The Roberts Court won’t save us—but we can’t afford to ignore it.

Welcome back to UFD's SCOTUS Nerve Center!

This is the first edition of the UFD SCOTUS Nerve Center, a new biweekly resource designed to ensure that progressives have the messaging, framing, and rapid-response tools needed to counter the Supreme Court’s MAGA agenda. Every two weeks—eventually ramping up to weekly—we’ll provide talking points, social media content, and strategic insights to help movement leaders, elected officials, and advocates push back immediately and effectively when SCOTUS rulings threaten democracy, civil rights, and working people.

Our first toolkit, “The Roberts Court won’t save us—but we can’t afford to ignore it,” sets the foundation for why this work is urgent. The Supreme Court is not just an impartial legal body—it is a political weapon of the right. The Roberts Court has systematically dismantled voting rights, reproductive freedom, labor protections, and more. These rulings are not just legal decisions; they are political acts designed to entrench conservative power. Yet, too often, progressives are forced into a defensive posture, reacting case by case rather than shaping the larger narrative.

That’s why the Nerve Center exists—to shift us from a reactive stance to a proactive, coordinated strategy that makes the Court’s extreme decisions a liability for the right. This toolkit will help you connect the dots, frame SCOTUS rulings as political power plays, and mobilize action in response. The courts won’t save us—but together, we can expose their role in the MAGA agenda and fight back with a unified strategy.

In today’s newsletter below, you will find:

• New public opinion research on SCOTUS

• Social media for you to use – including a NEW video on Trump personally thanking Justice Roberts.

• Some suggested talking points.

• Case spotlight: Louisiana v. Callais and Robinson v. Callais

• What’s on the docket? Cases being heard over the next two weeks.

• Analysis of where we stand now with Trump and the Courts.

We want our materials to be as useful as possible, so please don’t hesitate to let us know if anything more—or different—would better support you or your organization. Feel free to email me at this address or we can find some time to jump on the phone to discuss.

In addition to this newsletter, we will also be holding regular briefing calls to talk through the resources we have available and provide other updates. Please sign up to join our first Nerve Center briefing on March 26th at 12:30pm ET, Registration Link Here.

Sincerely,

Stasha Rhodes, Campaign Director, United for Democracy

P.S. If you know anyone who might find this newsletter useful, please feel free to pass it along and encourage them to subscribe.

New public opinion research and messaging toolkit

From Research Collaborative and ASO

Even as lower courts repeatedly rule against the Trump regime’s illegal and unconstitutional actions, the MAGA Justices on the Supreme Court continue to enable Trump and his allies to take away Americans’ fundamental freedoms and facilitate a billionaire-led takeover of our government.

In this memo, we explore recent research showing that far too many Americans mistakenly believe the Roberts Court will rule fairly and impartially in cases involving Trump, and that the judicial system will stop him from going too far. While some Americans acknowledge the threat Trump poses by his willingness to disregard rulings he doesn’t like, few understand the judicial checks they assumed were absolute are gone.

Read the full memo here (and here for a C3 version)

Key takeaways:

• Half of voters believe the Roberts Court, and the judicial system more broadly, will act impartially and serve as a check on Trump’s unlawful actions. A plurality assumes the Supreme Court will rule fairly in cases regarding Trump, underscoring the urgent need to expose the MAGA majority’s political goals.

• In addition, half of voters also recognize Trump is unlikely to comply with any court ruling against him. At the same time, an overwhelming majority believe Trump and his MAGA allies should comply with court rulings that do not favor them.

Also, check out Freedom Over Fascism toolkit, which includes messaging guidance around SCOTUS: http://bit.ly/FreedomOverFascism

Social media toolkit and NEW video

Check out the social media toolkit here! We’ll send fresh unbranded content each issue – feel free to use and share however you like!

And be sure to check out our new social media video: President Trump personally thanked Justice John Roberts – and he has a lot to be thankful for!

Suggested talking points

As the Supreme Court returns for oral arguments on March 24, we’re entering a critical stretch—with nine major cases on the docket and Trump-related legal battles looming. To help shape the public conversation, we’ve pulled together key talking points that frame what’s at stake and how to talk about the Court’s role in advancing a dangerous, partisan agenda.

This is meant to be a resource you can use across platforms—in interviews, on social media, in op-eds, or internal messaging. The goal: keep our narrative consistent, clear, and bold.

Use it, share it, adapt it—and help make sure we’re not just reacting to the Court’s decisions—we’re defining them.

