Let's Talk About How Truly Bizarre Our Supreme Court Is
About this episode
Columbia Law professor Jamal Greene, author of 'How Rights Went Wrong,' argues that the Supreme Court's dysfunction is rooted in America's peculiar approach to rights: we recognize few rights but enforce them absolutely, unlike other democracies that recognize many rights and balance them through proportionality. This absolutism, Greene says, turns every conflict into a zero-sum war and makes the Court the center of American politics. With the 6-3 conservative majority poised to roll back abortion rights, affirmative action, and the administrative state, Klein and Greene discuss the Court's international weirdness — life tenure, politicized appointments — and Greene's reform proposal: expand the Court, have it sit in panels, and require supermajorities to strike down laws.