"What can be done about this Supreme Court’s very worst decisions?"

Ian Millhiser wrote a piece with the above title. 

Milhiser has little expectation that any of the major Supreme Court reforms will be passed. 

And, if they were passed, the Supreme Court could strike them down. He doesn't clarify but doesn't seem to think ethics reform will do much either. Millhiser references the chance of a national law protecting abortion rights. Does not say if that too will be struck.

He notes that the Republicans won on abortion as part of a long game. State laws limited abortion rights. Then, a sort of trifecta allowed them to overturn Roe v. Wade. It was darn close -- if Ginsburg lived a few more months, wouldn't have happened. I put aside if she would have retired earlier.

Mark Tushnet (writing in 2020) suggested there was a way for the people themselves to get around the courts if there was the will to do so. The underenforcement of racial equality, criminal justice amendments, and the separation of church and state suggests some possibilities on the ground. 

Millhisher also provides some options for "very worst decisions." The Trump immunity decision makes shit up and endangers the rule of law. Before overturning Roe, the same five justices allowed Texas to ignore it. 

Biden v. Nebraska both should have been dismissed on standing grounds and on the merits. A Second Amendment ruling put in place a doctrine that led to confusion in the lower courts.  

He is not sure if Dobbs should be placed among those "fundamentally hostile to constitutional democracy." But, why? He goes into a discussion about how rights ultimately rely on what five justices decide. 

"Once that majority is lost, the right disappears." So, people have a false security that once the right is there it won't disappear over time. And, Dobbs being on the books provides a warning, which shows why we need to vote for a liberal political majority.  

A few things. It took a long time and a perfect storm for Roe v. Wade to be overturned. Abortion rights were not a wispy thing. Rights protected by judicial means have some real teeth. They are not forever necessarily. But, that is not the same thing, anyhow.

And, we were not naive about the limits of the Supreme Court until Dobbs. The separation of church and state was not truly honored. And, then, a conservative supermajority underlined the point. 

Second, why were the other rulings clearly horrible? One possibility is that they blocked political change. Dobbs, at least not yet, has not disallowed the protection of abortion by statute and state constitutional means.  

Let's put aside the possibility that Dobbs will block congressional protections since it implies no right to abortion means to power to enforce, denying state power to ban. Also, Dobbs lowers the bar. Now, a "compromise" is a twelve-week ban.

Beyond such concerns, abortion rights are fundamental to constitutional democracy. They are essential for equal citizenship. Religious liberty and other rights are part of our democratic system. 

Next, the cases represented a broken judicial system, including letting lower courts ignore judicial precedents. However, Dobbs too represented a broken system, including a slipshod approach in overturning law on the books for almost fifty years.  

Finally, what does a right "disappearing" mean? The fact five justices claim a right doesn't exist should not lead the public to automatically accept that the right does not exist. "Judicial supremacy" should not be applied that broadly. 

Surely, in practical reality, a Supreme Court judgment can lead to a constitutional right not existing. Texas can now ban abortion except in very narrow cases. 

Constitutional rights are still present in some form. Consider the Fifteenth Amendment, which bars racial discrimination in voting. In practice, this amendment was held in abeyance in many parts of the country for almost a hundred years. It still was there, if people were willing to demand that it was enforced.  

The meaning of the Constitution arises from many sources. A dissenting group kept alive a principle of true equality during Jim Crow. People right now are keeping alive the principle of a right to choose. 

What can be done? State and federal abortion protections. Electing the people who will enforce the right policies and choose liberal-leaning judges. Pushing back on the courts, which will in a limited sense cause them to be cautious.  

And, yes, continue to fight for judicial reforms, including less talked about matters such as national injunction reform. Such reforms -- like same-sex marriage or an African American woman as president -- will seem impossible until they actually are not. 

Finally, we should respect the courts, but realize there are limits. We should demand them to be ethical and set basic limits on who could be judges. 

And, judges are not gods. If they say 2+2=5, it isn't totally so.