Dear Friend,

With last week’s Supreme Court rulings, my mind is on how subjective “Freedom” really is this Independence Day.

The 6-3 conservative majority ruled that businesses have the freedom to discriminate against LGBTQIA+ people, a protected class, but colleges and universities do not have the freedom to proportion admitted students based on race, another protected class.

The conservative majority ruled that big banks have the “freedom” to saddle 17- and 18-year olds with massive loans, but the President doesn’t have the “freedom” to forgive those loans and pause those payments.

Inconsistency has been a standard marker of GOP politics for decades, and pointing that out is not enough.

We need to act.

1. I support expanding the court. “9” is not a sacred number and is not set in stone. Mitch McConnell changed the rules when he refused to confirm Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court—adding more justices actually has precedent.
   
2. Term limits. A lifetime appointment means Supreme Court justices become little kings and queens, able to  flout ethics rules for life without consequences. Nobody should have America at their mercy for life.

The Supreme Court is a partisan institution. This has grown ever clearer as the ripple effect of the Trump administration lays waste to countless advances toward justice our country has made over the past 50 years.

We need representatives who are willing to stand up to injustice and fight for what’s right—not throw up their hands and say “it can’t be done.”

When you’re elected to lead, you must lead. You must make bold decisions for the good of our country. When the other side can undo all this “incrementalism” in just the course of a few short years, we need to make strides in the other direction just as strong.

That’s my two cents.

On paper, freedom is guaranteed in the constitution, but we must act to protect it in practice.

Happy Fourth.

In solidarity,

Maebe