If there is no court decision that changes our law, everything is fine. The issue, dubbed the “judicial package,” has now found its way to the forefront of the presidential election, with Democratic candidate Joe Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California, questioning about it in debates and campaigns. There is also a world where just talking about changing the court actually changes the bias of the court, like what happened under Roosevelt. Packing the court has consequences for judges as well as for the politicians who do it. “It would be a major blow to the legitimacy of the Supreme Court if people looked at it and said, `This is a compromised court where these judges are appointed by a minority president,`” Wheeler said. Progressives such as AOC and Rep. Ilhan Omar are now calling for the size of the Supreme Court to be expanded after confirming President Trump`s latest nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, whose rise gives the court a conservative majority. Democrats argue that the court`s expansion is a defensive strategy against the Republican-controlled Senate, which has the constitutional power to confirm Supreme Court justices. The last serious attempt to change the size of the court was FDR`s 1937 judicial packing plan. FDR proposed the plan in response to a series of Supreme Court rulings that struck down New Deal legislation.
When he proposed the plan, FDR was already in a precarious political situation. The plan failed in Congress, but it arguably succeeded in limiting the court`s attack on the New Deal. It also notes that the High Court is practically non-existent and that there is therefore no High Court where justice can be sought. But there`s a world where Biden could get used to it and try to enforce the laws. Here`s what food packaging is, its history and how it could happen. The Constitution says nothing about the number of Supreme Court justices, and over time the number has fluctuated. The Court started with six judges, expanded to seven and grew to 10. Congress set the Supreme Court at nine justices in 1869, but if a president and Congress agree, they could change the law to expand or shrink the court. In addition, Biden has served in the Senate for more than 30 years and has a reputation for respecting institutions and the way things are done. He is unlikely to be a candidate for the post of first president in some 150 years to expand the court. And his campaign seems aware of the risk that just talking about it could deter moderate voters — who may not be as conservative as the Supreme Court, but who also don`t want to play with the way things are done. Ginsburg was against it for this reason.
Rep. Joe Kennedy tweeted in the days following Ginsburg`s death: “If [the Senate] holds a vote in 2020 (to replace Ginsberg), we will go to court in 2021. It`s as simple as that. After the court`s packing plan failed in Congress, Judge Willis Van Devanter — one of the “Four Horsemen” who led the court`s opposition to the New Deal — stepped down and was replaced by Hugo Black. Within a few years, seven of the Court`s nine judges had been appointed by FDR. What is court packing and how could Democrats do it? What is Biden`s position on this issue? Here`s what we know about it now. During the civil war, the size of the Supreme Court again increased to cover the new district courts in the expanding country. Following Dred Scott`s pro-slavery decision, Abraham Lincoln`s administration added a 10th seat on the Supreme Court in 1863. Then, in 1866, Congress reduced the number of seats on the Supreme Court to seven to prevent Lincoln`s successor, Andrew Johnson (a staunch opponent of Reconstruction), from filling a vacancy. People often use the term “judicial packaging” to describe changes to the size of the Supreme Court, but that is better than understanding any attempt to manipulate the members of the Court for partisan purposes.
A political party engaged in court hearings typically violates the norms governing who is appointed (e.g., appointing only precedent-abiding lawyers) and the functioning of the appointment process (e.g., no appointments during a presidential election). He wasn`t a fan. He sees it as a maneuver that could haunt the Democrats when they are no longer in power. What`s stopping a Republican president and the Republican Congress from expanding it even further to get what they want? This was a feature of the Reconstruction era. “We will regret this day,” he said last year during the primaries. Vice President Mike Pence urged Harris to support the occupation of the court. She gave no answer. During the Civil War, the courtyard grew larger and shrunk like an accordion. In 1863, the Republican Congress expanded the court to 10 judges to give President Abraham Lincoln an additional nomination. A few years later, Congress reduced the court to seven justices to prevent President Andrew Johnson from making appointments, and expanded it to nine in 1869 to give President Ulysses S. Grant vacancies. Since then, it has remained at nine.
While the number of Supreme Court justices has fluctuated since its inception, the idea of expanding the court and the president`s latest attempt to do so is commonly attributed to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who failed in 1937 with legislative proposals that could have increased the number of seats on the Supreme Court from nine to 15. Expanding the Supreme Court to more than nine seats seems like a radical idea, and the term for it, “judicial pack,” sounds mocking because it has sparked controversy each time. But it has already been tried and done in American history. The idea of expanding the court (also known as short-packing) is gaining traction within the more progressive flank of the Democratic Party, especially after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who vacated a Supreme Court seat under the Trump administration. Although Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has rejected the term in the past, he has recently avoided an explicit position on the issue and welcomed the possibility of broader judicial reforms. What does it mean to pack the courts, is that the appropriate response, and would it make the courts less of a partisan issue on the battlefield? M`Bongo and his entire farm are now, I am happy to say, at least to some extent clothed. Many law professors told us that all the talk of lump sums and judicial term limits may even have encouraged judges not to stray too far from the mainstream in their decisions. David Noll, a professor at Rutgers Law School whose research and writing focuses on federal courts, explains the issues at the heart of the debate and how Republicans share responsibility for the prospect of an expanded Supreme Court. Given that there is a pandemic and calls to action against racial injustice, expanding the Supreme Court does not seem to be the first item on their list. But what if Democrats begin to embrace Biden`s agenda and the inevitable challenges of Republicans end up before a conservative Supreme Court that rules on certain laws? According to the Washington Post, at least 11 candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination were open to the idea of increasing the number of justices on the court.
But other presidents have tried to change it. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to get Congress to expand the court in the 1930s, frustrated by how it struck down parts of his popular New Deal legislation. He presented a judicial reform plan that would allow him to appoint a new judge to all federal courts for every judge over the age of 70. “So he was dressed, but people saw pretty clearly what he allowed him to do,” said Russell Wheeler, a Supreme Court expert at the Brookings Institution, “who aimed to appoint judges for the five or six who were over 70, to the Supreme Court.” Associate Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett`s confirmation eight days before election by partisan party 52-48 The vote raised questions about whether Democrats will seek to increase the number of justices on the nation`s highest court. The move is particularly polarizing because Republicans refused to consider President Obama`s nominee, Merrick Garland, to fill a vacancy nine months before the 2016 election, but rushed to fill the seat after the death of liberal prop Ruth Bader Ginsburg. While I understand the argument that court hearings would help to soften that balance somewhat, I think it is ultimately bad for democracy. In this sense, Barrett`s appointment is a classic courtship wrapper. The president has appointed a radical conservative who appears to be questioning important parts of U.S. constitutional law.
And the majority of the Senate changed its rules of procedure — fabricated to deny Merrick Garland a hearing — to impose the nomination while people voted. While Republicans have long filled state courts, the party is trying to prevent Democrats from expanding the Supreme Court. Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan even introduced a resolution in Congress that, if passed, would formally increase the number of Supreme Court seats to nine.