Packing the Supreme Court? Don’t Go There
If the Court is expanded to 13 justices, America and progressives will come to regret it
Two senior Democratic legislators, Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) and Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), are about to introduce a bill to expand the Supreme Court to 13 Justices. The legislation is promoted as a response to Republicans preventing consideration of President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland in 2016 and to how they won the confirmation of three Trump appointees: Associate justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. The argument is that the Republicans cheated and that expanding the court remedies that injustice.
There is little debate on whether Republicans “played dirty” with Supreme Court nominations while they were in power. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), expressing opposition to how the then-Republican majority handled Trump nominations, commented:
I’m deeply concerned the Supreme Court is losing the trust of the American people. President Trump and the Republican center are eroding and even destroying that legitimacy. They have stripped down the American people of their say in this process.
