Harris teases court reform but offers few details in Pennsylvania town hall

Vice President Kamala Harris has suggested that she could be open to reforming the United States Supreme Court, particularly in the wake of its controversial decision to end the federal right to an abortion.

Appearing on Wednesday at a CNN town hall in Pennsylvania, Harris — the Democratic candidate for the presidency — signalled that she is receptive to possible changes but offered few details.

“I do believe that there should be some kind of reform of the court, and we can study what that actually looks like,” Harris said in a brief response.

It was one of two major governmental changes that were floated during the town hall — the other being an end to filibusters.

Harris has previously expressed support for nixing the filibuster: The term refers to the process of stalling a congressional debate indefinitely so that a measure fails to come to a vote.

During the town hall, she made clear that any possible reforms to both the Supreme Court and the filibuster stem from outrage over an erosion of abortion rights in the US.

“You’ve talked about codifying Roe v Wade,” host Anderson Cooper said at one point, referencing a now-defunct Supreme Court precedent that previously enshrined abortion rights. “That would obviously require 60 votes in the Senate, a majority of the House. That’s a big leap.”

“If that’s not possible to codify it in the House, what do you do?” he asked.

Harris was direct in her reply: “I think we need to take a look at the filibuster, to be honest with you.”

A focus on abortion

The country’s highest court has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years, particularly as the court has skewed further rightward.

Under former President Donald Trump, three right-leaning members joined the nine-person bench, giving the court a six-to-three conservative majority.

Trump is once again running for re-election as the Republican nominee, and he has used the court appointments as a campaign tool.

“For 54 years, they were trying to get Roe v Wade terminated. And I did it,” Trump told a Fox News town hall in January.

But Harris has sought to rally voters displeased with the court’s recent decisions, particularly the 2022 ruling to overturn Roe v Wade, in a case called Dobbs v Jackson.

“There is no question that the American people are increasingly losing confidence in the Supreme Court, in large part because of the behaviour of certain members of that court and certain rulings, including the Dobbs decision,” Harris told an audience member at Wednesday’s town hall.

She blamed the court for “taking away a precedent that had been in place for 50 years, protecting a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body”.

That decision has reverted control over abortion access to individual states, opening the door to harsh abortion bans in Republican-led parts of the country.

“This is probably one of the most fundamental freedoms that we as Americans could imagine,” Harris said of reproductive rights on Wednesday, “with freedom to literally make decisions about your own body”.

Harris has also slammed Trump for his praise of the overturn of Roe v Wade, airing a new series of ads highlighting the stories of women who were forced to give birth in perilous circumstances due to the new restrictions.

Public trust in the court

The Supreme Court itself has seen a decline in public confidence after decisions like the Dobbs case.

Its bench has also been the subject of scandal, as US media released a series of reports about conservative justices receiving lavish gifts from Republican mega-donors.

An August poll by the Pew Research Center found that trust in the Supreme Court is at near-record lows, with 51 percent of respondents saying they had an unfavourable view of the court.

Between August 2020 and July 2024, the number of respondents who defined the court as “conservative” increased by 18 percent, and the portion of respondents who said the court had “too much power” increased by 17 percent.

But the Democratic Party has been slow to embrace calls for reforms such as expanding the number of justices on the court, in part over fears that such a move could bolster perceptions of the court as partisan.

In July, President Joe Biden released a series of proposals that would institute term limits for Supreme Court justices and put stricter ethics rules in place.

The Democrat’s actions signalled a growing frustration with the court: Previously, Biden had avoided advocating for reforms.

“We can and must restore the public’s faith in the Supreme Court. We can and must strengthen the guardrails of democracy,” Biden said at the time.

But turning the proposals into policy would require cooperation from both houses of Congress, and the House of Representatives is currently under Republican control. The proposed reforms have mouldered in the months since.

At Wednesday’s town hall, Harris also broached several other issues, calling for “increasing penalties” for irregular migration across the southern border.

She also reiterated harsh criticism of her Republican opponent. When asked if she believes Trump is a fascist, she did not mince words: “Yes. I do.”