Washington — On the heels of the Supreme Court’s conclusion of its momentous term earlier this month, progressive groups are pouring millions into offensives that seek to make the nation’s highest court a galvanizing issue for voters in November.
The campaigns highlight the court’s recent decisions on presidential immunity, agency regulatory power and guns, as well as the prospect that if elected to a second term, former President Donald Trump could appoint new and young justices who would sit on the Supreme Court for decades to come.
By focusing on educating voters about the impact the next president will have on the high court, progressives hope to mobilize them to cast their ballots for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, President Biden, even amid concerns from members of the party over his fitness for a second term following his poor performance in the debate against Trump last month.
“The same way people on the right have been Supreme Court voters because they were focused on the freedoms they wanted the Supreme Court to take away from us, we are motivating folks who care about preserving our freedoms to be a Supreme Court voter and to ensure Trump cannot appoint more justices to this court,” said Christina Harvey, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Stand Up America.
Two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, Stand Up America rolled out a seven-figure campaign highlighting the court and the next president’s potential stamp on it. Called “Supreme Court Voter,” the initiative warns of the impacts the conservative majority could have on future cases involving abortion, gun laws and voting rights.
United for Democracy, a coalition of 140 advocacy groups, launched its own $10 million campaign in May that aims to draw a line between the Supreme Court and Trump, who appointed three of its six conservative justices. Called “Stop the Relentless Power Grab,” the initiative is a nod to the court’s decision this term in a pair of cases — one called Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce — that curtailed the power of federal agencies to interpret and fill gaps in the laws passed by Congress.
In addition to that ruling, the court also invalidated a Trump-era ban on bump stock devices that attach to semi-automatic rifles, narrowed a federal obstruction law used to charge hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants and Trump, and found that a former president is immune from federal prosecution for official acts taken while in the White House. The immunity decision affects special counsel Jack Smith’s case against Trump, who pleaded not guilty to four counts stemming from an alleged scheme to subvert the transfer of power after the 2020 election.
But the court also rejected a challenge by anti-abortion doctors seeking to make a widely used abortion pill harder to obtain, cleared the way for Idaho physicians to perform emergency abortions in certain circumstances and upheld a federal law prohibiting alleged domestic abusers from having guns.
Democrats’ criticism of the Supreme Court ramped up after the conservative majority unwound the constitutional right to abortion two years ago, an outcome made possible by Trump’s three appointments to the Supreme Court. His final pick, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, took her seat on the high court days before the 2020 election following the death of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September 2020.
But Trump’s own ascension to the White House in 2016 was fueled in part by voters who cared about Supreme Court appointments, an issue that took on added significance following the unexpected death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia that February. Of voters who said Supreme Court nominations were the most important factor when considering who to support in the 2016 race, 56% cast ballots for Trump, according to exit polls. Additionally, 26% of Trump voters said appointments were the most important factor for them.
Much as the vacancy created by Scalia’s death drove conservative voters to back Trump in 2016, progressives are hoping that the prospect of open seats in the next four years drives voters to support Mr. Biden in November.
“It’s no secret that progressives are far behind” in educating voters about the court, Stasha Rhodes, United for Democracy’s campaign director, said. “But we see an opportunity over the coming months to turn this around.”
Three of the justices, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Sonia Sotomayor, are in their 70s, and Chief Justice John Roberts is 69. If Trump wins, Thomas, who is the longest serving of the current justices, and Alito could step down, allowing the Republican president to appoint successors who would be younger and therefore poised to serve for decades. Trump’s three appointees, Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Barrett, are all in their 50s. It’s highly unlikely either Thomas or Alito will retire if Mr. Biden is reelected in November.
Mr. Biden himself has warned that the next president could nominate two justices to the Supreme Court, and former President Barack Obama said during a joint fundraiser with the president last month that the current landscape is a byproduct of the 2016 election.
“We have learned our lesson because these elections matter in very concrete ways,” Obama said. “And we’re seeing how much it matters when it comes to the Supreme Court.”
Liberal commentators have suggested Sotomayor should retire this year, with Mr. Biden still in the White House and Democrats in control of the Senate. But the idea has not gained traction with Senate Democrats.
Still, Harvey indicated the coalition’s efforts are aimed not only at helping Democrats hold onto the White House, but also retaining control of the Senate and flipping the House, which is now controlled by Republicans. Total control by Democrats could clear the way for Congress to enact court-reform legislation, including a bill imposing term limits on current and future justices, she said.
Under that plan, called the Supreme Court Term Act, a president would name a justice every two years, and current members would be required to assume senior status, a form of semi-retirement, in order of length of tenure as new justices are appointed. If passed by a Democrat-led Congress and signed into law by a Democratic president, the legislation would require Thomas, appointed in 1991, to step down first, followed by Roberts, tapped in 2005.
Under that scenario, control of the court would flip from a 6-3 conservative majority to 5-4 liberal majority in a matter of years.
“We want to make sure that the American people understand the power that they and their elected representatives have to check an extreme movement in the court. The Constitution of the United States provides Congress the power to fix this problem, said Skye Perryman, senior adviser to Demand Justice, a liberal judicial advocacy group. “Sometimes that gets lost and the court seems like an untouchable entity and the die is cast and there’s nothing that the American people can do, but our Constitution provides the tools for the American people to make their voices heard and to lawmakers to enact reforms.”
Demand Justice, which is one of the most vocal groups advocating for reforming the Supreme Court, plans to spend $10 million this year on efforts targeting the high court. As part of its offensive, it will be launching a $2 million campaign focused on moms that aims to educate them about the court and the ramifications of its rulings for women and families.
“This is a critical moment where people are understanding and paying attention to what is happening in the courts,” Perryman said.
Separately, Democrats on Capitol Hill have been mounting attacks on the Supreme Court and its conservative members, specifically Thomas and Alito, over their ties to wealthy Republican benefactors.
Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse and Ron Wyden urged Attorney General Merrick Garland last week to appoint a special counsel to investigate Thomas, who has faced scrutiny over travel he accepted from GOP megadonor Harlan Crow.
And on Wednesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York introduced articles of impeachment against Thomas and Alito, escalating Democrats’ disapproval of the high court and its conservative members.
It’s highly unlikely the GOP-led House will act on the articles, and Republican lawmakers have denounced Democrats’ actions as an attempt to undermine the court’s legitimacy in response to decisions on politically charged issues with which they disagree.