How the Biden SCOTUS Commission Radicalized One Law Professor [TEASER]

Um, oh, I've never done a top of an episode before.

Hey, everyone, this is Leon from Fiasco and Prologue Projects.

On this week's members-only episode of 5-4, we have a conversation with Kermit Roosevelt, one of the members of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court.

Roosevelt was one of more than 30 of the nation's top legal minds, chosen by President Biden, to summarize the arguments for and against reform of the Supreme Court.

As you'll hear, Roosevelt went into his work on the commission thinking term limits would be enough to save the court.

The experience ended up changing his mind.

This is 5-4, a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks.

Welcome to 5-4, where we dissect and analyze the Supreme Court cases that have made our civil liberties disappear the way Clarence Thomas has disappeared from the public eye.

I'm Peter, and I'm here with Michael.

Hey, everybody.

What is that about?

Is he dying?

For those who don't know, at the time of recording, or basically a couple weeks past, Clarence Thomas being announced as hospitalized with like a mysterious illness or infection, he got out of the hospital, but he has not been seen since, has not been appearing at oral argument.

Just appearing via teleconference.

So he does appear to be alive, but there's a question of, is he hiding a serious illness of some kind, or is he just sort of laying low while his wife enjoys a little bit of the public spotlight?

Perhaps trying to dodge some intrepid reporters, you know, on his way to work or whatever.

Right.

Either way, it's exciting.

The Supreme Court's rarely so exciting.

Yeah, that's right.

The thrill of not knowing.

Yeah.

Some housekeeping items.

Rhiannon, busy.

And even weirder, I'm not actually part of this episode.

We're about to show you an interview between Michael and.

We're not going to show it to you.

Whatever.

Jesus.

When Peter's not on the episode, it gets very ordinary.

Okay, yes.

You are about to hear a conversation between Michael and Penn Professor Kermit Roosevelt, who was part of the Biden Supreme Court Commission and

had some choice thoughts about the commission, right?

Yeah, that's right.

You know, I think it's a particularly good time to air this interview.

When this episode drops, it'll have just been a few days after Katanji Brown Jackson was confirmed.

And so I think there is a lot of rightful celebration on the left about this.

A great young, talented jurist who's also the first black woman to ever serve on the Supreme Court.

It's a promise fulfilled by Joe Biden.

There's just a lot to be happy and excited about.

At the same time, though, like the court's still broken, and it's still broken on a number of axes, right?

It's still like lacking democratic legitimacy.

It's still

heavily tilted to an arch-conservative neo-Confederate wing, right?

So there are still all these problems, which is what the report was ostensibly supposed to be about.

Hey, folks, if you want to hear the rest of this episode, you're going to have to subscribe.

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