{"id":48418,"date":"2026-05-26T13:22:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T20:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=48418"},"modified":"2026-05-26T13:22:32","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T20:22:32","slug":"khanna-says-democrats-should-run-against-supreme-court-after-voting-rights-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/05\/26\/khanna-says-democrats-should-run-against-supreme-court-after-voting-rights-ruling\/","title":{"rendered":"Khanna says Democrats should run against Supreme Court after voting rights ruling\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By\u00a0Sophia Bollag<\/a>, Staff Writer May 24, 2026 (SFChronicle.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gift Article<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Rep.\u00a0Ro Khanna, D-Santa Clara, shown discussing the Epstein files outside the U.S. Capitol last November, called for Supreme Court reforms Sunday during an appearance on NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press.\u201dHeather Diehl\/Tribune News Service<\/em><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the wake of the Supreme Court\u2019s latest move to gut the Voting Rights Act, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Santa Clara, says his party needs to run on reforming the court in upcoming elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are not speaking up loudly enough, strongly enough against a court that is really rolling back civil rights,\u201d he told journalist Kristen Welker on NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press\u201d Sunday morning. \u201cThe Democratic Party needs to run against this court.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khanna\u2019s comments come after a week that has seen setbacks for both parties. Democrats\u2019 wounds were self-inflicted, after an\u00a0embarrassing rollout of a draft postmortem<\/a>\u00a0on the party\u2019s crushing defeat in the 2024 presidential election. Republicans have been encumbered by several moves by unpopular President Donald Trump, including skyrocketing prices related to his war in Iran and\u00a0bipartisan anger over a $1.776 billion fund<\/a>\u00a0that appears designed to\u00a0pay his political allies<\/a>\u00a0who have faced criminal prosecution. A recent poll by the Associated Press found just\u00a037% of Americans approve of how he\u2019s handling his presidency<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in the long run, the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling, which struck down a majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana and eviscerated a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965<\/a>, paved the way for Republicans to eliminate other majority-Black districts across the South. The ruling is already allowing Republicans to make some districts more favorable to their candidates in this year\u2019s midterms and has the potential to dramatically tip the congressional map in their favor in 2028. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the latest in a series of decisions by the Supreme Court, which comprises six conservatives appointed by Republican presidents and three liberals appointed by Democratic presidents, that are likely to benefit Republicans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khanna said his party should seize on that decision and advocate for creating term limits for Supreme Court justices, giving each president two appointees to the court and expanding the court from nine to 13 justices. Such extensive reform has faced\u00a0opposition from establishment Democrats<\/a>. Many legal scholars say imposing term limits would require an amendment to the Constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khanna dismissed calls for Ken Martin, the leader of the Democratic National Committee, to resign, but said the party needs to take a different approach to win elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe do need to recognize that the status quo has failed, that this is a system that has created massive inequality, that the economy is lopsided and unfair,\u201d he said. \u201cToo often we\u2019ve run status quo establishment candidates who have been unwilling to call out an economic and political system that has failed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Khanna pointed to his work, alongside Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, to force the release of the Justice Department\u2019s files on sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as a victory that has put the president on his back foot. Both Khanna and Massie cited that effort as a reason Trump was motivated to back a Republican challenger to Massie in his Kentucky district. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s decision to back a primary challenger to a sitting congressman from his own party succeeded Tuesday, when Massie lost his bid for reelection. But the move has already started to backfire on Trump.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another Republican who lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana<\/a>, joined Democrats last week in backing a measure to rein in Trump\u2019s power to wage war on Iran. A similar measure backed by Massie looked likely to pass in the House<\/a> on Thursday if Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had not canceled the vote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

And Massie, who no longer has an incentive to align himself with Trump, has already promised to continue pushing the administration to release more Epstein files during the time remaining in his term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor me, it was completely worth it,\u201d Massie told Welker on Sunday when she asked whether he regretted opposing the president. \u201cI\u2019ve got seven more months to keep going against the grain, which means voting for principles and for people over party.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

May 24, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Sophia Bollag<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Politics Reporter, Sacramento<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sophia Bollag joined the San Francisco Chronicle as a politics reporter in 2022. She has covered state government from Sacramento since 2016 and has worked at The Sacramento Bee, The Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times. She grew up in the East Bay and graduated from Northwestern University, where she studied journalism and literature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Sophia Bollag, Staff Writer May 24, 2026 (SFChronicle.com) Gift Article Rep.\u00a0Ro Khanna, D-Santa Clara, shown discussing the Epstein files outside the U.S. Capitol last November, called for Supreme Court reforms Sunday during an appearance on NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press.\u201dHeather Diehl\/Tribune News Service In the wake of the Supreme Court\u2019s latest… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1935,483],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48418"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48418"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48420,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48418\/revisions\/48420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}