412809
[Link] ballotpedia.org/Madeleine_Dean