It is a jarring experience to feel both profound relief and deep unease at the same moment. That is precisely the reaction many political observers had to the Supreme Court's recent decision on birthright citizenship—the final act of a term that revealed the destructive potential of the court's conservative majority.
The relief came from the court's rejection of President Trump's attempt to unilaterally rewrite the Constitution via executive order. Had the justices allowed that, it would have been a giant stride toward authoritarian rule. Yet the alarm was equally strong: four justices were willing to endorse a radical reinterpretation of a constitutional principle that has stood since the 14th Amendment's ratification after the Civil War. Conservative commentator Jonathan V. Last aptly described the ruling as “not a win for constitutionalism” but “a warning.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson highlighted the “ultimate irony” that, despite widespread condemnation of the infamous Dred Scott decision—which denied Black people citizenship—the Trump administration and its supporting justices “propose a return to its core tenet”: that birth on American soil does not automatically confer citizenship for certain groups.
While the outcome on birthright citizenship was defensible, confidence in the right-wing majority was shaky. Earlier this term, the court discarded a century of legal precedent and bipartisan governance to dismantle checks and balances that had long protected independent agencies. That ruling twisted history and law to serve the goals of the right-wing legal movement and Project 2025. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent, the “egregiously wrong” decision hands “tremendous power over broad swaths of American life into the president’s hands.”
This power shift is catastrophic given that the presidency is occupied by an authoritarian figure. Trump's disregard for the law had already been supercharged by a previous ruling granting him virtually unlimited immunity for official acts. The independent agency ruling now allows him to weaponize government against his enemies without meaningful constraint. OMB Director Russell Vought can more easily implement his agenda to traumatize and fire federal workers, while corporate misconduct faces less oversight. Americans will be less safe from polluters, predators, and the whims of an unstable president.
The irony is stark: the Supreme Court is granting king-like powers to Trump just as the nation commemorates 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, which rejected tyrannical monarchy. The court's recent devastation—including assaults on voting rights and civil rights, and the near-miss on citizenship—makes reform urgent. Our system of checks and balances is failing because those with power are abdicating their duty. The Roberts Court has broken new ground by deciding consequential cases on its “stealth docket” with secret votes. Georgetown law professor Stephen Vladeck told ProPublica that the pattern reveals “a court going out of its way to enable Trump,” a “real blow to the court’s credibility.”
Trump's popularity is plummeting amid his corruption, indifference to public hardship, and self-aggrandizement at taxpayer expense. Progressive politicians and platforms are gaining momentum in primaries and general election polls. But that change will be stifled by an unaccountable court unless reformers act. A broad pro-democracy coalition is pushing three key reforms: 18-year term limits for justices, an enforceable ethics code, and expansion of the court's size under the next pro-democracy president. These measures aim to restore balance and accountability to a court whose right-wing majority is squandering its legitimacy to advance a harmful political agenda.
Conservative operatives and billionaires who bought this court may be alarmed by such reforms, but for those who want the court to uphold the law and deliver justice, they offer genuine relief.
