Gillibrand slams Supreme Court in filing and warns the court could be restructured

Democratic presidential contenders rolled out new gun control plans in the wake of two mass shootings earlier this month in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.

But one contender, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, has diagnosed the problem as part of an “industrial-strength influence campaign” from conservative advocacy groups on the Republican-appointed justices of the Supreme Court — and is making the argument to the judges themselves.

The New York lawmaker this week signed on to a friend-of-the-court brief in a high-profile Second Amendment case over now-defunct New York City laws and regulations, urging the justices to drop the matter. The brief was also signed by Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Dick Durbin, the Democratic whip, of Illinois.

The brief slams lobbying efforts by the National Rifle Association and the Federalist Society, an influential legal group with ties to the Trump administration and all of the court’s Republican-appointed justices. And it says that the court should not participate in what it calls a conservative “project.”

The brief itself apparently alludes to the court-reform proposals, warning that the court is “not well,” and wondering whether it can “heal itself before the public demands it be ‘restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics,’” citing language from a recent Quinnipiac University poll, which found a majority of voters supported court restructuring.

Democratic proposals to reform the court have included expanding the size of the panel as well as shifting the way the judges are selected.

More From CNBC: