Democrats are attempting to turn the Supreme Court into a campaign issue. After decades of seeing Republican candidates rally voters to reshape the court with Conservatives, some Democratic presidential candidates are making promises. Here's Ramont Senator Bernie Sanders. I will not appoint anyone to the United States Supreme Court unless that man or woman is prepared to defend roll the Wade. Joining me is sa Hill Kapoor Bloomberg News national political correspondent.
So Hill, what's driving this focus on the Supreme Court? Well, a number of things. Democratic candidates are more and more focused on the Supreme Court as a result of what I would call a perfect storm of events. Now, roversus Wade is basically that ruling, that holding is at stake at this point of almost half a century after it was decided in three I think with the new Conservative Supreme Court, many for wrests as are worried that that's
going to dissipate. There's a lot of anger that remains from Republican leader Mitch McConnell's refusal to let President Obama phill a Supreme Court seat in for the last ten months of his presidency. So there are a number of things that are waking up Democratic voters to the importance of the Supreme Court in ways that we haven't seen
in frankly decades. You mentioned Senator Mitch McConnell, who helped transform the Supreme Court with President Trump, but with a sent if the Senate is still controlled by McConnell, how can a Democratic president get liberal justices on the Court when he might do the same thing. Again, Well, they're not conceding that they won't win the Senate uh majority
in the election. Democrats are not conceding that. But of course, if McConnell remains majority leader, then that's going to have a big impact on what the potential next Democratic president can do in terms of appointing justices. There may be some moderate figures that you know, allowed a vote in a McConnell led Senate, but some of the more progressive types that UM advocates want will have a very hard
time getting through. Are any of the candidates going as far as to support packing the court, which you know, adding new adding a number of justices, or limiting the terms of the justices. Yes, well, there are several candidates who have expressed openness to that. Idea, most recently Senator Kamala Harris of California, who is one of the one
of the high polling contenders in this massive field. There are others like Mayor Pete Buddha Judge and Better Rourke that suggested some openness, some willingness to expand the size of the Supreme Court. And again this is being pushed by progressive activists who believe that the Neil Gorset seat was basically stolen from Democrats from President Obama by Mitch McConnell's refusal to allow a vote on any nominee. So hell, so the Conservatives basically got what they've been looking for
for so many years, and more conservative Supreme Court. So is that issue going to be as important to them come this presidential election as it was in past elections? Do you issue of abortion? You mean the issue of changing the court? Ah? Well, the anger is increasingly on the left end of the spectrum, more so than the
conservative end. I think ever since Row, specifically since the nineteen eighties, when Republicans decided to you know, reach out to evangelicals with a very anti abortion platform, um it, conservatives have been more tuned to the Supreme Court and the importance of it at the ballot box. That may
be changing, I stress, may be changing. We don't know yet, but we are seeing signs that Democrats are more tuned to the importance of the importance of the Supreme Court and the courts at large this election than any other election probably in any of our lifetimes. It's true, I don't I don't remember the last time a Democratic presidential can it really stressed the court. Now, Republicans, as you write, also use the courts to motivate voters in Senate races.
Explain what they're doing there, well, they draw a line, as one source put it to me, between electing Republican senators and electing Republican or appointing Republican appointed judges. You know, they make the accurate point that if you want conservative judges up and down the judiciary, you need a Republican led Senate. And they're correct about that. And this is a level of, uh, you know, communication to voters that
Democrats don't really engage in. Democrats, for the most part, as you kind of alluded to, you know, have talked about the courts as much more of an a political institution than Republicans have and the lower courts are not as visible as the Supreme Court, but Trump and McConnell and the Judiciary Chairman have succeeded in making them more conservative as well. Is there any indication that Democrats are paying attention to that? There is a lot of indication
of that. I mean, starting with the two Supreme Court justices that President Trump is appointed. Um, there are a hundred and five other federal judges that this president and Republican led Senate have installed just in you know, two and a half years of as presidency. It's an extraordinary pace. Most of these are young conservatives in their forties and fifties, picked with the help of the Federalist Society, which is a group of judicial advocates that wants to dramatically curtail
federal power. Some of them don't believe there should be things like federal minimum wage or child labor laws, um, and that those things should be sent back to state. So what they're looking for, what they're trying to do is um incubate a massive change in the way the courts approached law and sharply curtail what the federal government
can do as a matter of legislating. Yeah, they're close to flipping some circuits, so, um say, hell, the Supreme Court could rule on some really controversial cases this upcoming term, right in the mid love presidential electioning electioneering. Correct Now, the cases that could come up. The issues that could come up are the Affordable Care Act, the constitutionality of that. It would be a major, major case if it lands
and on the docket in the midst of election. There is a case that could come up on immigration and uh the validity of the president's decision to end the doctor program for young undocumented people. Um also a case on LGBT rights that could make it up. There potentially a case on gun rights. Even so, as one Democratic activist put it to me, next year is going to be an apocalyptic term. That is a little bit scary.
Thank you so much to Hill. That's a hill coup for Bloomberg News national political correspondent