House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said today at her press briefing that she has no plans to bring the bill expanding seats on the Supreme Court to the floor of the House. The bill, introduced by Reps. Jerry Nadler and Hank Johnson, would ostensibly “restore balance” to the court by expanding the 6-3 conservative majority to a 13-seat, 7-6 liberal majority.
It’s not that Pelosi objects to creating a liberal majority on the court. It’s that her president has formed a court-packing commission to look into it. As the Wicked Witch famously said, “These things must be done delicately.” I’m sure the commission will find some way to justify the expansion of the court that will hide the fact that the move is a naked power grab, worthy of any old-fashioned communist dictatorship that ever existed.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea or a bad idea. I think it’s an idea that should be considered and I think the president’s taking the right approach to have a commission to study such a thing. It’s a big step,” she said.
Pelosi added of expanding the court: “It’s not out of the question. It has been done before in the history of our country a long time ago. And the growth of our country, the size of our country, the growth of our challenges in terms of the economy, etc., might necessitate such a thing.”
It’s amusing to watch as Democrats try to avoid the notion that adding just enough justices to give the liberals a majority isn’t court packing. Rep. Markey repeated the idea that the court must have “balance” to work right.
“We are here today because the United States Supreme Court is broken, it is out of balance and it needs to be fixed. Too many Americans view our highest court in the land as a partisan, political institution, not our impartial judicial branch of government,” Markey said.
If Democrats really wanted “balance” on the court, why not add three justices instead of 4? A 6-6 tie sounds balanced to me.
Biden has so far not stated whether he would support expanding the Supreme Court. Debate over adding more seats has grown since the expedited nomination and confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
During an interview on “60 Minutes” last year, Biden said he was “not a fan” of the idea, though he did add at the time that his administration would study Supreme Court reform beyond expansion.
Why the dishonesty by Democrats? Why not just come out and say, “We don’t like the decisions of the Supreme Court recently and want to fix it so that our issues prevail”? They could spin it as a diversity measure — adding to the court so that it “looks like America.” Anything but this nauseating hypocrisy about wanting to “reform” the court and bring “balance” to their decisions.
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