In recent weeks, several commentaries have highlighted the growing popularity, in Democratic circles, of “court packing” – increasing the number of seats on the U.S. Supreme Court under the next Democratic president and Democratic-majority Congress. Among others, several 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have gotten on board with this.
“Court packing” would set up a troubling situation. However, it doesn’t surprise that Democrats have fallen in love with the idea. Historically, they have proved more willing to politicize the Supreme Court than Republicans have.
To be sure, the Constitution allows Congress to decide how many members the Supreme Court will have. In other words, the current number of justices, nine, is not set in stone. However, as Washington Post history writer Gillian Brockell noted March 12, the current Democratic move is intended “to re-balance the court in their favor.”
Therein lies the problem. The Supreme Court, and the lower federal courts, are supposed to serve as a collective check on the president and Congress. Setting the number of high-court seats with political and ideological goals in mind would cut against this principle. That assuredly would undermine the public’s faith in the judiciary as an independent entity and, by extension, in government at large.
For the record, as liberal news site Vox reported last year, court-packing was last seriously talked about in the mid-1930s, when President Franklin Roosevelt and Attorney General Homer Cummings – a former Stamford mayor and Democratic National Committee chairman – unveiled an ultimately unsuccessful packing plan intended to protect New Deal legislation from a largely conservative Supreme Court. When the high court had decidedly liberal leanings in the 1950s and ‘60s, Republicans and others on the right made no meaningful attempts at court packing.
The current Democratic push for a stacked Supreme Court is indicative of a party that cares more about politics and ideology than it does about the rule of law. Sure, some Democrats are motivated by lingering resentment of Senate Republicans’ successful effort to block President Barack Obama’s nomination, in the election year of 2016, of moderately liberal Judge Merrick B. Garland after the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. Mr. Obama’s successor, President Trump, nominated conservative Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, who ultimately assumed the Scalia seat. While legitimate criticisms can be made of the GOP’s actions, it is important to keep a sense of perspective: the maneuvering only involved one seat. It also is worth noting that there is an excellent argument to be made that Democrats pioneered the idea of blocking election-year Supreme Court nominations, just as they largely are responsible for nominations devolving into fights over ideology, as opposed to ethics and legal bona fides.
Voters should take note come 2020.
Courtesy the Waterbury, Connecticut Republican-American.
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