Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen

Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen


Supreme Court: The Power to Obstruct Democracy

October 22, 2020

The framers of our Constitution intended the judicial system to be the “least dangerous branch” of government. They did not foresee today’s powerful national parties having the ability to short circuit democracy. As we see in action now, on this show American University law professor Robert Tsai says that without winning electorally the minority party, packing the courts can do a lot of damage our founders did not consider. “Originalists” are often actually the aggressive activist judges.  Republicans began their current strategy from their hatred of the Warren Court which desegregated schools. Today, Tsai says, it’s like a “system on speed to boost partisanship.” But congress the president, and the people have a lot of options to correct the move to the far right.  He says “we can renew democracy.”