It's not often that you hear the justices of the Supreme Court take on each other in their free time. That was left for biting dissents, of which there have been plenty lately. But that's changing, and it needs to.

One of those writing her share of biting dissents is former Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan. This week, she went public.

In a conversation with Catholic University Professor J. Joel Alicea, who served as a law clerk to archconservative Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., she unloaded on the Court. Pulling together court rulings on campaign finance, partisan gerrymandering and voting rights, Justice Kagan accused the Court of blinding itself to the effects of its decisions on our democracy. "In all these areas, the Court has kind of blinded itself to the very deleterious effects of its rulings on how the political system works" and has created "a democracy that does not work as well as it should."

"The people of America look around this political system and think that all this money chasing all these political candidates is a nightmare," she said. "And they're right." For the money race, we have the Supreme Court squarely to blame, either for its blind naivete or its outright corruption. Equating money with speech and limiting the ability to regulate political corruption has brought us the worst government money can buy. In the gerrymandering frenzy, "both political parties have been engaged in a race to the bottom" to draw voting maps that advantage either Democrats or Republicans in a way that "is very destructive of our democracy."

If President Donald Trump and Elon Musk manage to salvage these midterms, it will be because the Supreme Court gave them the tools to do it.

The question is: What do you do about a Supreme Court that is strangling democracy?

The answer Democrats are already proposing is straightforward: you change it. Expand the size. There is nothing magical about the number nine. It is dictated by statute, not the Constitution. Impose term limits. That's trickier. Life tenure for federal judicial officers is in the Constitution. But advocates of change point out that Justices could remain as federal judges, in senior status sitting in the circuits, just not on the Supreme Court. And that, they argue, could be done by statute.

The point is: something should be done. The Supreme Court, like Congress and the executive, is losing credibility in the eyes of Americans. Who are these nine people, with no accountability, no ethics code, whose word is final? While it is true that this Court said no to Trump on tariffs and birthright citizenship, it is also true that they gave him most of what he wanted, and people aren't wrong in seeing this as a Trump Court.

I used to be a traditionalist. Why change what was working? But it isn't working anymore. I'm no longer married to nine. I think there are advantages to set terms. Life tenure, we have seen, also has disadvantages. When the Court becomes a destructive rather than a protective force in our democracy, something must be done to change. When a sitting justice known for her ability, as law school dean, to get along with everyone and forge compromise, comes out and says it, we should all listen.

To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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