News
Bombshell Paper Shows Democrats Likely Won’t Regain Majority Control of Supreme Court Until 2065 – Unless They Expand It
A newly-revised bombshell paper by four school law professors finds Democrats are unlikely to be able to regain majority control of the U.S. Supreme Court for four more decades, until 2065, unless they expand the number of justices on the nation’s highest court.
That finding follows weeks, and indeed years, worth of allegations of corruption against the conservative jurists themselves, including Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, the spouse of Chief Justice John Roberts, and earlier, Antonin Scalia.
Political strategist and former Media Matters vice president Jamison Foser notes this would mean “96 consecutive years of a Republican Supreme Court majority.”
“The Endgame of Court-Packing,” is a paper that “uses simulations based on assumptions about the results of elections, justice retirement, etc to predict what might happen with the Supreme Court’s composition for the next century,” notes one of its authors, Washington University in St. Louis School of Law Professor Daniel Epps, a “a nationally recognized expert on the Supreme Court” according to his bio.
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Revealing how just one decision can change the course of history, Epps on social media points to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on September 18, 2020 and was replaced just weeks later by Republican President Donald Trump, just before the election he lost.
Had Justice Ginsburg “retired under a D[emocratic] president (or had [Merrick] Garland been confirmed) Democrats would likely have retaken control by 2029, and would control the Court for about half of the next century,” Epps writes.
One of the paper’s authors, Harvard professor Maya Sen, frames their most concerning finding this way: “To bring this home,” she writes, “an 18 year old today will likely not see a Democratic-appointed majority on the Supreme Court probably until their 50s or 60s,” and, “people in their 40s right now will probably never see another Dem-appointed majority in their lifetimes.”
While the papers authors use the term “court-packing,” widely viewed as a negative expression of the concept of adding more justices to the nation’s highest court, the concept dates back at least as far as 1937, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposed a plan to expand the number of justices to possibly 15.
Rutgers Law School professor David Noll in October of 2020 wrote that Army Coney Barrett’s appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court “is classic court packing. The president nominated a hardline conservative who appears to question major parts of U.S. constitutional law. And the Senate majority changed its procedural rules – invented to deny Merrick Garland a hearing – to ram through the nomination as people were voting.”
“If Democrats respond to the Barrett appointment by expanding the size of the Court, the immediate effect will be to further diminish the Court’s standing and make it hard for anyone to take the Supreme Court seriously,” he wrote, unaware of the corruption scandals that would be swirling around all the right-wing justices just a few years later.
“Paradoxically, I think that’s a good development. Restoring a sense of balance to the Court will require Republicans and Democrats to come together and agree on new rules for how justices are chosen and the kind of jurists who serve on the Court.”
Others have proposed expanding the Supreme Court to 13, which would make more sense because not would accurately reflect the number of federal circuits, which the Supreme Court justices oversee.
In 2021, four Democratic members of the House and Senate called for expanding the court by four seats.
“Republicans stole the Court’s majority, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation completing their crime spree,” Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) said in a statement that year. “Of all the damage Donald Trump did to our Constitution, this stands as one of his greatest travesties. Senate Republicans have politicized the Supreme Court, undermined its legitimacy, and threatened the rights of millions of Americans, especially people of color, women, and our immigrant communities.”
“Nine justices may have made sense in the nineteenth century when there were only nine circuits, and many of our most important federal laws—covering everything from civil rights, to antitrust, the internet, financial regulation, health care, immigration, and white collar crime—simply did not exist, and did not require adjudication by the Supreme Court,” said then-House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler. “But the logic behind having only nine justices is much weaker today, when there are 13 circuits. Thirteen justices for thirteen circuits is a sensible progression, and I am pleased to join my colleagues in introducing the Judiciary Act of 2021.”
The 56-page paper‘s authors are Adam Chilton, University of Chicago – Law School; Daniel Epps, Washington University in St. Louis – School of Law; Kyle Rozema, Washington University in St. Louis – School of Law; and Maya Sen, Harvard University – Harvard Kennedy School (HKS).
Image: Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks via Flickr
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President Donald Trump reportedly appeared to be unaware that the Republican budget legislation, formerly his “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” cuts approximately $1 trillion from Medicaid. In a meeting at the White House on Wednesday, Trump told moderate Republicans not to cut Medicaid, Medicare, or Social Security.
“Trump still doesn’t seem to have a firm grasp about what his signature legislative achievement does,” NOTUS reports. “According to three sources with direct knowledge of the comments, the president told Republicans at this meeting that there are three things Congress shouldn’t touch if they want to win elections: Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.”
The legislation not only cuts $1 trillion from Medicaid, it effectively forces cuts of hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare, and takes a large chunk—also possibly hundreds of billions—out of SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The President has repeatedly vowed he will not touch Medicaid.
CNN montage of Trump saying he won’t touch Medicaid. pic.twitter.com/B1CyHsgO6g
— Blue Georgia (@BlueATLGeorgia) July 1, 2025
And as recently as Tuesday, Trump wrote: “Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security Benefits are not being cut, but are being STRENGTHENED and PROTECTED from the Radical and Destructive Democrats by eliminating Waste, Fraud, and Abuse from those Programs.”
