A Proposal: Dems Shouldn’t Rubber Stamp A Budget Hike for This Hijacked Supreme Court
Scripts and language to encourage our reps to start the fight to fix the high court right now.
Contact all members of Congress:
By phone: (202) 224-3121
By email: Congress.gov
By US mail: Representatives / Senators
By Resistbot: Resist.bot
For all of Donald Trump’s continued tantrums about the justices blocking his tariffs, the October 2025 term has mostly seen right wingers getting their usual ransom payments from the hijacked Supreme Court.
From ignoring obvious racial animus to allow the mass de-documentation of more than one million people living in the United States legally, to making real John Roberts and Jim Crow’s dreams of destroying the Voting Rights Act of 1965, to letting the GOP cancel elections already underway to take advantage of it, to blocking tens of thousands of lawsuits over Monsanto products causing cancer, the justices gave the reactionaries, authoritarians and billionaires plenty to celebrate. (And we’re still waiting to hear what they’ll do about Trump’s attempts to write birthright citizenship out of the Constitution and radically expand his control over the Federal Reserve and other independent structures and another attack on federal campaign finance laws.) They’ve ignored their own precedents, their claims to loyalty to the original meaning of the Constitution, history and common sense, but they’ve served well in the exact role that Trump, Mitch McConnell and Leonard Leo intended as they’ve captured this institution: the judicial arm of the Republican Party.
Louisiana v. Callais in particular continued a line of decisions that make it harder for anyone to compete with these powers during elections. For the sake of progressive values and our democracy, we need our leaders to take action to rebalance and rebuild the Supreme Court, as soon as possible.
That work can start right now.
Congress is currently considering the Supreme Court’s appropriations request for the next fiscal year. They’re asking for a 10% funding boost in this year’s Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act (H.R. 8495), including 60% more for buildings and grounds care. While some of this is for security, it also includes an increase in pay and benefits, and as with most senior officials we are funding staff and administrative support, physical plant maintenance and travel for the justices that they do not necessarily need every penny of to function. Senators are threatening exactly this sort of funding right now to force Pete Hegseth to comply with their requests for information on the boat strikes and the slaughter of schoolchildren in Minab. 🗣️ Congressional Democrats can, and should, follow suit, pushing back against this request and opposing this bill if it does not cut the Court’s budget. 🗣️
🗣️ We can find call scripts and email language to use with our Democratic members of Congress below, or text SIGN PAUAUS to 50409 to send this message via Resistbot. 🗣️
I’ll be candid: given where we are in the appropriations process, the sheer number of other battles to fight in government spending, and the reality that no one’s seriously considering it yet, it’s not at all likely it will happen. But we should ask for it anyways. Here’s my case for why. (And here’s links to the call and email language if you’re ready to act!)
It’s a useful test for how serious individual Democrats are about change
Many activists and progressive legal thinkers have been arguing for major court reforms since even before Mitch McConnell changed the number of seats on the Supreme Court in 2016. (Apparently, expanding the court is okay as long as you shrink it without the benefit of congressional approval first.) The leadership of the Democratic Party has been slow to accept the reality of a Supreme Court that threatens basic constitutional rights, the effective functioning of democracy and anything a left winger might hope to achieve.
This has been changing with time, pressure and the rise of younger generations of leaders, and there have been hopeful signs in the wake of Louisiana v. Callais that the dam has finally broken. But rhetoric is a lot easier than action, and when our next opportunity to secure change at the high court we cannot afford to miss it. Right now, we are stuck waiting until that point before we found out if Democrats are willing to live up to their words. We need a trifecta for the most effective options for institutional repair like adding justices and establishing term limits, or even less aggressive options like jurisdiction stripping. Even something as simple as calling on the justices to testify before Congress will have to wait until after midterms.
But the power of the purse can be used to take on a rogue judiciary, and Democrats are fully positioned to at least attempt to exercise it right now. While the Constitution bars reducing the justices’ salaries, the rest of their funding is handled just like the rest of government spending, meaning every member of Congress will vote on it soon. A vote and statement against reflexively hiking their budget and a push to at least symbolically cut it are tangible, meaningful steps we can use to gauge which of our electeds are committed and which need to be pushed.
