Organization, what is it and how are you funded and supported . A demanded justice is Progressive Organization that return in 2018 to try to symmetry between those on the left and the right when it comes to tuning into the importance of the federal judiciary. Havelicans for decades successfully messaged to their voters the importance of the judiciary and how it really is the ultimate arbiter of all the issues that we care about. On the left, weve been less successful and that was very pointed in 2016 when Hillary Clinton was campaigning as there was a Supreme Court vacancy hanging in the balance after the death of anson scalia and even the progressive had opportunity by winning the election in the ideological balance of the court, you really didnt see that issue register at a Grassroots Level among democratic voters. 2016,t, at exit polls in you saw that voters said the Supreme Court was a top issue with them by about 15 points supported donald trump. Becoming president , donald trump has been true to his word in terms of fort wise a the judicial, confirming over 200 people. Our point to democrats as we need to get in the game and for decades now, weve been seeing this issue to conservatives and now were going to look at the consequences because even as donald trump is defeated in november, we will be written with these justices for the rest of their lives. This is an issue that were trying to mobilize and engage and educate progressives around and we are seeing some successful results. We had success in terms of fundraising. We have support from large grantmaking institutions as well as thousands of grassroots supporters who contribute. We are very proud of that. In terms of those breakers were seeing, im sure we will talk about it during the course of the interview, at the Democratic Convention just a couple of weeks ago, the party embraced some very aggressive bold language calling for structural reform of the federal court. There have been a couple of polls in the last couple of months that have shown that the worst time in several president ial cycles, democratic voters are saying the Supreme Court matters to them more than republicans. We are very pleased by that, it shows that we think were making progress host when it comes to issues of reform, what would you like to see at the Supreme Court and on the federal judiciary . I would like to see a few things from a potential Biden Administration. First and foremost, prioritization of judicial appointments. If joe biden is elected president and especially if the Democratic Senate also is , there will be a lot of pressure on joe biden and Chuck Schumer as the majority leader potentially in a sense to enact legislation on Voting Rights and Climate Change and gun safety and economic stimulus in response to the covid crisis and all that is quite understandable and i share those priorities as well, but what we dont want to have happen is have judicial appointments take a backseat to those issues and not prioritize confirmations in the same way that we seeing donald trump and Mitch Mcconnell do. Make sure the issue doesnt fall off. The second thing we would like to change, we would like to shift the paradigm and the type of people who get appointed by democratic president s. Typically, democratic president s have tended to nominate people with very similar backgrounds. That is to say, partners at the Corporate Law forms, big pharma, the banks, or the energy industry. Prosecutors, assistant u. S. Attorneys and the federal government. Our point is that we could use some professional diversity in the federal judiciary. Our group is clamoring and will be pressuring the Biden Administration if it wins to try to give offices to people from different walks of life. Instead of just another prosecutor, how about nominating some individuals that have represented defendants in the criminal Justice System . Attorneys, how about if we nominate labor lawyers are people who have made their professions representing consumers and workers . That is a good priority for us. We are i would say seeking to cultivate a conversation about speaking boldly about how can we, in the long term,depoliticize the federal judiciary so it is not constantly the subject of a backandforth political tugofwar with the of one retirements or deaths occur can swing the courts ideologically the next 30 or 40 years. We would like to have conversations about reforms for the Supreme Court and we also in 2016at what happened in terms of Mitch Mcconnells that,e to even consider we support proposals that look at changing the number of seats on Supreme Court which is happened multiple times throughout history. Those are just a few of those priorities behalf. Host that last point, currently nine, what would you change it to . The composition which change many times throughout the nations history from five seats to 10 feet during ibrahim lincolns presidency, then with trumped down to seven, then it went back up to nine a few years later. Our point is that this is not something that is codified in the constitution, it can be changed with a simple lack of legislation and republicans have been perfectly happy to put this on the courts. Were perfectly content to have eight justices rather than nine by holding that see open. The lower courts, Chuck Grassley in 2016 introduced a bill to seats ine size of the Circuit Court because he did not want to allow obama to fill any of the seats in what is considered the nations secondhighest court with anymore obama appointees so he proposed that. The state level, youve seen republican governors change the composition size of the state Supreme Courts in arizona most famously. Republicans have been perfectly open to adding or changing the size of the Supreme Court at the state level in the federal level. We would like to steer the conversation about that so we can have a longterm shift toward a nonpolitical judiciary were confirmation rights do not become political situations. If you have a system where justice is redoing 18 years and you guarantee each president the opportunity to nominate two justices, that would promote uniformity and regularity and it would lessen the effects that hold up in one year, hoping that they might win the election. Theres a lot of consensus. People like chief Justice John Roberts actually support term limits. He was an official in the 1980s. Theres a lot of bipartisan support at various points in recent years for changing the size of the courts. That is something that we think is constitutionally possible. Host our guest with the National Press secretary for Hillary Clinton, served as an aid in the u. S. Senate who were Chuck Schumer, and also is the director of Public Affairs of the department of justice under the obama administration. He is currently the cofounder and executive director of demand justice. If you want to ask them questions, you can call and let us know. If you support joe biden and kamala harris, 202 7488000. 