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1 Miriam Rosenbaum & Emily Whitehead, Six Solutions to Fix the Supreme Court 1 (2026)

handle is hein.brennan/sxslnstfx0001 and id is 1 raw text is: ISOLTOS FOR SRNE DEOCAC I Six Solutions to Fix the Supreme Court By Miriam Rosenbaum and Emily Whitehead The U.S. Supreme Court wields vast power with minimal accountability. Its actions shape the law, democratic institutions, and people's lives. Yet it has no direct means of enforcing its decisions. Its author- ity depends emphatically on its credibility with the public. Today, the Supreme Court is facing a crisis of confi- dence. Americans' favorable views of the Court hover at historic lows.1 Polling shows that only22 percent of voters have a great deal or quite a bit of confidence in the Court.2 It's clear why. Over the past few years, the Court has been defined by polarizing opinions that have taken away constitutional rights and grossly expanded presi- dential power, serious ethics scandals, and contentious confirmation battles.3 The Court has always had an unavoidable political dimen- sion - the justices are appointed by presidents with the advice and consent of the Senate. But it has become increas- ingly out of balance in recent years, often representing the will of one political faction. Beginning with George H. W. Bush, who appointed Justice Clarence Thomas, the longest-serving member of the current Court, Democratic and Republican candidates have won the presidency an equal number of times, yet Republicans have appointed six of the current justices, establishing a supermajority on the Court.4In fact, the last chief justice appointed bya Democrat took office in 1946. Extreme polarization in Congress has led to toxic, high-stakes, partisan confirmation fights, heightening the politicization of the Court.' Ethics scandals have further roiled the Court. Reports of justices accepting lavish trips and expensive gifts cumulating in millions of dollars, including from people with business before the Court, as well as engaging in political fundraising activities and controversial displays of partisanship, have led to public outrage yet no mean- ingful accountability.6 In recent decades, the Court has exercised extraordinary influence in a way that would have been unrecognizable to the framers. Alexander Hamilton called the judiciary the least dangerous branch.7 Throughout the first century of the United States, the Court was largely limited in its role and modest in its ambitions. Then, through a few notable periods - during the Taney Court, which issued the Dred Scott decision; the Progressive Era, when justices blocked decades' worth of social legislation; and the Warren and Burger Courts of a half century ago, with their sweeping rulings on civil rights and criminal procedure - the Court played an increasingly central role in political life.'Each of these instances resulted in strong public backlash. The Roberts Court has thrust the institution into the center of public controversy again. It has dismantled laws Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law 1