Dace Potas, DePaul Political Science Graduate, Writes Op-Ed Arguing That Institutional Courtesy Demands Democrats Keep Getting Mugged
USA Today: When You Want the Intellectual Rigor of a Hotel Doorknob Hanger With None of the Free Chocolate
Dace Potas wants Democrats to keep their hands off the Supreme Court while Republicans are already elbow-deep in the machinery. In his latest opinion piece, he calls court packing a dangerous threat to judicial legitimacy, as if the court still has much legitimacy left to threaten (Potas, 2026). He points to the recent Louisiana v. Callais decision as proof that progressive outrage is nothing more than sour grapes over rulings that sit comfortably inside the mainstream. That framing is so misleading it practically needs its own fact-check department.
Polishing the Turd
Here is what actually happened in Louisiana v. Callais. The Supreme Court did not simply strike down racial gerrymandering. By a 6 to 3 vote, the conservative majority gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the law that has protected minority voters for over half a century (Howe, 2026). Justice Samuel Alito wrote that Louisiana had no compelling interest to create a second majority-Black district, even though Black voters make up roughly one third of the state. Justice Elena Kagan, in her dissent, said the majority did not update the law but destroyed it, rendering the provision what she called “all but a dead letter” (Howe, 2026). When Potas describes this as merely rejecting race-based districting, he is polishing a decision that opens the door for states to erase majority-minority seats across the South. That is not mainstream legal housekeeping. That is a demolition.
The Graham Platner Straw Man
Potas then cites Graham Platner, a Maine Senate candidate, as proof that Democrats are eager to stack the court. What he leaves out is that Platner is a fringe candidate who has apologized for inflammatory online rhetoric and currently trails Republican Senator Susan Collins by nineteen points according to polling reported by the Washington Free Beacon (Costescu, 2025). Using Platner to represent the Democratic Party is like using a flare gun to represent indoor lighting. It is dishonest framing, and it ignores that establishment Democrats have been far more cautious than their own base wants.
Republicans Already Packed the Court, They Just Stole the Seats Instead
The base has reason to be impatient. Republicans already packed the court. They just did it through procedural theft instead of legislation. In 2016, Senate Republicans blocked Merrick Garland for nearly a year, claiming voters should have a say. Four years later, they rammed through Amy Coney Barrett in about a month before voters could remove Donald Trump. The seat count never changed, but the ideological balance was manipulated through bad-faith timing. If that is not court packing, it is at least court hijacking, and it worked. The result is a 6 to 3 supermajority that overturned abortion rights, kneecapped environmental regulations, and now weakened voting rights protections.
The “Both Sides” Trap for Suckers
Potas warns that if one party expands the court, the other will retaliate. That is not a warning. That is the current reality. Republicans have shown they will use every lever available, from stealing seats to empowering justices who accept undisclosed luxury vacations from GOP megadonors. Democrats unilaterally disarming does not preserve institutional credibility. It guarantees minority rule. When Potas says expanding the court would destroy credibility, he is asking the side that got robbed to protect the burglar’s reputation.
He also claims court expansion has no basis in principle and is only about power. Everything in government is about power. The Constitution gives Congress the authority to set the size of the Supreme Court, and Congress has exercised that power six times in American history before settling on nine in 1869 (Supreme Court of the United States, n.d.). The Judiciary Act of 2023, which Potas references, would add four seats to match the thirteen federal appellate courts. That is not a radical coup. It is a restoration of proportionality that reflects the modern judiciary (Schonfeld, 2023).
Stop Bringing a Rulebook to a Knife Fight
The audience Potas seems to be addressing is an imaginary moderate who believes both sides are equally naughty. That is not the country we live in. One party is trying to win elections with popular majorities. The other is relying on a court that approves partisan gerrymanders and strikes down voting rights enforcement. Democrats are not the other party anymore. They are the opposition to minority rule. When Mehdi Hasan says the GOP-packed court is the biggest block on progress in this country, he is stating a measurable fact (Hasan, 2026). When Rashida Tlaib demands Congress expand the court immediately, she is responding to a decision that takes away voting power from the same communities the Voting Rights Act was meant to protect (Tlaib, 2026).
Potas ends by telling establishment Democrats they would be wise to avoid embracing such recklessness. He has it backward. Wisdom, in this political environment, means recognizing that institutional norms only survive when both sides respect them. Once one side smashes the norms and captures the referee, asking the other side to keep playing by the old rules is not wisdom. It is surrender dressed up as principle. If Democrats regain power and refuse to rebalance the court, they are not preserving democracy. They are allowing a captured judiciary to veto it.
If you'd like to see what happens when a concern troll discovers the thesaurus function, Potas's manifesto for polite surrender is here: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2026/05/12/democrat-calls-pack-supreme-court-dangerous/90025431007/
Works Cited
Costescu, J. (2025, November 16). Graham Platner calls to stack the Supreme Court and impeach ‘at least two’ sitting justices. Washington Free Beacon. https://freebeacon.com/democrats/graham-platner-calls-to-stack-the-supreme-court-and-impeach-at-least-two-sitting-justices/
Hasan, M. [@mehdirhasan]. (2026, April 29). If the Democrats don’t make rebalancing and expanding the Supreme Court a top priority [Post]. X.
Howe, A. (2026, April 29). In major Voting Rights Act case, Supreme Court strikes down redistricting map challenged as racially discriminatory. SCOTUS blog. https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/04/in-major-voting-rights-act-case-supreme-court-strikes-down-redistricting-map-challenged-as-racia/
Potas, D. (2026, May 12). Democrats still won’t let court packing go. It’s a bad idea. USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2026/05/12/democrat-calls-pack-supreme-court-dangerous/90025431007/
Schonfeld, Z. (2023, May 16). Democrats reintroduce Supreme Court expansion legislation. The Hill. https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4006799-democrats-reintroduce-supreme-court-expansion-legislation/
Supreme Court of the United States. (n.d.). The court as an institution. https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/institution.aspx
Tlaib, R. (2026, April 29). Tlaib statement on Supreme Court gutting Voting Rights Act. U.S. House of Representatives. https://tlaib.house.gov/posts/tlaib-statement-on-supreme-court-gutting-voting-rights-act