See talking points here.

Case Spotlight: Louisiana v. Callais and Robinson v. Callais

From Take Back the Court

On Monday, March 24, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Louisiana v. Callais and Robinson v. Callais, voting rights cases that never should have made it this far. At the center of the case is Louisiana’s new congressional map, which was redrawn in 2024 to include two majority-Black districts—a fair outcome in a state where one-third of the population is Black.

Despite that basic fairness, a group of self-identified “non-African American” residents sued, claiming the map violated their personal dignity and “racially stigmatized” them. A Trump-appointed lower court panel agreed, setting the stage for a Supreme Court showdown that could undermine its own ruling from less than two years ago in Allen v. Milligan—a nearly identical case in which the Court upheld the Voting Rights Act and required Alabama to add a majority-Black district.

The stakes are clear: if the Court strikes down Louisiana’s map, it would mark a sharp departure from recent precedent and signal yet another step in the Roberts Court’s decade-long assault on voting rights, especially those of Black Americans. No matter the outcome, this case is a reminder that the Supreme Court remains the most aggressive threat to voting rights in America today.

Why This Matters

If the Court sides with the challengers, it will make it even harder for Black voters to have fair representation in states like Louisiana—and open the door to more attacks on voting rights across the country. These cases aren’t just about maps or legal arguments. It’s about whether people get a real say in who represents them. And right now, the Court is showing us it’s willing to throw out fairness to protect partisan power.

👉 Read the full analysis here.

On the Docket

From Take Back the Court

Other cases the Supreme Court will hear in the next two weeks include:

• Oklahoma v. Environmental Protection Agency, in which the Court will decide which court — and which judges — have jurisdiction over challenges to EPA policy. The ruling could have major implications for the future of the Clean Air Act.

• FCC v. Consumers Research, in which the power-hungry right-wing supermajority Could grant itself the ultimate authority to strip federal agencies of their power.

• Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission, in which the Court could allow Catholic Charities, a religious organization, to shirk a state law that requires employers to pay taxes that fund employment benefits — opening the door for companies and organizations across the board to try to get out of their tax responsibilities.

• Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, in which the Court will determine whether states can purge qualified health care providers like Planned Parenthood from Medicaid programs. The ruling could threaten access to essential health services for millions of Medicaid recipients.

For more on these cases, keep an eye out for our next issue of the SCOTUS Nerve Center.

A Constitutional Crisis in Motion

From Court Accountability

The Trump administration defied a federal court order.

Last week, Trump invoked the rarely used wartime Alien Enemies Act (AEA) to deport 238 immigrants living in the U.S. that the administration claimed—with seemingly little or no proof—were part of a “foreign terrorist” gang called Tren de Aragua (TdA). Trump’s Justice Department ignored a court order from U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg that “any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States.” Instead, the DOJ delivered them to El Salvador, which plans to hold them for at least a year in a notoriously brutal mega-prison—despite a stunning admission from DHS’s Acting Field Office Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations, Robert L. Cerna, that many of the migrants “removed under the AEA do not have criminal records in the United States.” On Thursday, Boasberg issued an order finding that the administration had “evaded its obligations,” describing Cerna’s response to the court’s previous order as “woefully insufficient,” and giving the Justice Department until Tuesday, March 25, to provide an explanation as to how “the failure to return the class members aboard the two earliest planes did not violate the Court’s Temporary Restraining Orders.”

Now, Trump and billionaire bureaucrat Elon Musk are calling for the impeachment of judges who have ruled against them.

Upon Judge Boasberg’s preliminary order, Trump declared that Boasberg “should be IMPEACHED!” That demand echoed the tweet of Trump’s billionaire backer, Elon Musk. Right on cue, a flurry of MAGA Republican members of Congress rushed to introduce impeachment articles against Boasberg; Musk promptly rewarded them with maximum political donations. In response, Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare statement: “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”

John Roberts wrought this upon himself—and upon all of us.

The Roberts Court took every opportunity to smooth Trump’s path to the White House. Chief Justice Roberts engineered the notorious ruling last year that gave Trump king-like powers to act with immunity from criminal prosecution for any of his “official acts,” opening the door for the chaos he is bemoaning today.

It’s up to us to fight back.

Trump is claiming the power of a king and attacking anyone who won’t stand aside, including judges. As vital as these legal battles to stop Trump at every turn might be, Roberts’s plea makes clear that the courts alone will not—cannot—save us. We, the People, must determine our future for ourselves.