202 7488001 if you support the president and the vice ifsident, and 202 7488002 you are undecided or you support others. Wouldnt expanding the number of justices itself and these , with that change things of a political nature of the court . Term, tok in the long prevent what happened in 2000 ever happening again, there is some talk about what would happen if a liberal justice on the court might pass away. With the republicans go forward with the judicial selection right before the election . Mitch mcconnell is basically saying, yes, he would, which is completely hypocritical compared to the position that he took in 2000 exchange. But im not surprised that Mitch Mcconnell is saying that because it worked out for him quite nicely in 2016. Was an unprecedented blockade he carried out. They were able to hold the sea. And maryuch in 2017, garland is now a Supreme Court justice. Unless you do something to show that there is not going to be a payoff for it so, part of the reason we come to this idea is ,o basically right the wrong what we think was a complete violation of norms in 2016. Ideally it would bring us back. O a political equilibrium they know the other side would have a way to remedy it. There are ways you can structure a proposal. Seats, and then make it subject to the next president. Discussed, if you combine it with a term limits proposal you can grow the court temporarily. Introducing new justices to the court that are going to be on a fixed term of 18 years. The court cites micro for a short period, but then as justices, as health fades or they choose to retire, you are moving back toward a nine Justice Court with everybody fixed on 18year terms. There are ways you can structure that the potus and more of an apolitical situation. I think you need some kind of response to what happened in 2016, otherwise there is no reason for Mitch Mcconnell not to. Host lets take a call from marion. You are on with brian fallon of demand justice. Go ahead with your comment. Caller good morning and thank you so much for taking my call. , youe this is in your know, experience. In the last hour we have been hearing a lot about the republican plan. One of the things not talked about at all was the Liability Protection for corporations. Way of takingt a away workers rights . That really concerns me. That seems to be a much bigger deal than what anybody is talking about. Can you address that and tell me what that would mean for workers . Thank you. Caller raises an excellent point. In the context of these negotiations over covid relief, Mitch Mcconnell has been insisting that any provision that takes care of laidoff workers, first responders, must also have an immunity provision to ensure that big corporations are held unless from any reckless decisions they make with respect to consumers or their employees. Emocrats have resisted in the context of the court, Mitch Mcconnell and donald trump has been emphasizing judicial nominees that will represent and carry water for big business. The Constitutional Accountability Center is a Nonprofit Organization that we work with from time to time. They do a very interesting analysis every year where they assess how often the chamber of commerce and its assorted interests are prevailing at the Supreme Court. In recent years the chamber of commerce has been winning 70 of the time. There is also been studies that show the corporate interest represented by some of the big in firms that have practices washington, d. C. Are much more likely to get their cases heard by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court only hears about 80 cases a year, there is an overrepresentation of cases that are being petitioned by corporate interest represented by these law firms. That is why we think it is so important that change administrations and liked a democratic president so we are not putting more trump judges on the federal bench, that we will continue that will continue to put corporations first. Democrats often ought to shift their priorities and stop dominating lawyers that have been representing those corporate interest and instead lets try to even the scales by putting people that have made careers in the law on behalf of consumers and workers. But those people on the bench. Judges trump these has installed. Kentucky, dwight in you are on with our guest. The republicans are playing by the same rules the democrats played by when they were in power. Expression knows the , he got borked. Clarence, anita hill. Up, you know, i think the democrats are paying for that washat coverage shown at the time. Circuit h show ninth Circuit Court of appeals is liberal. Im sure she has voted one way. And he is right. Itcconnell held up and has been done. Until we figure out a way to get these judges put in in an equitable manner, and until they change the law, it is going to keep on going. I would like to hear what he has to say about it. Host we will let him answer. The caller makes a fair point. Democrats have certainly resisted fiercely certain republican nominees. He mentioned robert bork, who joe biden had a large hand in blocking. I would argue that is the system working, because robert bork was an ideological Supreme Court pick. Ultimately that seat he was nominated to fill after another tried fail, the third try was anthony kennedy. Anthony kennedy i disagree with on a