“So committed is the Left to changing our country through judicial fiat that it has now embarked on a brazen and unconstitutional strategy to pack the federal judiciary from top to bottom with activist judges.”

Mark Levin, Men in Black (2005)

This week, Left wing groups launched a formal campaign to discredit the U.S. Supreme Court. Organized under the title of “United for Democracy,” the campaign is funded by advocacy groups ranging from Planned Parenthood to the American Federation of Teachers.

According to their website, United for Democracy (“UFD”) plans to pour $1 million into airing commercials in 2024 swing states. Their goal is to ensure that “the American people have extreme justices top of mind when” voting in the next election. Going forward, they also announced plans to “work with organizers and communities on the ground” to spread their radical message about “the harm of the captured Court.”

Because they do not control its outcomes, the Left is committed to undermining trust in our federal judiciary. We have already seen this phenomenon in their recent character attacks on Justice Thomas. As Landmark pointed out, those personal attacks were an assault on the independent judiciary. The UFD is the next step in this campaign to yoke federal judges under Left-wing political prerogatives.

The Left does not care about an honest interpretation of the law. They are entirely outcome oriented. Campaigns like UFD reflect that cynical, politicized approach to the Supreme Court. The UFD commercial does not discuss the textualist principles underlying Sackett v. EPA or the immense historical evidence referenced in the Bruen decision. They are actually upset, as shown in their first commercial, that the EPA has lost its power over property holders, that more people may own guns, and that access to abortion may be curtailed.

Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers, seconded these complaints about a Court that doesn’t meet her political agenda. In her statement supporting the UFD’s formation, Weingarten railed that “the Supreme Court’s majority… made our communities even more vulnerable to gun violence, taken reproductive healthcare decisions away from families and employment rights away from workers, and allowed corporations to pollute with abandon.” To combat this majority’s “callously uncaring” decisions, she endorses the UFD’s calls on “Congress to protect the American people and make the Supreme Court a functional part of our democracy.”

By “functional part of our democracy,” Weingarten seems to refer to a judicial stamp of approval on liberal policies that fail to win at the ballot box. For over 80 years, from the New Deal to the Warren Court to Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court was used to enable liberal agenda items. Only recently, as principled textualists have assumed a majority on the bench, has this corrosive trend begun to wane.

The Left is outraged to lose their powers of judicial fiat. Be it through Congressional oversight or packing the Court, they are desperate to reclaim this power – perhaps through campaigns such as the UFD. Hopefully, American voters will be wise enough to recognize this caterwauling for what it is: an assault on the separation of powers and judicial integrity.