FDR tried to do it nearly a century ago. It was such a blatant power grab, that even Roosevelt at the height of his popularity, couldn’t accomplish it – packing the United States Supreme Court.
But the Democrats today are so drunk on power in Washington, that they are going to give it another try. Rather than do it outright, they’ve decided to “study” it first. Last Friday President Biden announced a “Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court.” Sounds harmless enough. But don’t be fooled. A more accurate name would be the “Commission on Packing the Supreme Court.”
They’ll of course try to blunt the instinctive rejection many Americans would have towards “packing” or expanding the Supreme Court by “studying” a whole bunch of things: like the Court’s rules and practices, the Court’s role in our constitutional system, the length of service for justices, and other rather innocuous things. But make no mistake about it. Their real goal is to overcome the Court’s perceived “imbalance” of too many conservative justices (6), and too few liberals/progressives (3). With Chief Justice Roberts’ recent moderate/liberal voting history, and others trending in that direction, it’s questionable how “conservative” this court truly is, but in any event, it’s not nearly “progressive” enough, in the estimation of many progressives.
The answer? Expand the current nine members of the Supreme Court to 11, or 13, or 15, or whatever (the unbiased commission will decide the proper number.) And just how “unbiased” is the commission?
Not surprisingly, they’re not unbiased at all. After all, Joe Biden appointed them. The 36 members will be led by Barack Obama‘s former White House Counsel, and by a former official in Obama’s Justice Department. The rest are mostly from left-wing legal organizations or are academics from left-wing universities.
There are a few conservatives, but they are rare indeed. One just happens to be the brother of my former chief of staff, Fred Nelson. His brother, Caleb Nelson, is a highly respected law professor at the University of Virginia and a former clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas. Of course conservatives like Professor Nelson are few and far between on the Biden commission.
If the left is ultimately successful in getting their way and packing the Supreme Court, it will make stopping their radical agenda that much more difficult. But perhaps just as importantly, it will destroy public trust in one of our last institutions that still has, for the most part, the public’s trust. And that would indeed be a shame.
One possible bright spot, Biden has to know that if the Democrats do take this truly radical step and pack the Court, it’s going to hurt both Biden and the Democrats politically (just as it did FDR, even though Roosevelt ultimately failed at doing so.) So maybe Biden figures he can placate his radical left supporters by calling a commission together, even if the commission doesn’t ultimately recommend or proceed towards packing the court.
I hope that’s the case, for the sake of the country. But obviously I don’t know for sure (Biden doesn’t consult or confide in me.) We’ll all know soon enough.
See you next week.