The Supreme Court wields tremendous power to impact the lives of everyday Americans by shaping the nation’s laws and government. That’s why it’s critical to understand not just how the Court rules in individual cases, but how it functions as an institution and ways it can improve. The Benchmark, a new publication of the Brennan Center’s Kohlberg Center on the U.S. Supreme Court, is dedicated to providing commentary, analysis, and resources to help answer these questions.
With The Benchmark, we’ll be ratcheting up the Brennan Center’s coverage of the Court, as well as providing a forum to publish a diverse array of outside authors, including legal scholars, political scientists, advocates, litigators, journalists, and retired judges. We’ll look at how the Court uses its power, how it makes and explains decisions, and how its practices affect public trust and democratic stability over time. And we’ll provide a space to talk about Supreme Court reform, including publishing pieces that add new context to evaluating popular changes such as term limits for the justices.
The Benchmark will also be a hub for resources about the Supreme Court, including a tracker of challenges to administration policies on the shadow docket, and a new repository of public opinion research examining how Americans view the Court, including polling on trust, transparency, and perceptions of judicial independence over time. And it will be the home for new analyses from Brennan Center Senior Fellow Jesse Wegman, who authors a Substack newsletter on the Supreme Court called Major Questions (you can subscribe here).
We hope you’ll spend time exploring the site, including a new analysis by political scientist Brandon Bartels, who breaks down what we know about public opinion on court reform, a fascinating account of Australia’s experience with the adoption of a mandatory retirement age by Australian Parliament member Andrew Leigh, an explainer about how cases actually reach the Supreme Court, and a call for Supreme Court term limits by the Alliance for Justice’s president Rachel Rossi.
We’ll be updating The Benchmark regularly, so be sure to bookmark the site — we hope it will be a place to read closely, think critically, and engage with new ideas.
