Commonwealth Club Of California Podcast

Despite its historic role in American life, the U.S. Supreme Court has served a surprisingly impactful policymaking role in the United States over the past decade. Starting in 2011, when Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives, until this March, Congress enacted hardly any major legislation outside of the tax law President Trump signed in 2017. In the same period, the Supreme Court dismantled much of America's campaign finance law, severely weakened the Voting Rights Act, permitted states to opt-out of the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion, weakened laws protecting against age discrimination and sexual and racial harassment, and held that every state must permit same-sex couples to marry. This powerful, unelected body, now controlled by six Republican presidential appointees, sat at the center of American political life, a trend that will likely continue, with profound impacts on the country's political system and civic life. Ian Millhiser, Vox's Supreme Court correspondent, tells th