In an open letter, two far-left professors urged Joe Biden to openly defy the rulings issued by the Supreme Court, which would be an unprecedented breach in Constitutional norms.
According to Fox News, the letter was written by Mark Tushnet, a Harvard law professor, and Aaron Belkin, a political scientist at San Francisco State University. The letter, titled “An Open Letter to the Biden Administration on Popular Constitutionalism,” denounces the current Supreme court as “MAGA justices” who have made rulings “based on gravely mistaken interpretations of the Constitution.”
“We urge President Biden to restrain MAGA justices immediately by announcing that if and when they issue rulings that are based on gravely mistaken interpretations of the Constitution that undermine our most fundamental commitments, the Administration will be guided by its own constitutional interpretations,” the letter demands.
“We have worked diligently over the past five years to advocate Supreme Court expansion as a necessary strategy for restoring democracy,” the professors continued. “Although we continue to support expansion, the threat that MAGA justices pose is so extreme that reforms that do not require Congressional approval are needed at this time, and advocates and experts should encourage President Biden to take immediate action to limit the damage.”
“In this particular historical moment, MAGA justices pose a grave threat to our most fundamental commitments because they rule consistently to undermine democracy and to curtail fundamental rights, and because many of their rulings are based on misleading and untrue claims,” the letter adds. The professors never listed an example or otherwise cited evidence to back up their claims.
In a countering op-ed, Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, denounced the open letter and the two professors who wrote it: “What is most striking about these professors is how they continue to claim they are defenders of democracy, yet seek to use unilateral executive authority to defy the courts and, in cases like the tuition forgiveness and affirmative action, the majority of the public.”
“They remain the privileged elite of academia, declaring their values as transcending both constitutional and democratic processes,” Turley added. “In other words, they are calling for Biden to declare himself the final arbiter of what the Constitution means and to exercise unilateral executive power without congressional approval. He is to become a government unto himself.”
Tushnet and Belkin had previously taken part in a far-left effort called the “1.20.21 Project” in 2018, seeking to advise a future Democratic president on how to expand the number of judges on all federal courts, so that these new spots could subsequently be filled with left-wing justices. Many Democrats have supported the idea of expansion, particularly after President Donald Trump successfully had three new justices confirmed to the Supreme Court, thus giving the high court a 6-3 conservative majority.
Recent rulings that have driven the Left towards increasingly anti-judiciary rhetoric include the overturning of Roe v. Wade last year, and the most recent rulings striking down affirmative action, reaffirming Americans’ First Amendment rights against transgenderism, and blocking Biden’s efforts to cancel all student loan debt throughout the country.
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