Democrats Introduce Court Packing Proposal
Democrats are trying to pack the court by introducing a proposal to add 4 justices to the Supreme Court in order to break the 6-3 conservative majority achieved during the Trump Administration.
Rumors that Joe Biden and democrats would be packing the court began during his presidential campaign and intensified after his victory. And while Biden says he is “not a fan” of court packing, he has agreed to consider it. Earlier this month, Biden announced a “bipartisan” commission to study potential reforms to the Court including:
- Expanded number of justices
- Term limits and/or age limits for justices
- Changes to the confirmation process
- Adjustments to the Court’s role in the Constitutional system
- Changes to the Court’s case selection, rules, and practices.
The commission, comprised of 36 legal scholars, has 180 days to issue a report but cannot make actual recommendations.
“I don’t know that that’s a good idea or bad idea,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) of the Democrats proposal to pack the court. “And I think the president’s taking the right approach to have a commission to study such a thing.”
“I’m not ready to sign on yet,” added Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL). “I think this commission of Biden is the right move…Let’s think this through carefully. This is historic.”
Republicans vehemently oppose the proposal.
“Packing the Supreme Court would be a declaration of war that could not be undone,” warns Mike Davis, president of the conservative Article III Project. “President Biden and Democrats in Congress should tread extremely carefully. Packing the Supreme Court is a red line they must not cross. If they actually love their country, they should stand down immediately.”
Just imagine what the Democrats would do if “we reduced the number from 9 to 5 and just keep the Republicans,” says Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH). “You guys would go crazy.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) took things a step further. He accused Democrats of packing the court in order to further their socialist agenda. “Packing the court goes against everything we believe as Americans,” he said.
Even liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer opposes the proposal, warning that it could erode the public’s trust in the Court. “Structural alternation motivated by the perception of political influence can only feed that latter perception, further eroding that trust,” said Breyer during a speech at Harvard Law.
The most recent law to affect the size of the Supreme Court was signed by President Andrew Johnson in 1869. The Judiciary Act/Circuit Judges Act cemented the High Court as a body comprised of one chief justice and eight associates. The law also established separate judgeships for the circuit courts and gave federal judges the ability to retire without losing their salary.
Sources:
Republicans Rip Democrats’ Plan to Expand Supreme Court
Democrats to introduce bill to expand Supreme Court from 9 to 13 justices
If the Democrats pack more Justices onto the Court that will always rule in their favor, then when and if the Republicans come into power, they’ll pack it again with their Justices, and it will go back and forth that way until we have 51 Justices on the Supreme Court, one for each state and one for Washington, D.C Why don’t we just jump straight to the end result, and have each state just appoint a Justice. That way, we can have a Court that spends all of its time arguing with each other rather than getting anything useful done. Congress has been doing nothing but arguing with each other for years, rather than working for the American citizens, so the Court might as well do the same thing.
Then, we could get rid of the Electoral College and make sure the small conservative states would never have a voice!!!
What methods of implementing the packing of the Supreme Court exist? I can think of only three, so help me out:
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1) by executive fiat, in which case what we have on hand is a DICTATOR who needs to be IMMEDIATELY OVERTHROWN;
2) by amending the Constitution, which is extremely unlikely given the complexity of the process;
3) by legislation, which hopefully would be DEEP SIXED by the Supreme Court in its present composition.
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Okay, what am I missing here?
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Richard William Faith
central Florida
Erode the public’s trust even further than it is already eroded?
Like adding one to infinity!
Like stabbing a corpse!
This is a great idea. There is nothing in the Constitution that sets a specific number of judges on the court. If the founding fathers cared about how many judges there were, they would have said so. They didn’t, so they must not have cared. I like that Biden is thinking outside of the box to get around the minority party that is obstructing progress.