If you’re of the opinion that having a federal judiciary composed of Newsmax-pilled reactionaries is a bad thing, 2025 probably isn’t going to be your year. Same goes if you think things like “the rule of law should matter in a functioning society,” or “presidents should not be able to do crimes,” or “having basic rights is a good thing.”
One of the few bright spots in the doom and gloom can be found in the recent leadership change on the House Judiciary Committee. After seven years as either the committee’s chair or its ranking member, Representative Jerry Nadler of New York stepped aside, clearing the way for Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin to take over as ranking member—the top Democrat on the committee—for the 119th Congress.
Raskin, 62, is 15 years younger than Nadler and was elected to Congress 24 years after him, making this a rare generational hand-off among Democratic leadership. He’s understood by his colleagues to bring an energy to the role that will be needed during the second administration of President Donald Trump. As Raskin’s fellow Maryland representative Glenn Ivey, who is also on the Judiciary Committee, put it, “He’s very dynamic…that’ll play well on Judiciary.”
(Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
In the years since Trump attempted his coup, Raskin has proven that’s one of the members of Congress most committed to holding the former and future president accountable for his efforts to undermine democracy. Raskin rose to national prominence during Trump’s second impeachment, in which he was the lead impeachment manager during the trial in the Senate. He went on to serve as a key member of the House’s Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, which concluded by referring Trump for four criminal charges related to the insurrection.
Just as importantly, Raskin understands the Supreme Court’s role in enabling Trump’s attacks on democracy. He was a co-sponsor of the Judiciary Act, which would have added four seats to the Supreme Court. He introduced the Judicial Ethics Enforcement Act, which would empower a newly-created Office of the Inspector General to investigate alleged ethical violations by Supreme Court justices. And he actually thinks that the justices should answer to Congress and the American people by appearing for hearings or answering written questions. In other words, Raskin gets that the Court is part of a co-equal branch of government, not a superior branch, and deserves to be treated as such.
Perhaps most importantly, Raskin doesn’t just pay lip service to the notion that the Court shouldn’t be an all-powerful branch of the Republican Party. At least in the House, support for meaningful Court reform has quickly become the floor, not the ceiling, for progressive members of Congress. What sets Raskin apart is that he believes that the problem of the courts isn’t just about one or two bad actors, or even the entirety of the judiciary as built by Leonard Leo and Mitch McConnell. Raskin knows the courts are never, ever going to be the institution that saves the country from rising authoritarianism and coordinated efforts to roll back the progress made over the 20th century.
“If you look at American history, for the vast majority of our history, the Supreme Court has been a profoundly conservative and reactionary institution,” he told Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick in May. “There was about a two-decade period that created the halo around the Supreme Court, and then it immediately went away again with the Burger Court and the Rehnquist Court and the Roberts Court. So the Supreme Court is not going to save us, my friends. We’re going to have to do that.”
These aren’t the words of somebody who thinks that we’re a few good appointments away from having a third branch of government that deserves to have endless amounts of unchecked power, or one really, really well-written brief is going to get John Roberts to discover a newfound love of multiracial democracy. More than most members of Congress, and more so than even most people in the progressive movement, he appears to understand that tinkering around the edges is not going to be sufficient.
Raskin during a roundtable discussion on Supreme Court ethics conducted by Democrats on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, June 2024 (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Court Accountability)
Of course, when Republicans control the House (and the Senate and the White House and the Supreme Court), the fact that the Judiciary Committee’s top-ranking Democrat is good on the courts isn’t some silver bullet for fixing everything over the next two years. Raskin isn’t going to be setting the legislative agenda, sitting in the Rose Garden as progressive champions are named to the Court, or watching as a Democratic president signs a bill that adds four new justices. But the ranking member is the leader of the minority party on both the committee itself and the subject matter under that committee’s jurisdiction. Their perspective—and the intensity of their convictions—shows younger and more junior members the path forward, which requires ensuring that court reform is a top priority the next time there is a progressive governing moment. Just as importantly, Raskin is now positioned to chair the committee the next time his party is in power in the House, possibly as early as January 2027.
By elevating him to ranking member, Democrats are on track to give Raskin the power to (someday) set the legislative agenda, hold hearings, and generally chart the course for oversight of the courts. This has the potential to be a game-changing moment in the fight to restore the judiciary to its proper place in American society—something that will be desperately needed after the next four years.
