Whitehouse, Cortez Masto introduce bill to empower congressional responses to SCOTUS decisions

Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.) introduced a bill Thursday aimed at empowering Congress to respond to Supreme Court decisions that reduce constitutional rights or interpret federal statutes.

“Six radical justices enacted a bonanza of right-wing policies during the last term, reshaping American life in wildly unpopular ways over just a matter of days,” said Whitehouse, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Courts Subcommittee, in a statement. 

“The American people are fed up with policymaking by unaccountable Supreme Court justices, and we have a solution.”

The Supreme Court Review Act proposal comes in the wake of several controversial decisions from the higher court. In its most recent term, the Supreme Court issued rulings that rolled back Miranda rights, struck down a New York gun control law and clashed with decades of precedents on religious activity in schools — and overturned the right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade.

The senators said in a press release their bill will create “streamlined procedures through which Congress can exercise its existing power to amend statutes or create federal statutory rights.”

“In the face of an increasingly extreme Supreme Court, the American people deserve accountability and responsiveness from all three branches of government,” Cortez Masto said in a statement.