By gutting the Voting Rights Act, the Supreme Court is killing the Second Reconstruction. The first Reconstruction shows how Congress should respond.
Me and Daphna Renan in the NYT on the tools we have to save democracy from a hostile Court.
this is a great piece and i'm also somewhat annoyed because it means i have to rework the piece i was writing for next week www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
In which we learn Radical Republicans of the 1850s had a suite of court reforms that had they been implemented would have ensured enforcement of the Reconstruction amendments&prevented Jim Crow. These are, of course, as relevant today as 170 years ago because Reconstruction is USA’s Groundhog Day.
I want every one of my Dem friends to read this piece. The Court has gutted the Voting Rights Act and done so much other damage. The justices want to insist that they get the last word. But don't take for granted that they do.
www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
If you read 1 thing today, let it be Niko Bowie & Daphna Renan's op-ed on the people & their representatives asserting control over the Constitution, rather than ceding it to SCOTUS.
Post SCOTUS destroying the VRA, this is the future-we need to get people on board:
www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
Making the lunacy clear: The 14th Amendment gives Congress the explicit power to legislate to enforce the Amendment. Congress passed the 1965 Civil Rights Act to explicitly enforce the 14th Amendment. The court guts the legislation as a violation of 14th Amendment. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
I included a gift link because this is such a clear, well-written explanation of the history & imperative of SCOTUS reform. Please share widely!!!
www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
Two of the best scholars on the topic provide a superb and sobering history of the Court’s role in civil rights, and drawing on lessons from past Congresses that pushed back, lay out what can be done now. A must read.
Strong oped that adds to my thinking on the mechanisms necessary for achieving a new Reconstruction generally and in higher ed particularly
Gift link
www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
Gift link.
Be reminded that the Constitution gives Congress the right to regulate and alter the Supreme Court, but in fact does not give the Supreme Court the power to control Congress and its acts. Now all we need is a Congress that actually governs.
www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
Great essay and we should all look forward to their book. I would add one point from an 18th-c. perspective on behalf of historically grounded originalism--an approach resting on the constitutional debates of the revolutionary era.
www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
@nikobowie.bsky.social
I have long argued that the Court has been a strong net negative for minority rights based on the justices’ old-fashioned values in almost every generation. This great op-ed tells a big part of that story. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
"Lincoln understood the stakes of this choice when he warned at his inauguration in 1860 that if “vital questions affecting the whole people” are to be “irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court,” then “the people will have ceased to be their own rulers.” www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
This is how you usher in and structurally cement minority rule in plain sight and turn America into a managed democracy under the thumbs of oligarchs.
"Ruling by Ruling, the Supreme Court Is Undoing the Civil Rights Movement" www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
Great piece by @nikobowie.bsky.social & Daphna Renan, also reminding us of the constitutional culture we once had, when the people routinely claimed their authority over the Constitution and refused to let an unrepresentative Court dictate their future. (gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...)
Lincoln understood the stakes of this choice when he warned at his inauguration in 1861 that if “vital questions affecting the whole people” are to be “irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court,” then “the people will have ceased to be their own rulers.”
www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
We’ve been here before, and we need a Congress and President able and willing to do what needs to be done reign in a reactionary, tyrannical and corrupt Supreme Court. Gift article on how to do it. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/opinion/supreme-court-voting-rights-act.html?
“But just as we can learn from the consequences of acquiescing to the Supreme Court’s constitutional interpretation, we can also draw upon the tools past Congresses have offered for how to build a more democratic constitutionalism.”
Overriding the Court through legislation, "Congress could declare ... that constitutional democracy demands a new Voting Rights Act that deploys proportional representation to end partisan gerrymandering [and] that rejects the unrestricted flow of money in politics."
www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
Absolutely critical reading for those working for a better future for our country and for the third reconstruction that is sorely needed. We do not have to let the most autocratic branch of our government control the future of our democracy.
Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
We do not have to accept the denigration of our democracy! “the court announced that it was not “appropriate” for Congress to ban lynching, racial discrimination by businesses or widespread disenfranchisement. A century-long era of Jim Crow emerged.”
Gift article
www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
“As the founding generation of Republicans understood, the Constitution explicitly empowers Congress to regulate the court. By contrast, the document says nothing about the court’s claimed authority to regulate Congress.” www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
This is good:
“Rejecting the court’s supremacy, Congress should reaffirm its own interpretation of the Reconstruction amendments by statute — as the 1862 Congress did after Dred Scott and the 1982 Congress after Bolden.” www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
The Supreme Court upheld almost every scheme Southern states adopted to disenfranchise Black residents, including literacy tests.
