Letters to the Editor | July 14, 2026

One of your recent editorials detailed the U.S. Supreme Court’s political overreach, which only underscores my belief that reforming the court is the most urgent issue of constitutional reform facing the United States. It has long been the most conservative — if not reactionary — branch of the federal government, and also the most unaccountable. Its justices serve life terms with no binding ethics code over their conduct, which has grown increasingly corrupt. Since John Marshall’s obiter dictum in Marbury v. Madison (1803), it has exercised an unquestionable power — conferred on it nowhere in the Constitution — to alter and overturn duly passed legislation. In fact, theirs is a power that, as noted by Thomas Jefferson, would — if exercised — fatally undermine the rule of law. It has done so ever since, giving sanction to a century of slavery and another of Jim Crow, among the many rulings that have over the years impeded the progress of freedom and democracy for all Americans, most recently in the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. Now, following the template of a former Republican operative and Supreme Court justice himself, Lewis Powell, it has achieved a standing right-wing majority that may, if unchecked, endure for decades, and has already, in the current Roberts Court, inflicted great damage on matters ranging from gun laws to environmental protection to campaign financing and election districting. No genuine reform of the many problems that face and divide us can be hoped for without dealing with a Supreme Court that is now at war with the other branches of the state and federal judiciary. Jefferson was right: We have created a monster. It is time to cut the claws it has grown.

Robert Zaller, Bala Cynwyd

The killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Houston isn’t just a tragedy — it is a systemic outrage. Coming on the heels of the fatal federal shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, a terrifying pattern is undeniable: federal immigration enforcement is operating above the law, destroying lives on American soil with zero transparency.

The corruption runs deeper than the pull of a trigger. It has been reported that three other people were in the vehicle with Mr. Salgado Araujo during the incident. Instead of being protected as vital witnesses to a fatal shooting, they are currently being pressured by the government to sign self-deportation orders, according to a civil rights organization. ICE is actively and deliberately attempting to eliminate them to bury the truth.

Polite concern will not stop this. Citizens must aggressively pressure Congress to mandate independent, external criminal investigations into federal use-of-force incidents, ending the corrupt practice of internal self-policing. Federal agencies must be answerable to the public, starting with the mandatory release of unedited body-camera footage. We must force systemic accountability before more blood is shed.

Maria Duca, Philadelphia

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