For Immediate Release: Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Press Contact: Molly Coleman, molly@peoplesparity.org

People’s Parity Project Releases New Report on Protecting Workers’ Rights and Multiracial Democracy from the Federal Courts 

June 18, 2024 | Washington, D.C.—Today, the People’s Parity Project announced the release of “Protecting Workers’ Rights and Democracy from the Courts: A Practical Guide to Court Reform,” authored by labor lawyer and writer Jenny Hunter.

This report shows that the federal courts, most notably the Supreme Court, have long posed an urgent threat to economic justice and worker power, and argues that comprehensive court reform is an essential component of any progressive economic justice agenda. In addition to reforms including Supreme Court expansion, term limits, and an enforceable code of ethics, this report makes the case for jurisdiction stripping and channeling provisions, fast-track congressional review of Supreme Court decisions, and supermajority or unanimity requirements for the Supreme Court. 

“In the two years since Roe v. Wade was overturned, the progressive movement has largely come to recognize that the Supreme Court is an active threat to justice. But it’s critical to understand that this isn’t a new problem. Since the 1800s, the Court has made it harder for working people to live with dignity, for people to build power, and for our democracy to flourish,” said Molly Coleman, Executive Director of People’s Parity Project. “Our reform agenda must acknowledge that modifying the composition of the Supreme Court or changing the terms of the justices’ service isn’t enough to solve this fundamental problem of the Court. We need big, bold reform to put power back in the hands of the people and their elected representatives, not unelected, unaccountable lawyers in robes.”

“The current Supreme Court is unusually extreme in some ways. Its right-wing supermajority is the result of overt right-wing political hardball,” said Jenny Hunter, author of the report. “But for the better part of the Court’s history, even before Mitch McConnell’s influence, it has been hostile to the egalitarian, democracy-enhancing vision of the Constitution embraced by the labor movement. By fundamentally reforming the courts through tools designed to put power back in the hands of the people, we can broaden the futures and constitutional understandings that labor and other social movements can seek. In doing so, we can build a more just world for working people.”

The report highlights six key buckets of reform:

  1. Court expansion: Adding justices to the Supreme Court.
  2. Jurisdiction stripping: Removing courts’ ability to hear challenges to a specific law or regulation, or more broadly to all federal laws and regulations. 
  3. Jurisdiction channeling: Designating a specific court, agency, or other body to hear specific types of cases.
  4. Supermajority requirements: A rule that a court can only strike down a law or regulation on constitutional grounds if a supermajority, or all, of the court’s members agree.
  5. Fast-track congressional fixes to statutory interpretation decisions: An efficient process for Congress to overrule a court decision misinterpreting a federal law or regulation.
  6. Other complementary reforms: Ethics reform, shadow docket reform, lower court expansion, term limits, and laws to correct antidemocratic judicial doctrines. These would complement other reforms, and would be helpful, but not alone sufficient, in addressing the problems of the federal courts.

It ends with a call to action for the progressive community: “The court reform tools outlined in this report have the potential to significantly democratize our government, and to protect progressive policies needed to ensure justice throughout society. Court reform tools could change the composition of the Supreme Court; make it more difficult or impossible for courts to strike down laws enacted by democratically accountable officials; allow Congress to more easily correct judicial misinterpretations of federal laws and regulations; relieve pressure on crowded dockets; subject justices to ethics rules; introduce transparency into the Court’s shadow docket; and reverse antidemocratic doctrines. 

“None of these tools is perfect, in the same way that democracy is not perfect. Court reform will be politically difficult. But we must try. The ability of the American people to shape the future of our country depends on it.”

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People’s Parity Project is a movement of attorneys and law students organizing for a democratized legal system which values people over profits, builds the power of working people, and opposes subordination of any
form. Together, we are dismantling a profession that upholds corporate power and building a legal system that is a force for justice and equity. Our work focuses on building power for working people in the civil legal system through organizing, policy innovation, political education, and solidarity. Learn more: www.peoplesparity.org/about.

 

Read the full report here.