JONATHAN TURLEY: University of Pennsylvania professor calls for litmus test for all Democratic candidates

It is only the latest example of how the hostile takeover of the court is now the priority for many Democrats in removing a barrier to a radical agenda.

Once packed, the court could greenlight a variety of unconstitutional measures.

Mann raised the need to reverse doctrines limiting agency authority - a barrier to some climate control measures. In so doing, he got the underlying law fundamentally wrong: "It was in a conservative Supreme Court decision within the last few years that introduced the so-called Chevron standard. Basically, what they said was that the EPA no longer had the authority to make rules based on the science and its own determination."

In 2024, the Supreme Court actually overturned the Chevron Doctrine in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. It also did not rule that "the EPA no longer had the authority to make rules based on the science and its own determination." Rather, it said that courts would review such decisions without the prior presumptions in favor of agency decision-making. The restored, traditional judicial review is precisely to determine whether agency decisions are based on credible interpretations of the law and science.

The jury in the original trial awarded $4,000 in compensatory damages for the car's lost value due to the lack of a factory paint job and other damage and then imposed $4 million in punitive damages for the company's dishonesty.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Alfred S. Irving Jr. reduced the award against Steyn to just $5,000 after finding the original award to be "grossly excessive."

The court later learned that Mann's defense team had allegedly presented false accounts of his losses after the criticism. Mann's legal team was accused of presenting a chart listing a grant that Mann allegedly lost due to the defamatory remarks as $9.7 million, when it was later found to be worth $112,000. Irving also found a disparity in the grant income figures given to the jury.

Now, Mann is calling for all Democratic candidates to pledge to pack the Supreme Court as a condition for running - so any Democrat who believes in our institutions and resists this mob will be a persona non grata in the party as an "institutionalist" captured by "nostalgia."

Much of what is planned by the far left will be difficult to accomplish due to constitutional limits. You can remove those limits by eliminating an independent Supreme Court and turning this essential institution into a federal version of state courts packed with partisan jurists.

Mann's advice is different from that of James Carville, who wants Democrats to hide this intended move from the public - which continues to oppose court packing. Carville told Democratic candidates: "If the Democrats win the presidency and both houses of Congress, I think on day one, they should expand the Supreme Court to 13. F--- it. Eat our dust. Don't run on it. Don't talk about it. Just do it."

Mann and others, including former Attorney General Eric Holder, are done with any pretense: "There's no way not to be partisan. There's no way not to be political here."

In other words, it is time to make the Supreme Court itself partisan and political. It will then be reduced to just another partisan institution in an age of rage.