Tamar Lapin, Carl Campanile
New York PostWed, 14 Apr 2021 09:05 UTC
© CQ-RollCall, Inc./Getty ImagesChief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justices Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh
Democrats are preparing to unveil legislation that would add four seats to the US Supreme Court.The bill, first reported by the Intercept, is expected to be introduced in both the House and Senate on Thursday. It would up the number of seats on the high court to 13 from the current nine.Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, a co-sponsor of the bill,
told the Wall Street Journal that adding justices
"will shore up the public's confidence in the court and its legitimacy in the public's eyes."Also backing the measure are House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Subcommittee Chairman Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) and freshman Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY).
The sponsors will announce the proposal at a press conference Thursday morning on the steps of the court, where they will be joined by activists from liberal groups including Take Back The Court, which has advocated for increasing the number of justices.
"Our democracy is under assault, and the Supreme Court has dealt the sharpest blows.
To restore power to the people, we must #ExpandTheCourt," Jones wrote on Twitter.
Conservatives currently hold the majority on the bench after former President Donald Trump's appointment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal icon. It is believed that Barrett โ Trump's third nomination to the court โ will cement the conservative tilt for decades, prompting
calls from Democrats to increase the number of justices, who have lifetime appointments.
President Biden on Friday signed an executive order creating a commission that would study the "pros and cons" of expanding the court. But Markey said, "We need more than a commission to restore integrity to the court."
Republicans and legal purists
decry the idea as "court-packing" and say it will undo the court's historical insulation from politics.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.)
blasted the Dems' proposal, saying, "Packing the Supreme Court would destroy the Supreme Court. The Democrats will do anything for power," he wrote on Twitter.
Trump's
former chief of staff Mark Meadows stated:
"The moderate left is gone. This is who they are now. Open borders. Outlawing voter ID. Free healthcare for illegal migrants. And now court packing. This should be roundly rejected."
Biden
previously opposed adding seats.
Congress altered the number of justices on the court several times over the 19th century, from a low of five to a high of 10. The number was fixed at nine shortly after the Civil War.
In the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt unsuccessfully sought to expand the court after conservative justices ruled against some of his New Deal policies.
Comment: This is not about shoring up 'faltering public opinion' with more bench seats. It's a blatant partisan power play. Justices should have allegiance to NO PARTY. They work for the people...don't they?
Not one to pass on 'in'Justices,
former President Trump offered his remarks:
In what is likely to go down as one of his greatest rants yet (and longest run-on sentences), former President Trump weighed in tonight on President Biden's court-packing commission:
Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America
Wouldn't it be ironic if the Supreme Court of the United States, after showing that they didn't have the courage to do what they should have done on the Great Presidential Election Fraud of 2020, was PACKED by the same people, the Radical Left Democrats (who they are so afraid of!), that they so pathetically defended in not hearing the Election Fraud case.
Now there is a very good chance they will be diluted (and moved throughout the court system so that they can see how the lower courts work), with many new Justices added to the Court, far more than has been reported.
There is also a good chance that they will be term-limited.
We had 19 states go before the Supreme Court who were, shockingly, not allowed to be heard. Believe it or not, the President of the United States was not allowed to be heard based on "no standing." not based on the FACTS.
The Court wouldn't rule on the merits of the great Election Fraud, including the fact that local politicians and judges, not State Legislatures, made major changes to the Election - which is in total violation of the United States Constitution.
Our politically correct Supreme Court will get what they deserve - an unconstitutionally elected group of Radical Left Democrats who are destroying our Country.
With leaders like Mitch McConnell, they are helpless to fight. He didn't fight for the Presidency, and he won't fight for the Court.
If and when this happens, I hope the Justices remember the day they didn't have courage to do what they should have done for America.
Jonathan Turley recently noted, the Commission is set to consider a litany of truly looney ideas to prevent the conservative majority from deciding cases, including creating a new specialized court or limiting jurisdiction to remove certain cases from their docket.
The commission includes such individuals as Harvard University professor Laurence Tribe, who called Donald Trump a "terrorist" and has a history of personal and vulgar attacks on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and others, myself included, who maintain views that he opposes.
Tribe once ridiculed former Attorney General William Barr for his Catholic faith.
The only ire Tribe has drawn from the left, however, was when he referred to the possible selection of an African American like then Senator Kamala Harris to be vice president as mere "cosmetics" for the party.
Tribe has not been subtle about his sudden interest in court packing. After the election he declared:
"The time is overdue for a seriously considered plan of action from those of us who believe McConnell and Republicans, abetted by and abetting the Trump movement, have prioritized expansion of their own power over the safeguarding of our American democracy and the protection of the most vulnerable who are among us."
Size matters?
Not everyone agrees:
The bill intends to "restore balance to the nation's highest court after four years of norm-breaking actions by Republicans led to its current composition," Nadler said in a statement. Last week he signed off on the executive order to create the commission.
Scores of Republicans have come out against the move including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo:
The bill won't be going anywhere for now, however. Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters she does not intend to bring the bill to the house floor but that it "should be considered" and that she backs Biden's efforts to study the proposal.
Do we believe Pelosi? The Biden administration has become the denier of future actions that somehow spontaneously activate.
Comment: This is not about shoring up 'faltering public opinion' with more bench seats. It's a blatant partisan power play. Justices should have allegiance to NO PARTY. They work for the people...don't they?
Not one to pass on 'in'Justices, former President Trump offered his remarks: Size matters? Not everyone agrees: Do we believe Pelosi? The Biden administration has become the denier of future actions that somehow spontaneously activate.