Bloomberg Businessweek - USA (2020-10-12)

◼ POLITICS Bloomberg Businessweek October 12, 2020

36

ILLUSTRATION BY KATI SZILÁGYI.

DATA:

BLUE

DOG

COALITION

yearhopingtoraisingmorethan$1million

byElectionDay.It reachedthatgoallastmonth,

accordingtoKevinPrice,vicepresidentofgovern-

mentaffairsatAmericanCrystalSugarCo.

Thedistrictis thebiggestsugarbeetproducer

intheU.S.“Collinissugar,andsugarisCollin,”

Pricesays.KellyErickson,a farmerandchairof

theCSRCsteeringcommittee,sayslosingPeterson

asagriculturechairmanwouldbea blow.“You

havethechairman ofHouseAgriculture,and

youknowwhatkindofpowerthatyields,not

onlyforagricultureinthe7thDistrictbutagri-

cultureallovertheU.S.,”hesays.“Fischbach

wouldbea freshmanandsittinginthebackof

theroom.Howmuchgooddoyouthinkshecould

doforagriculture?”

SupportersofPetersonalsopointtohiscentrist

politics,abilitytoworkwithRepublicans,andsuc-

cessinsecuringfundingforruralhospitals.“Heis

practical.Heis tough.Heunderstandshisdistrict

extremelywell,’’saysTomVilsack,formeragricul-

turesecretaryunderPresidentObama.

Republicanscontendit’stime“tobringina

differentperspective,”inthewordsofMinnesota

● A proposaltorestrictthecourt’sauthority

overcertainlawsstirsinterestontheleft

PacktheSupremeCourt,

OrStripItsPowers?

hasmigratedfromtheRighttotheLeft,withan

arrayofreformsunderdiscussion,includingjuris-

dictionstripping.

Facingtheprospectofa 6-3conservativemajor-

ityonthehighcourtfollowingthedeathofJustice

RuthBader Ginsburg, progressivelawmakers

andleft-wingactivistsarecallingforDemocrats

toimposetermlimitsorexpandthesizeofthe

SupremeCourtandpackit withliberaljustices.On

Sept.29,HouseDemocratsintroduceda billpro-

posing18-yeartermlimitsfornewjustices.And

thoughPresidentFranklinD.Rooseveltfamously

failedinhisefforttopackthecourtin1937,schol-

arsgenerallyconsidercourtexpansiontobelegal

becausetheConstitutiondoesn’tspecifythenum-

berofjustices.

But those aren’t the only reforms under consid-

eration. A handful of academics and liberal think-

ers are arguing for drastic structural changes that

would strip power away from the judiciary, embrac-

ing the approach conservatives championed in the

1980s. In recent weeks professors at top-tier law

THEBOTTOMLINE MinnesotaRepresentativeCollinPeterson,

a conservativeDemocratin a heavilyRepublicandistrict,is

dependingonfarmers’supporttokeephisseatonNov.3.

state lawmaker Tim Miller, a U.S. House candidate

in 2018. Voters, he says, “don’t want someone who

is going to come in and be a radical change, and

that’s why I think Fischbach is a really good fit.”

If Peterson loses, it will be another member

down for congressional Democrats’ Blue Dog

Coalition, which he helped found in the 1990s.

The caucus had more than 54 members in 2009

but was decimated in the 2010 and 2012 elections.

It rebounded in 2016 and 2018, and membership

now stands at 26. The Blue Dogs’ strong  2018

results alongside the emergence of Ocasio-Cortez’s

progressive “squad” shows the ideological split

within the Democratic Party.

Peterson says his campaign is doing what it’s

always done. If he’s reelected, he will immediately

be busy with work on the 2023 farm bill. “They

are spending a lot more money than I have, and

they did that in 2014, too,” he says of Republicans.

“We’ll just see what happens.” �Kim Chipman

and Derek Wallbank

In 1982 a young lawyer at the U.S. Department

of Justice wrote a series of memos defending an

unorthodox proposal to limit the power of the

Supreme Court. It was nine years after the court’s

landmark Roe v. Wade decision, which granted

women a constitutional right to abortion, and

Republicans in Congress had recently introduced

more than 20 bills seeking to divest the court of

its authority over abortion and other contentious

social issues, including desegregation and school

prayer. Academics have a term for this kind of leg-

islation: jurisdiction stripping.

Noneofthosebillspassed.ButtheDOJmemos

offered a sophisticatedlegaldefenseofjuris-

diction stripping, arguing that “clear and unequiv-

ocal language” in Article 3 of the Constitution gives

Congress the authority to shield certain laws from

Supreme Court review.

The author of the memos was John Roberts.

Forty years later, Roberts is the Supreme Court’s

chief justice and the leading defender of its institu-

tional legitimacy, and the push for judicial reform

“It’s almost a

certainty of

any Supreme

Court reform

that we would

be inviting the

Supreme Court

to push back”

▼ Membership of the

BlueDogCoalition

50

25

0

1995 2019