whole range of issues, but he was definitely more moderate than robert work. Robert bork. My old boss, Chuck Schumer, in the mid2000 see john he talked with john cornyn and brought up Chuck Schumers role in blocking appointments under bush. Heeone named miguel estrada, was nominated for the d. C. Circuit court. Chuck schumer worked to stop his nomination. It is a fair point that there have been efforts on both sides to filibuster and block nominees. I would argue that under Barack Obamas presidency got taken to new levels. Literally the reason donald trump has had so many vacancies to fill weve talked about how he has gotten more than 200 judges on the federal bench. The reason that was made possible is because he hit he inherited. That is not because barack obama did not prioritize judicial nominations, it is because Mitch Mcconnell made a point of not filling those seats. Senate,y took over the ublicans did not [indiscernible] to exercisesenators their ability to block. He saw judgeships in the rightist states of the country that remained open for donald trump to fill solely because of the fact [indiscernible] the other consequences, we have a wider and more male judiciary under donald trump. Barack obama made a priority of emphasizing racial and gender diversity in his nominations. We have large swathes of the country that are not at all diverse in terms of who sits on the appellate court. I think the fifth circuit of the appeals court, which represent louisiana and texas, i think the most demographically diverse jurisdiction in the country and yet it has one of the widest benches. Likeis because somebody ted cruz and john cornyn under barack obama would say, no, we are not going to consider your picks. This is a problem where the judiciary does not look like the people it represents in terms of its jurisdiction. That is the thing i think joe biden should solve. Embraced joe biden this idea of expanding Supreme Court justices . Matter of fact, he did not. He pointedly rejected it during the primary. A bunch of other candidates running expressed openness to this. What joe biden has done, to his credit, is make a commitment that he is going to prioritize the appointment of the first africanamerican woman to the Supreme Court if you get the opportunity. That is significant in its own right. That is overdue. It is also meaningful to us that he feels there is a political upside to talking about that fact as he campaigns. We are a group that wants to raise the salience of the issue. The fact that joe biden as he was campaigning thought that there was some potential for that to register, that tells us there is some green shoots of activism, that the engagement is higher than in past cycles. We are pleased by that. The Second Development was inclusion of the language in the platform a discussion of the platform is about 39 words long. Long as four times as description of priorities when it comes to judicial appointments in this years platform. Including embracing a call for a structural form and more professional diversity on federal judges, including a commitment to nominate more senators, more civil rights lawyers. The Biting Campaign worked with groups like ours, so we were very appreciative of that. Host brian fallon of demand justice with us. We will go to a supporter of joe biden. Good morning. Caller good morning, do you hear me . Host you are on, go ahead. Caller thank you very much, cspan. Reellistening to america. Thank you for the book festivals you give us. We really really love the fact we have the opportunity. Brian, this is the thrust of the matter. Thank you for your long service to us as a party and the country. This intersection of the judiciary as it relates to Public School funding here in the country, as it relates to tosumer loss, as it relates our health care right now in the court with obama care trying to disavow the preexisting we absolutely must have the redirection of a modern judiciary. Know they have been creating a judiciary which gives the cases of particularly public education. Browned. Ucation was v. Have been brown board. They have been going with these vouchers, private School Charter funding, even though 40 plus states i believe that is the count have within their state constitution that we must provide a quality public education. Forward whatught they thought they could set with precedent. Host what would you like our guest to address . Caller for the purpose of the fact that they want to give us these state and across Line Health Care funds health plans. That goes to the chamber. Who would be a member of those states . Not everyone. Host thank you. She put a lot out there. If you want to take something from that, go ahead. Raisesthe caller education. We go around all the time trying to educate progressives about the Supreme Court. Including education and other issues, Racial Justice in the wake of the george floyd killing. The resurgence of the black lives matter movement. Alot of people dont realize lot of these cases beckett decided by the Supreme Court, but under the Roberts Court you had a case in Washington State and there was a voluntary effort to try to integrate schools. They noticed their schools were resegregating just because of neighborhood segregation. So the parents there undertook an effort to say, youre going to transport kids, we are going to allow parents to express a preference if they want to go to an integrated school. The parents themselves and the School District decided they wanted to do that because they wanted their children to get educated in a diverse environment. The Supreme Court under john roberts struck that down. They said that was unconstitutional for a parent to voluntarily seek to integrate their School District. T is just one example of people know about brown v. Board of education. But in recent years this court has really been done damage to a lot of key priorities progressives hold dear. At the end of this term there was a lot of coverage about how john roberts was moderate, how he was surprising people. But there was a lot of stuff in those rulings where john roberts supposedly broke from conservatives. There was a