Courts v. Citizens: our increasingly right-wing judiciary has taken aim at the basic underpinnings of democracy. (Court Packing).

LIBERALS NEED TO THINK OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY'S spreading control over the federal courts in democratic and not just civil-libertarian terms. Our traditional anxiety is that conservative judges will fail to protect the rights of political minorities from attack by an overzealous majority. But the greater danger today is quite the opposite. The new conservative legal agenda is a zealous project by a political minority to thwart the majority's legislative priorities and to undermine the democratic rights of the people.

The emblematic event of this judicial movement was, of ...