Announcing the Kohlberg Center on the U.S. Supreme Court  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌   
Brennan Center for Justice The Briefing
The Heritage Foundation has vowed to go to federal court to stop Democrats’ nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris. Silly political bluster, of course. But it’s another reminder of how important the Supreme Court has become as a politicized institution and an influencer of elections.
The Supreme Court is an anomalous institution. It combines vast power with minimal accountability. And trust in the Court has, rightfully, plunged to the lowest level ever recorded. Millions see it as hopelessly politicized. The Supreme Court is broken and urgently needs reform.
Court reform is an issue whose time has come. The Brennan Center has pursued changes for years, and we’re very pleased to report that our work will gather new intensity. Today we launched the Kohlberg Center on the U.S. Supreme Court, a major new initiative to concentrate our efforts. We’re establishing it thanks to the generosity of Jim Kohlberg, a businessman and philanthropist, who has pledged $30 million for a long-term investment in this work. It is a remarkable and farsighted commitment.
The opportunities to improve the Court are many. Congress should enact an 18-year term limit for justices. Nobody should have too much public power for too long. The public strongly supports term limits — according to a new poll from Fox News, 78 percent of registered voters are in favor. It has majority support among Democrats, Republicans, and independents. Few issues have such clear public consensus.
What we aim to do is give substantive depth to this support. Most states term limit their justices. How do those systems work? How about those in our peer democracies, all of which have term limits for their constitutional courts? These and many other questions can help build the growing bipartisan support for this reform. Term limits are an idea whose time has come.
Term limits are just a start. Last year, to deflect rising criticism, the Supreme Court adopted its first code of conduct. But it’s an unenforceable sham that the Court disingenuously said was only to clear up the public’s “misunderstanding.” There was never a misunderstanding. The justices have proved that they can’t police themselves — the public can see that — and that the Court needs clear and enforceable rules.
And there is a need for creative and innovative responses to the challenge of a Supreme Court that is far out of step with the American public. Often Congress has the power to respond to misguided rulings, but congressional procedures get in the way. In recent years there has been a streamlined response mechanism for Congress to undo regulations. Why not something like that so lawmakers can have a meaningful say? At the Kohlberg Center, those and other ideas will be incubated.
These reforms have wide backing from the public because they are not part of the partisan push and pull. They speak to a fundamental belief in the rule of law, commitment to the Constitution, and the need for an independent judiciary to protect all our rights. Something has gone awry in the highest court in the land. The Kohlberg Center, which will draw on the talent of today’s Brennan Center staff and enlist experts from around the country and across the political spectrum, will be part of our contribution to setting things right.

 
Key Laws That Protect Our Elections
Pointing to the Big Lie that the 2020 election was “stolen,” election deniers have put together a playbook of tactics that ostensibly seeks to maintain the integrity of elections but in reality threatens to undermine voting rights and proper election administration. These efforts include attempts to intimidate voters and election workers, challenge large numbers of voter registrations, and recruit supporters to serve as disruptive poll workers and poll watchers. A comprehensive series details the numerous federal and state laws that protect democracy and the right to vote, with a focus on safeguards in battleground states. Read more
Election Deniers’ Defective Toolkit
Election deniers rely on several tools to facilitate mass challenges to voters’ eligibility: VoteRef, EagleAI, Check MY Vote, and IV3. Each one draws on different sources to pull together tremendous amounts of data and quickly generate challenges en masse. All of them suffer from common flaws, including the use of unreliable data and an overreliance on name matches. A new expert brief explains how these tools work, their limitations, and ways to mitigate their potential for disenfranchising eligible voters. READ MORE
Remembering Walter Shapiro
This week, we remember Walter Shapiro, a longtime Brennan Center fellow who passed away on July 21 after a brief illness. Walter joined the Fellows Program in 2013. For a decade, he contributed greatly to the intellectual life of the Brennan Center as a prolific contributor to our website.
Walter was an esteemed national political reporter with a deep sense of how politics actually works, gained from a career that included a failed run for Congress in 1972, a stint as Jimmy Carter’s speechwriter, and decades as a journalist at the Washington Monthly, USA Today, and many other outlets. His page on the Brennan Center website gives a sense of his passionate take on American politics with a focus on finding solutions, from rationalizing the presidential nominating process to urging fellow journalists to call out election deniers.
Until days before his passing, Walter was busy covering the 2024 campaign — his twelfth. Two weeks ago, he published a column decrying as “arrogant” Joe Biden’s refusal to step aside. Sadly, he died a day before the big news.

 
Coming Up
THIS WEEK VIRTUAL EVENT: Fix the Insurrection Act
Thursday, July 25, 3–4 p.m. ET
 
A law last updated 150 years ago gives presidents authority to use the U.S. military as a domestic police force. The Insurrection Act has virtually no limits on when and how this power can be used, making it dangerous in the hands of any leader who is tempted to abuse it, Democrat or Republican. Without urgent reforms, the law is a threat to civil liberties and American democracy itself.
 
Join us for a live virtual event on this issue moderated by Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty & National Security Program, and featuring lawyer and writer Hawa Allan, Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith, and Brennan Center counsel Joseph Nunn. RSVP today
Want to keep up with Brennan Center Live events? Subscribe to the events newsletter.

 
News
  • Elizabeth Goitein on foreign intelligence surveillance reform // WIRED
  • Michael Milov-Cordoba on the attempts to politicize state courts // MOTHER JONES
  • Daniel Weiner on the campaign finance implications of Biden’s exit // USA TODAY
  • Wendy Weiser on the myth of noncitizens voting // POLITIFACT

 
 
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