Chris Hayes: “At this point, the committee is the only governing organ in the country that appears to be undertaking the project of fighting for American democracy with the zeal and acumen that it deserves.”

 

MSNBC opinion columnist Hayes Brown penned a column decrying the latest term of the Supreme Court for having allegedly assaulted Americans’ rights and blamed Democrats in Congress for not doing enough to stop the judicial branch.

Brown opened his Friday column with the claim, "The Supreme Court ended its term Thursday having produced a string of decisions that with casual brutality threatened Americans’ privacy, health and well-being." He added, "Democrats, in the face of this assault on the rights and privileges of their constituents, haven’t responded with the necessary anger or urgency."

The columnist provided readers with a brief civics lesson concerning how the judiciary branch was never supposed to be this powerful, at least compared to Congress which was designed by the framers "to be the most powerful of the three branches of government, consisting of representatives of the people and the states."

"The executive was to be feared and constrained; the judiciary was, in comparison, an afterthought mostly left to future Congresses to craft. In drafting the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton considered the courts the ‘least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution,’" Brown explained. 

But they didn’t. "There has been no movement from lawmakers to force the court to clarify the doctrine or to craft language to assert its ability to delegate authority to agencies in future bills," Brown added. 

Brown even added that the Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs case to overturn Roe v. Wade "doesn’t prevent Congress from passing a federal law guaranteeing such access."

Though Biden and various Democrat lawmakers have strategized on how to codify abortion rights into federal law – Biden even mentioned changing the filibuster – they haven’t found a practical way to enact it. 

Regardless, Brown mentioned other tactics Congress hasn’t used like impeachment of the Court’s justices. "The first, impeachment, has been used even more rarely against Supreme Court justices than it has against presidents. There is no concerted call for even an impeachment inquiry in the House," he wrote.

"The other, amending the Constitution, hasn’t occurred since the 27th Amendment, which stops a sitting Congress from giving itself a raise, was ratified in the early 1990s," Brown added. He then mentioned how the alternative to impeachment – efforts to expand the Court – "have gone nowhere in either house of Congress."

The author also slammed Congress for not endorsing Rep. Ro Khanna’s, D-Calif., new legislation to limit Supreme Court justices to 18-year appointments." He then slammed both parties’ handling of a supposedly out-of-control judiciary. "If Democrats are guilty of gross neglect in checking the Supreme Court, the GOP has engaged in willful neglect."

"This unnecessary, self-imposed restraint has allowed power to flow steadily away from the legislature to the executive and the judiciary," Brown claimed, adding that Congress’ "neglect has left the Supreme Court unaccountable." He claimed these neglectful people "would rather watch the world burn than willing yield to change."