Bitter Grace

(all Dems)

I write to ask you to work for, to support, and to vote for expansion of the Supreme Court.

The current packed court is thumbing its nose at stare decisis, secure in Democrats’ desire to preserve systems and customs that have in the past buttressed stability of legal and fiscal frameworks. For at least twenty years, Republicans have moved further and further in the direction of doing quick, revolutionary, often illegal policy turns that are hard to reverse, and taking any wrist-slaps as a cost of doing the business they want to do.

Now, of course, they are destroying federal jurisdiction in favor of state jurisdiction and state jurisdiction in favor of federal jurisdiction, as serves their turn, and trashing Supreme Court reliance on previous decisions on some of the shabbiest pretexts since Lochner.

I am convinced by Elie Mystal’s arguments that the only way for the US to proceed as a democratic nation is to unpack this court by expanding it—ideally, expanding it to as many as thirty-one justices. Farewell, the knife’s edge of court proclivity depending on who is president and controls the Senate. Farewell, the ability of Justices to grandstand the way some now do.

I call on you to work for, support, and vote for the unpacking of the Supreme Court by expanding it.

Sincerely,
The Rev. Mary Ann Dimand