In 2013, the Roberts court dismantled the Voting Rights Act’s preclearance mechanism. This week’s ruling finishes the job.
www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
Más que los matones fascio-trumpistas, más que los tecno-oligarcas o los téocratas... Estos son los más poderosos o eficaces enemigos de la democracia en USA:
www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
It needs to be understood that everything this administration does is centered on maintaining a white racial hierarchy.
And future generations won’t have a hard time seeing how this happened in reaction to the election of the nation’s first Black president.
Ruling by Ruling, the Supreme Court Is Undoing the Civil Rights Movement www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
This is powerful but today’s congressional Dems do not have the war-steeled stomachs of the Radical Republicans. Too many still live in a state of suspended disbelief about our democracy.
Modern democracies rely on rule of law and minority rights. This SCOTUS decision supports neither and weakens voters’ ability to shape government.
Now it's more important than ever to elect representatives who serve everyone and to ensure gerrymandering fails.
www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
Quote:Members of an ascendant Republican Party decried a court “inflated with supremacy” and declared that whenever a decision is, “in the judgment of Congress, subversive of the rights and liberties of the people,” it is the “solemn duty of Congress” to override it.
www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
I had no idea about the important history they describe in this piece——Who Will Stand Up to the Supreme Court Justices? www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o... gift link
This is an excellent read. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o... gift article
Also, if these SC decisions go unchallenged by Congressional action, then women’s civil rights will also be revoked. There’s already talk of that!
Here's the road map from OUR HISTORY on "how to build a more democratic constitutionalism" through federal lawmaking. We can undo the tyranny of unelected judges who are building a White Christian Nationalist state run by billionaires. I just pre-ordered from Amazon! @nikobowie.bsky.social
"Lincoln understood the stakes of this choice when he warned at his inauguration in 1861 that if “vital questions affecting the whole people” are to be “irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court,” then “the people will have ceased to be their own rulers.”'🎁🔗
www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
Total war is totally necessary. Congress stopped short of that after the Civil War & the result was Jim Crow, as noted by @nikobowie.bsky.social & Daphna Renan here: www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
Excellent piece urging Congress to enact powerful measures considered during Reconstruction.
"As the founding generation of Republicans understood, the Constitution explicitly empowers Congress to regulate the court," but "says nothing about the court’s claimed authority to regulate Congress."
The Supreme Court is acting like a medieval star chamber, systematically rejecting the will of the people as expressed through Congress. There are ways to fix this problem. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o... "Congress should reaffirm its own interpretation of the Reconstruction amendments by statute — as the 1862 Congress did after Dred Scott and the 1982 Congress after Bolden."
As the 1860s Republicans understood, the Constitution explicitly empowers Congress to regulate the court. By contrast, it says nothing about the court’s claimed authority to regulate Congress. The court’s defiance of federal law is sustained only by our tolerance of it—a choice we can unmake.
"[T]he court’s alleged authority to defy and second-guess acts of Congress has been sustained only because the American public has so far been willing to tolerate this judicial rule — a choice that can be unmade."
www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
Fixed your headline @nytimes.com.
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Nikolas Bowie & Daphna Renan: The Courts Are Not Supreme - & History Still Holds The Reforms Congress Must Use To Put SCOTUS In Its Proper Place
www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
Who will stand up to the Supreme Court justices? Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
Better than a lot of what people are saying about Callais came from and what it means for the future, but this essay’s logic about what antidiscrimination must/should/can look like is still stuck in the 20th century
Lincoln understood the stakes of this choice when he warned at his inauguration in 1861 that if “vital questions affecting the whole people” are to be “irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court,” then “the people will have ceased to be their own rulers.” www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
"We must not cease to govern ourselves."
WHO CAN STAND UP TO THE SUPREME COURT? WE CAN.
VOTE!!
CONGRESS can reform that court AND reclaim its legislative power to set our laws. Legislating is the realm of CONGRESS, not the courts!
www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
archive.ph/LhoGz
Great article that explains how we must learn from history to rein in a radical SCOTUS. Congress can and should regulate the court. (gift article)
www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
“As the founding generation of Republicans understood, the Constitution explicitly empowers Congress to regulate the court. By contrast, the document says nothing about the court’s claimed authority to regulate Congress.”
www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...
“Instead, the court’s alleged authority to defy and second-guess acts of Congress has been sustained only because the American public has so far been willing to tolerate this judicial rule — a choice that can be unmade.”
“It's the Patriatchy, stupid.”
This should not be a surprise to anybody who has ever read a history book. Throughout history whenever marginalized people, especially women, gain power and make societal advances, there is always a backlash. The US was overdue one of these.