lot of stuff that progressives should not be happy about. That abortion decision was hailed as a win for progressives, but we are seeing states passing more draconian antiabortion laws. The reasoningg from john roberts means that their proposals, that are very severely curtailing abortion rights, should be upheld in the Supreme Court. Because john roberts changed the logic. John roberts is not a moderate. Under his just the ship there has been a lot of damage to progressive priorities. When our group tries to do is educate people so they understand the high stakes of the Supreme Court. Host paul is next. Caller good morning. How are we doing . Host fine, thanks. Go ahead. Ander my question is this, you might have already touched on this and i tuned in late. A few weeks ago President Trump signed a few executive orders. One of those orders was to help people that are still laid off for covid19, to get the extra 300 per week. It is going on two months now and we havent seen a penny. Do you know what is holding up . Host caller, you might have been calling in our previous call and segment. , he want tollon take that up . Guest the caller is right. There was a lot of pageantry around this announcement the president made. The president lacks the authority to do what he said he was going to do with the executive order. Much of what he was seeking to do requires congressional approval. Congress was gridlocked on this. That doesnt give him the authority to do this. They didnt want to be seen as imposing up on technical grounds, i guess. They made their case about the president , did not go far enough. The fundamental point remains. The way i will link this back to my issue is, we have seen the president propose executive rules kirting ethics he held his Political Party convention on the south lawn of the white house, which is a hatch act violation. We see the president violate the law the time. Is that the us judges, the hallmark of these 200plus judges trump has installed, they seem to have no issue with all of his lawbreaking. The president today or tomorrow is expected to release a Supreme Court shortlist, telling voters who he would look at when another Supreme Court vacancy arises. One of the people that is speculated about is a woman named naomi rao. The Circuit Court has become famous because she has been in a handful of cases where each time she breaks from her colleagues on the Circuit Court to say President Trump can do no wrong. The matter of congressional subpoenas, she sided with his former aide michael flynn. When it comes to this sketchy arrangement where michael barr has dropped that case. No, the bill said, Barr Justice Department can go forward if they want to. Become a defining characteristic of some of these trump appointees, that they have their expansive views of executive power. And they are particularly untroubled by trumps violation of law. Host should joe biden release a list of nominees he would be thinking about . Guest we would love that. The Vice President has said he is considering it. We know he has made a commitment to nominate the first africanamerican woman to the bench. We think that is amazing. We would love for him to go further. We think that would further highlight the contrast between the types of people he would put on the bench and the people donald trump would put on the bench. We have publicly released a short list of our own. It is at our website. There are several women of caller on the list, including people like leandra kruger. Charlene ifo eiffel. Youre going to be updating that last and adding names to show there are tons of qualified africanamerican women for biden to choose from. Was a former public defender at one stage in her career. Of womena whole host that joe biden would be able to pick from. We would love it if prior to the election he would likely say some of their names. Host from michigan, a supporter of joe biden. We will hear from randy. Caller good morning, pedro. I would like to start thinking you and mr. Fallon. You are doing us a great service. Mr. Fallon, i want to let you know, i am one of them democrats that did not vote for mrs. Clinton. There is no reason going into why. Im glad to hear somebody approaching the Supreme Court. I must admit, Mitch Mcconnell pulled that stunt in any 16, that really gutted me. I cannot believe our senate would do that. That just bothers me more than anything. Im glad to hear we have somebody on the democratic side pushing for the Justice System to get straightened out. I know immigration is important, that it is not as important as straightening out our Justice System. We have stepped into an area that you are going to end up having a wild west. We are going to have a wild west on steroids if weo not stop playing with our Justice System. Men and women in it. That is the only way that system runs. I agree with them and i support the men and women, we cannot play this game. Thank you, mr. Fallon. Host randy, thank you. Thank you. The callersk leprosy representative of a large group of democratic voters. As i mentioned earlier, there has been two polls in the last cew weeks that shows democrati voters are prioritizing the Supreme Court more than republican voters. [indiscernible] i think that one of the things joe biden will have going for sense of purpose and seriousness about that, even if i did not support joe biden in the primary, i cant afford to be a third party voted this time around because the stakes are important for so many other things are too high. Seen ast year we have [indiscernible] two of the liberal justices are over 80 years old. One way or the other donald trump would have 1, 2, 3, may 4 picks in a second term. Even if you think that john roberts occasionally breaks with conservatives, and will move with liberals now and again, you can kiss that possibility goodbye if donald trump gets one more justice on the Supreme Court to replace a liberal justice. All of those 54 cases. Street street that is rising among judicial conservatives, it is a very extreme one. Their new favorite justices Clarence Thomas, who is as conservative as he ever was. No other supreme or justice has more