Representative Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) speaks at a demonstration where MoveOn.org delivered over 1 million signatures calling for Congress to immediately investigate and impeach Clarence Thomas at the US Supreme Court on July 28, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Jemal Countess / Getty Images for MoveOn)
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This is the eighth and final episode of Contempt of Court, our podcast series about reforming the Supreme Court. On this episode, we’re going to talk about the court’s only true form of power: legitimacy.
To discuss potential paths toward delegitimizing the Court, my first guest on this episode is Harvard Law School professor, Nikolas Bowie. He makes a compelling case that the people, through their representatives, should be the ones in charge, not the Supreme Court.
Afterward, Rhiannon Hamam, host of the fantastic Supreme Court podcast 5-4, has some thoughts on what’s happening on the ground, as people try to take back power from the Court through direct action.
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For the first episode of Contempt of Court, we start with the most powerful reform strategy available: court expansion.
As a matter of constitutional structure, Court expansion has always been the constitutionally preferred way of handling a court that has overstepped its bounds. But as a political matter: court expansion has been treated like it is a radical solution. But It’s not. It is the way a president and Congress can check the Supreme Court, and it’s the easiest and most simple method of court reform.
Chris Kang and Representative Jamaal Bowman join Contempt of Court to explore what court expansion actually is, and how attitudes around it are finally changing.
Contempt of Court is sponsored by The New Press, America’s leading independent nonprofit public-interest book publisher and publisher of Mystal’s New York Times best-selling book, Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution—out now in paperback.
Elie MystalTwitterElie Mystal is The Nation’s justice correspondent and the host of its legal podcast, Contempt of Court. He is also an Alfred Knobler Fellow at the Type Media Center. His first book is the New York Times bestseller Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution, published by The New Press. Elie can be followed @ElieNYC.