1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

We must reform the Supreme Court. I got this from a commenter online but I agree with every word. Three years ago, the Supreme Court considered a Voting Rights Act case nearly identical to the one decided two weeks ago. The Court ruled to uphold Section 2. Justice Kavanaugh joined the majority. Three Terms later, with no change to the statute and no change to the Constitution, the Court reversed itself. That’s not how courts are supposed to work. Statutes don’t mean one thing in 2023 and the opposite in 2026 because the same justices changed their minds. But that’s not even the most concerning part. The Court bypassed its own 32-day rule (Supreme Court Rule 45.3) to finalize the ruling six days after issuing it — so Louisiana could redraw its congressional map mid-primary, with absentee ballots already cast. The Purcell principle — the doctrine that courts should not change election rules close to an election — was invoked by this same Court five months ago to stop a federal district judge from doing exactly that. In Callais, Purcell isn’t mentioned once, even though the decision triggered the suspension of an active primary. When the same justices apply the same doctrines inconsistently depending on which side it helps, when they bypass their own procedural rules to enable mid-election redistricting, and when they reverse forty-year-old statutory interpretations Congress reaffirmed three Terms ago, they’re not calling balls and strikes. They’re choosing outcomes. This is not a partisan complaint. It’s an institutional one. Public confidence in the Supreme Court is at record lows. The remedy isn’t retaliation. It’s reform — the kind that historically had bipartisan support: eighteen-year staggered term limits, a binding ethics code (the Supreme Court is the only court in America without one), and transparency rules for the emergency docket. These reforms have polled with majorities in both parties. They are not radical. They are the kind of structural adjustments Congress has made throughout American history when courts drift too far from public legitimacy. We don’t have to agree on the substance of every ruling. We do have to agree on whether courts should follow their own rules. If we lose that, we’ve lost something we can’t get back through any single election.