No president should shape constitutional law for forty years because of timing, mortality, or Senate gamesmanship. Eighteen-year terms would make appointments more regular and reduce the panic surrounding each vacancy. But forcing current justices off the Court immediately would look like court-packing by another name and would likely trigger a constitutional crisis. A better reform would apply prospectively: eighteen years of active Supreme Court service, followed by senior judicial service. It is slower, but slower is sometimes what makes reform durable. The goal should be to reduce the political temperature around the Court, not give each side a new excuse to delegitimize it whenever power changes hands.³
On conflicts of interest, Reich is on especially strong ground. Presidents, vice presidents, members of Congress, justices, and senior officials should not trade individual stocks while holding public power. Nor should they shape policy while holding assets directly affected by that policy. Most Americans understand this without needing a law degree. If a town inspector should not approve work on his brother-in-law’s building, a senator should not be buying and selling stocks affected by legislation. Blind trusts, divestiture rules, strong disclosure, and a real ban on trading individual securities would be a major step toward restoring trust.⁴
Reich is also right to worry about presidents using the Justice Department as a political weapon. A republic cannot have one justice system for friends of the president and another for his enemies. But the Justice Department is part of the executive branch, so a law flatly forbidding presidential involvement in prosecution decisions would run into serious constitutional trouble. The more practical answer is transparency and insulation: logs of White House contacts with DOJ, protection for career prosecutors and whistleblowers, stronger inspectors general, and written explanations for politically sensitive interventions. The same is true of pardons. Congress can investigate suspicious pardons and require transparency, but a congressional veto over pardons would almost certainly require a constitutional amendment.⁵
Gerrymandering is one area where reform is both urgent and possible. Voters should choose their representatives; representatives should not choose their voters. Congress can require fairer rules for U.S. House districts: independent commissions, transparent maps, public hearings, and neutral criteria. States should do the same for their own legislative districts. This will not make politics pure, but it would make it harder for politicians to lock in power before citizens ever vote. It also matters for presidential elections, because any plan to award Electoral College votes by congressional district would be dangerous unless gerrymandering is curbed first.⁶
Voting rights also need repair, but precision matters. The point is simple: eligible citizens should not have to fight through tricks, delays, district games, or discriminatory rules to cast a meaningful ballot. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act still exists, so the better goal is to strengthen it after years of judicial narrowing. Section 5 preclearance — the rule that required certain jurisdictions with histories of discrimination to get federal approval before changing voting laws — should be revived with a new, current, evidence-based formula aimed at discrimination as it exists today. Congress cannot simply dust off the old system and expect today’s courts to approve it. The right to vote deserves careful drafting, not wishful drafting.⁷
On press freedom and academic freedom, Reich again points to real dangers. A democracy cannot function if too much of what we see, hear, and read is controlled by a handful of corporations, billionaires, or platforms.