Democrats like Booker can’t stand SCOTUS. That’s because the high court won’t rubber stamp their agenda.
And Cory Booker wants to tear down the Supreme Court with this massive attack.
In a bold display of partisan frustration, Sen. Cory Booker took to the Sunday airwaves to demand sweeping changes to the nation’s highest court. The New Jersey Democrat’s appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press laid bare the left’s growing impatience with a Supreme Court that has dared to uphold constitutional principles over progressive whims.
Booker painted a dire picture of American institutions, insisting that corruption has taken root across the government. Yet his solution focuses laser-like on the Supreme Court, the one branch that has recently checked the excesses of executive overreach and legislative ambition from the left.
The senator didn’t mince words about his proposed fixes. He called for an end to justices accepting gifts from wealthy donors with stakes in pending cases. More centrally, he pushed hard for 18-year term limits on the bench.
“So here’s what I believe. We in America now have normalized a level of corruption in all three branches of our government that cannot stand. It is a cancer that is corroding our body politic. All three branches of government need massive reforms. The Supreme Court, if municipal court people in New Jersey did what Supreme Court members do are doing now, they would be let out in handcuffs,” Booker stated.
“So my plan is very simple. Two things. One is to stop Supreme Court members from accepting unlimited gifts from billionaires who have a material interest in matters before the court. And number two, put term limits on Supreme Court members to 18 years.”
“So we normalize a system that is actually fair, that says every time we elect a president, they get two people on the Supreme Court. We stop people hanging on well past their prime, and make sure that we have a court that operates with the kind of integrity and fairness that America deserves, and should be a fundamental expectation from every citizen.”
The idea of fixed terms sounds reasonable on the surface—regular turnover, fresh perspectives, presidential appointments every four years.
But conservatives see the deeper game. Term limits for justices would require either a constitutional amendment or creative maneuvering that risks undermining judicial independence, a cornerstone of the Republic.
“I think the plan that I have is would actually solve the problems that people want to expand the court or trying to achieve, give term limits of 18 years and put ethics laws on them. You would see quick changes to our court,” Booker continued.
“Many of whom we’ve been on for more than 18 years. And you would actually have a court that serves the people and not the interests of the extraordinary billionaires, or showering members of those courts with everything from RVs to tuitions to gifts.”
For decades, Democrats celebrated long-serving liberal justices who shaped policy from the bench on issues from abortion to regulation.
Now that originalists and textualists hold sway, the rules must change.
This pattern of moving the goalposts whenever the people’s elected representatives or appointed guardians of the Constitution push back is classic elite behavior.