clerks represented among Donald Trumps judicial picks thank larry then Clarence Thomas. Trump judges are more conservative than george bush judges and we cannot afford to lose those. Host from the Trump Campaign itself, justin clark made comments about joe biden. Saying this. Joe biden would stack the federal government with activist judges. And those judges handpicked by joe biden, allied, with threaten our fundamental american freedom. They would refuse to protect the lives of the unborn and erode the right to keep and bear arms. Guest that statement hits on something that i was making. The point mades by conservatives and republicans that, you know, we want judges that are going to be restrained. We want them to defer to congress. Dont want them to legislate from the bench. Tar democratic president ial appointments as the activist judges. Ist you seen in recent years that the mask has come off. Clarence thomas is even further to the right. One of the ways Clarence Thomas is radical is, within the last couple of terms he is starting from theopinions bench, writing concurrences were he just openly calls on his colleagues and challenges his colleagues to abandoned abandon this answer the love story decisives. View his conservative colleagues are not willing enough, they are not aggressive in being able to hear cases for the purpose of overturning precedents. In the last three terms there have been three cases where the Supreme Courts conservative majority has overturned a longstanding precedent of the Supreme Court. There has been a trend among the conservative justices on the court to overturn precedent willynilly, to the point where briar actually wrote an opinion saying, i worry about which precedent could be next, because they are overturning precedents at a breakneck pace. At this point the judicial activists, you have to say, are the donald trump appointees. Anyone that cares to see a judiciary that is modest and defers to congress, and that is not trying to step into the breach to resolve challenges questions of statutory interpretation, you should be with your problem should be with the conservative appointees of donald trump. Host lets go to a supporter of donald trump. Linda in tennessee. Good morning. Caller good morning. I would like to ask a statement and ask a question. He didnt hardly tell all about [indiscernible] because nancy pelosi wanted all of the democrats [indiscernible] and everything else. You know good and well that a Charter School is better than a private school. Do you send your children to the regular school . I would like to know the question. Guest i do. My kids started virtual kindergarten yesterday with the local public kindergarten. Host a supporter of joe biden. Hi. Caller i am africanamerican woman. , when obamak you tried to appoint that lady and iourt appointee believe the republicans did not even allow the vote to come in place. When they first originated the Supreme Court or any Justice Courts for that matter, was it basically to let the party agenda run or was it for the people of the united states, for the courts to be objective and unbiased . [indiscernible] where was your organization around then and what advice would you give to biden if they try to do that to him . Caller ishink the referring to the Merrick Garland scenario, which we have talked about. Situatione that whole is one of the motivating factors that caused myself and my cofounder, who actually was , toty white House Counsel organize this group in spring 2018. In part because we were so outraged at what had happened with Merrick Garland in 2016. I would say to the caller, and general, i think that these appointment battles have become too all or nothing. In general i think the judiciary has become too powerful visavis, the two other branches. Oftalk about certain types reforms like term limits and a code of ethics for the Supreme Court, but one of the other types of conversation that is happening and i am interested in is proposals that would reduce the power of the judiciary visavis the elected branches of government. There is a professor at yale who has written in support of some ideas that would go at it from that approach. For instance, he floated the idea of, you could statutorily enact the requirement that the Supreme Court achieve a super majority. Maybe 63 if youre going to overturn an act of congress. Having a higher bar for the Supreme Court to overturn something that passes both houses of congress. Because we do have nine unelected people sitting on that court for life and the way they get there is, it tends to lead some majoritarian situations. Two of the last three president s, both republicans, got elected the first time without winning the popular vote. Then they nominate justices to confirmed by conservative majorities in the senate that represent a minority of the population overall in the country because of the apportionment situation in the senate. That is how people got on the court. You have justices installed by consider t and Senate Majorities that dont represent majorities in the country. That is how you get Supreme Court that is so out of step with the country. We should look at reforms that also try to look at that problem and downsize the endall beall nature of the Supreme Court having the last word on every political question in this country. Host that is brian fallon with the group demand justice. Demandjustice. Org is the website. Thanks for appearing on the program today. Guest thank you so much for having me. Host this is jessica anderson. She is the executive director for Heritage Action for america. Talk about the role her group will play. Thanks for joining us. Guest thanks for having me. Host a little bit about your group. Are you associated with the Heritage Foundation . Guest we are the grassroots arm of the Heritage Foundation. Host is independent from the foundation . How are you find it . Guest we are independent and independently funded. We can do more advocacy work, as well as grassroots work in the field across the country. We are funded by a myriad of small dollar donors that want to see conservative values and principles advocated for herin