As if there wasn’t already a lot at stake in this election, the integrity of the Supreme Court and the future of the United States just got thrown into the mix. The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg has only added fuel to the partisan fires raging across America and could very well ignite the kind of street violence not seen in America since the Civil War.
The Left is absolutely determined to win. If Republicans are able to ram Trump’s nominee through the Senate and get him or her approved, the Left will have two alternatives.
The first alternative is to find a way to disqualify the new nominee — perhaps on some trumped-up charge that they could impeach him or her for.
That would be a longshot, however, so the second alternative is far more likely; pack the Court with radical leftists to give them a majority.
The idea of expanding the Supreme Court in order to pack it with more ideologically friendly justices is not new. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was only the latest example. Roosevelt didn’t like that some of his more radical New Deal ideas were being challenged by the Supreme Court. So he proposed adding a new justice every time a sitting justice reached the age of 70.
It didn’t work. Even Democrats rebelled against the idea as the Democratic chairman of the Judiciary Committee held the bill up for 6 months. But the proposal had an effect nonetheless. A justice who had consistently voted against New Deal bills suddenly began to support FDR. Thus intimidated, the Court was more compliant from then on.
Liberals have no such grand plans. Their desire was summed up frankly by the Democratic nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives in New York’s 17th District, Mondaire Jones.
As America’s white supremacist President tries to install a 6-3 partisan, conservative majority on the Supreme Court, we cannot be immobile. We must fight. And Congress must do its part.
Congress’ power to act is as clear as day. Article III of the Constitution unambiguously grants the legislative branch the authority to adjust the composition of the judiciary, including the number of seats on the Supreme Court. In fact, Congress has already done this seven times in our nation’s history. In the next Congress, which I expect to join, my colleagues and I must be prepared to fight for the American people as doggedly as the GOP is fighting for the special interests and big corporations it represents. We must expand the Supreme Court to 13 seats, and allow President Biden to fill those vacancies.
It’s not just Democratic candidates. Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) tweeted this out yesterday.
Mitch McConnell set the precedent. No Supreme Court vacancies filled in an election year. If he violates it, when Democrats control the Senate in the next Congress, we must abolish the filibuster and expand the Supreme Court.
— Ed Markey (@EdMarkey) September 19, 2020
Liberal Pipe Dreams About Remaking the Constitution Pick Up Steam in New Congress
Former Nixon White House Watergate hero John Dean wants to expand the federal judiciary, as well.
.@JoeBiden must announce that if the GOP rushes to pack the Court, the Dems will expand the SCOTUS to 11 justices, and expand the lower federal courts by 70 to 100 new judgeships, which have long been needed. In short, he will depoliticize the federal judiciary!
— John W. Dean (@JohnWDean) September 19, 2020
The Constitution did not set a number of justices for the Supreme Court and that has led to confusion over the years.
“The number of Supreme Court justices has changed over the years,” Kathy Arberg, spokesperson for the U.S. Supreme Court, told Live Science. “The number of justices has been as high as 10.”
Congress hated President Andrew Johnson so much that they reduced the number of justices to 7, just to make sure he didn’t get to name any replacements.
Congress passed the Judicial Circuits Act of 1866. This Act reduced the number from 10 to seven. The decrease was to take effect as the seats became vacant.
However, only two seats were freed up by 1869, so there were eight justices. Congress added one seat back in and decided that there should be nine justices. The Judiciary Act of 1869 officially set the number, and it has not budged since.
So there’s nothing sacred about the number 9. The Left will make the argument that the Court is overburdened and needs help. This is true. But why stop at 11 or 13? Why not make it 21?
The Left couldn’t care about the Supreme Court’s “burden.” They want to pack the Court with enough radicals to destroy any semblance of what the U.S. is and what it stands for. In that, they must be stopped.
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