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“As the President has said numerous times, there will be no cuts to Medicaid,” a June 29 White House memo claimed. “The One Big Beautiful Bill protects and strengthens Medicaid for those who rely on it—pregnant women, children, seniors, people with disabilities, and low-income families—while eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.”
That memo also claimed, “Medicare has not been touched in this bill— absolutely nothing in the bill reduces spending on Medicare benefits.”
At least 17 million people will lose health care coverage due to the bill’s cuts, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
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Critics blasted the President.
“No matter how far into physical or mental decline he was, there was never a single moment in Biden’s presidency that he appeared to be as checked out about what his administration was doing as Trump appears to be about this bill,” wrote Yahoo Finance reporter Jordan Weissmann.
“Imagine for a moment if Joe Biden did not know at a basic level of generality what the signature piece of legislation he was attempting to pass contained. The media outrage would be measured on the Richter scale but oddly, Trump is not held to this standard,” added another social media user.
And Bloomberg columnist Matthew Yglesias made this request: “Can a reporter ask Trump to explain what Medicaid is? Does he know?”
Watch the video above or at this link.
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Image via Reuters
In a stark warning, a top, veteran Democratic strategist says he believes President Donald Trump could try to rig or cancel the 2026 midterm elections, to retain control of Congress.
“I don’t put anything past him, nothing,” James Carville told former CNN reporter Jim Acosta, as The Daily Beast reported on Wednesday. “To try to call the election off, to do anything he can. He can think of things like that that we can’t because we’re not accustomed to thinking like that.”
The Beast noted that “Carville is so convinced that Trump will rig the midterm elections that he’s already started sounding the alarm.”
“You know people come up to me all the time and say, ‘James. I’m really scared,’” Carville told Acosta on “The Jim Acosta Show” (video below).
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“I said, ‘you should be, you have every reason to be scared. Don’t kid yourself,’” Carville added.
“This is scary s—!” Acosta replied.
“Yeah, it’s really scary,” responded Carville. “Really scary.”
The conversation was sparked by a viewer’s question.
“They want to know,” Acosta said, “Do you worry about vote tampering in the midterms?”
“Do you worry,” the host continued, “about Donald Trump and Stephen Miller and some of these types monkeying around with the midterms and the way we do elections in this country?”
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“In the short word, yes, in the longer word, very,” Carville said.
He went on to suggest that Democrats will do well in the governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey, which will be held this November.
“I think what may happen is he’ll see the writing on the wall in Virginia,” Carville continued. “This is what I think is gonna happen. In New Jersey, also. He’s going to see retirements and people are going to start coming in and saying, ‘you know we’re getting ready to lose. I got to change, and I got to get some distance,’ and he’s going to see all that coming and I don’t put anything past him.”
Watch the video below or at this link.
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U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), the Ranking Member of the powerful House Rules Committee, blasted his Republican colleagues for their support of President Donald Trump’s budget bill that will cut $1 trillion from Medicaid, hundreds of billions from Medicare, and greatly reduce the food program known as SNAP—also by hundreds of billions—while giving massive tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans.
As the House began voting on the legislation on Wednesday, giving members just one hour for debate in a rush to meet the President’s July 4 deadline, Rep. McGovern took to the floor.
The Massachusetts Democrat denounced Republicans’ “attack” on SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. “You can live without a lot of things, but you can’t live without food,” he reminded his GOP colleagues.
Speaking to “those Republicans who think that it’s okay to give [billionaire] Jeff Bezos a tax cut, and at the same time, cut food benefits for struggling families,” McGovern declared, “we don’t share the same values.”
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“Unloading billions of dollars in new costs on states, money they do not have, will force them to cut benefits and throw needy people off of SNAP. It is a rotten thing to do,” he added.
“And I believe there’s a special place in hell for people who take food away from veterans, from seniors, from children, from foster youth, and from hungry families. This is sick. This is disgusting.”
McGovern: “For those Republicans who think it’s okay to give Jeff Bezos a tax cut and at the same time cut food benefits for struggling families, let me say clearly: We don’t share the same values… I believe there’s a special place in hell for people who take food away from… pic.twitter.com/t494m7ZxSq
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 2, 2025
He called the rushed floor vote “legislative malpractice.”
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“We are not on a deadline,” he reminded House members. “No looming crisis.”
“We’re here because Donald Trump wants a Fourth of July party to celebrate this garbage bill. He wants fireworks and flags and cameras, not for this country, but for himself. So he says, ‘Close your ears, close your eyes, and vote for this bill.’ Honestly, sounds more like a cult than a Congress to me.”
After listening to a Republican—who was standing next to a big poster of President Donald Trump and fireworks—call for members to support the bill, McGovern declared, “Cult much?”
McGovern: Cult much? pic.twitter.com/tq77GmonZc
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 2, 2025
Watch the videos above or at this link.
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