From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   The Left’s War on the Rule of Law   
   By Ed Meese and Kelly Shackelford, May 16, 2023, WSJ   
      
   The left was able for decades to get through the courts, including the Supreme   
   Court, what it couldn’t get through Congress. Today, however, liberals are   
   trying to subvert the legitimacy of the Supreme Court because it contains a   
   majority of justices    
   committed to the Constitution and the rule of law. Suddenly, instead of   
   repeatedly approving the left’s agenda, the federal judiciary has become one   
   of its greatest impediments. Believing they can no longer win at the court,   
   progressives now want to    
   change the rules of the game. Rather than improving their legal arguments and   
   strategy, they are attacking the referees.   
      
   The first contours of the plan emerged in March 2020. As the justices prepared   
   to rule on a Louisiana abortion law, Sen. Chuck Schumer stood in front of the   
   Supreme Court and declared that Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch had   
   “released the    
   whirlwind” and would “pay the price.” He warned that they wouldn’t   
   “know what hit” them if they went forward with “these awful   
   decisions.” The pattern of attack that emerged since then makes it clear   
   that Mr. Schumer meant what he said.    
   The judiciary, and the justices themselves, are in the left’s cross   
   hairs—sometimes literally.   
      
   The first step of the left’s plan to transform the courts was to end the   
   filibuster. Breaking this longstanding Senate procedural norm would eventually   
   give the majority party power to overhaul the membership, structure and   
   jurisdiction of the Supreme    
   Court. Next came a push for court-packing, both via legislation and President   
   Biden’s presidential commission on court reform. Although these efforts   
   weren’t successful, Democrats haven’t given up. They still want to end the   
   filibuster and pack the    
   court and are merely waiting for the right political moment.   
      
   A slew of attacks on judicial norms constituted the next step in the left’s   
   plan to transform the courts. Liberal activists called for term limits for   
   Supreme Court justices. They pressured Justice Stephen Breyer to retire during   
   President Biden’s    
   term. They protested outside the justices’ homes after the Dobbs decision   
   leaked, and a potential assassin even targeted Justice Kavanaugh.   
      
   Meantime, Democrats filed sweeping legislation to add more than 200 new judges   
   to the lower courts and require all Americans who wish to challenge the   
   national implementation of federal laws to bring their cases to courts in the   
   District of Columbia,    
   where most judges are Democratic appointees. Most recently, they threatened to   
   eliminate traditional single-judge judicial districts regardless of the needs   
   of the people in those districts.   
      
   Perhaps most revealing, elected officials such as Rep. Alexandria   
   Ocasio-Cortez—who swore an oath to support and defend the Cons   
   itution—have called on Americans simply to disregard federal court orders.   
   This is an outright threat to the rule of law.   
      
   The left’s latest offensive has been to undermine the Supreme Court’s   
   credibility by charging Republican-appointed justices with alleged disclosure   
   failures while ignoring similar omissions by Democrat-appointed justices. The   
   Senate Judiciary    
   Committee summoned Chief Justice John Roberts, who wisely declined to appear.   
   The committee then proposed the creation of a formal Supreme Court “ethics   
   code”—a thinly veiled attempt to grant Congress power to police the   
   justices.   
      
   Amid these attacks, liberal elites have kept up a steady stream of accusations   
   of partisanship and bias against any judge who issues a decision out of step   
   with progressive values. Baseless accusations of ethics violations usually   
   follow. As the adage    
   says, “a lie repeated often enough will eventually be believed.”   
      
   These attacks on the judiciary share the goal of restructuring the courts and   
   delegitimizing the rule of law. They might be working. Recent polling shows   
   public approval of the Supreme Court at historic lows. More than 90% of judges   
   now believe judicial    
   independence is threatened, primarily by the attacks and the left’s   
   politicization of the judiciary. And more offensives against the courts are   
   coming. A coalition of progressive groups will soon launch a nationwide   
   campaign calling again for    
   structural changes to the Supreme Court.   
      
   The left hasn’t always had such disregard for the integrity of the courts.   
   In 2001, the American Civil Liberties Union said that maintaining the   
   credibility of the Supreme Court was “critical” to “preserving civil   
   liberties.” Failure to    
   maintain judicial credibility, it said, would damage not only the high court   
   but “the rule of law.” The ACLU was right.   
      
   If politically motivated schemes to transform the courts are successful, the   
   judiciary will become little more than a political tool of the executive and   
   legislative branches. Judges will lose their ability to enforce the rule of   
   law with impartiality,    
   and the last safeguard to our civil liberties will be gone.   
      
   The left’s grand scheme to delegitimize the courts is more than a threat to   
   the judiciary. It is a threat to our constitutional republic. It must not   
   succeed.   
      
   Mr. Meese is a distinguished fellow emeritus at the Heritage Foundation. He   
   served as U.S. attorney general, 1985-88. Mr. Shackelford is president and   
   chief legal counsel of First Liberty Institute.   
      
   https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-lefts-war-on-the-rule-of-law-co   
   stitution-democrats-ethics-reform-kavanaugh-gorsuch-abortion-5f7b2b61   
      
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