It’s a chance to communicate to Dem electeds that *we’re* serious as hell about change
The flip side of this equation is that it’s our opportunity to tell our reps that saying the right things isn’t enough for us. Fixing the Court has not been perceived as a vote-moving concern for the Democratic base, and even at this moment of fierce competition in primaries and jockeying for position for the next presidential race, our candidates haven’t put a lot of energy into spotlighting this problem when it’s not in the news cycle. We need to make it clear this is a litmus test for what makes a good Democrat in the Trump era, that we notice and care where they stand and how much force they’re willing to put into this battle.
It’s an indirect attempt to reach the justices themselves
The Supreme Court is intentionally protected against being subject to the popular will and the political branches. They don’t answer to us or our electeds. That doesn’t mean they don’t notice or care.
There is extensive scholarship suggesting that the justices do make decisions based on their sense of what public and elite opinion is and what it will accept without threatening their position and legitimacy. It’s a branch with limited ability to act on its own, and aware that losing the presumption that they must be obeyed would be a huge problem for their ability to wield power. When Congress and the President have moved beyond saber-rattling into actual policy proposals, they have stood up and taken notice.
While obviously, in a time when the branches that *are* supposed to respond to us aren’t responding, this is not a powerful method we should put a lot of stock in. Moreover, using it effectively will take elected officials making this case, not just regular people. But sending some concrete shots across their bow may make a difference at the margins.
It helps reset expectations that the Supreme Court should be treated as a political actor
Congress using appropriations to influence, control and punish the executive branch is accepted and normal practice. As noted above, even this deeply submissive congressional majority is attempting to do so with Pete Hegseth right now. The power of the purse is intended to be a check on the other political branch.
The perception among elites that the Supreme Court remains fundamentally different, no matter how much evidence they offer that they are thoroughly politicized, is a barrier to their taking action. We should be taking every opportunity to shake it out of them.
The hope is that asking Democrat members of Congress to treat the Supreme Court as a political actor encourages them to increasingly think of and react to the justices as a political actor.
Thanks for reading this far.
And if you did, I hope you’ll make the calls, comment and share this post with your networks!
Last updated 6/29/26.
PHONE SCRIPTS
You can find contact info for your congressional delegation here. Please adjust, add, and reword as you would see fit - you will be most effective speaking in your own words!
Hi, my name is _________, and I’m a constituent from (city, zip). (If voicemail, leave street address).
This Supreme Court is serving as a political weapon for the Republicans and the oligarchs, and something needs to be done about it.
I know a lot of the real structural reforms are out of reach right now, but you do have power you can exercise in this Congress. The justices are asking for a 10% budget increase in this year’s general government appropriations bill. You should push for their budget to be cut, and you should oppose this legislation if it isn’t.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
EMAIL LANGUAGE
We can send this message directly to our members of Congress by texting SIGN PAUAUS to 50409, or use it as a starting point for the standard congressional email system.
The Supreme Court spent this term burying the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and allowing state legislatures to disrupt elections already well under way to gerrymander. They’ve ignored clear evidence of racism to allow a million of our neighbors with legal status to be fed to the deportation machine and protected billionaires from regular Americans trying to hold them accountable for giving them cancer. These are just the latest in a long, brutal line of Supreme Court justices ignoring their own precedents and the law and rewriting the Constitution to secure victories for right-wing reactionary agendas, corporate bottom lines and the interests of Donald Trump and the Republican Party.
This is a hijacked court, run by political actors to serve political goals, and it is time we treated them like it.
We need deep, structural reforms to fix the Supreme Court, including adding justices to rebalance it, term limits and a binding code of ethics with meaningful consequences. While none of that is in reach this Congress, we do have an opportunity to send an immediate message that Democrats will not stand idly by as the High Court acts as the judicial arm of the GOP and sends us back to the 19th Century.
Like the rest of the federal government, the Supreme Court’s appropriations request for Fiscal Year 2027 is currently under consideration. Having given this congressional majority a whole new set of options to consolidate their power, they’re now asking them for a 10% budget hike. Just like with any other part of the federal government, Democrats should be pushing back against funding for operations working against the best interest of the American people.
Please work to reduce the Supreme Court’s budget for the coming year, and vote against any version of the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill that rubber stamps an increase instead.