Texas shows we can't wait any longer. It's time to pack the court
William Brennan, the great US supreme court justice, liked to greet his incoming law clerks with a bracingly simple definition of constitutional doctrine: five votes. You cant do anything around here, Brennan would say, wiggling the fingers of his hand, without five votes.
Underscoring the truth of Brennans hardboiled definition was the courts 5-4 ruling this week (with Chief Justice John Roberts in dissent alongside his three liberal colleagues) to let stand a Texas law that turns ordinary citizens into de facto bounty hunters empowered to sue anyone who performs or aids and abets an abortion on a woman past her sixth week of pregnancy. True, the single-paragraph unsigned majority opinion emphasized that in letting the Texas law take effect the court was not ruling on the statutes ultimate constitutionality.
And yet. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a passionate dissent, Presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law
a majority of justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand. President Biden powerfully joined those critical of the courts decision. Declaring that the ruling promises to unleash [..] unconstitutional chaos, Biden promised to work to protect the constitutional right to abortion first recognized in Roe v Wade.
How might the president do so? Back in April, Biden empaneled a bipartisan commission of scholars, lawyers and jurists tasked with exploring the issue of court packing. The commission is scheduled to submit its report later this fall, which returns us to Justice Brennans five wiggling fingers.
There is nothing magical about the number nine, the present size of the supreme court. The constitution provides that there shall be one supreme Court, but says nothing about the courts size or composition; these are matters left to Congress. In the early decades of the nation, Congress changed the number of justices six different times, from as few as five to as many as 10, before settling on nine in 1869. In 1937, Franklin Roosevelt, frustrated by a reactionary supreme court that resisted his New Deal initiatives, proposed expanding the supreme courts bench to 15. Congress correctly rejected that court-packing plan as an attempt to manipulate the court to generate specific outcomes.
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https://www.yahoo.com/news/president-biden-texas-shows-t-101617308.html
marble falls
(57,014 posts)JT45242
(2,252 posts)It is good sense and correctly addresses the senate screw job to give Trump 2 extra appointments.
jimfields33
(15,705 posts)Democratic congress makes it 30. Repugs make it 42. Oh what fun. Vote and vote. Thats how to change the court. At least 2 justices on the evil side are in their 70s. Alito, Thomas and Roberts is 66.
Fiendish Thingy
(15,555 posts)The larger the court, the less influence each individual Justice has.
I dont think this senate will kill the filibuster in order to change the law, but if the GOP gets control of the WH and both chambers of congress in 2024, they will kill the filibuster in a heartbeat.
If, by chance, the filibuster is killed, Biden adding a minimum of six seats would be a great step towards balancing the court system. It would also increase the chances of passing voting rights, which in turn would reduce the chances of the GOP gaining control of the government.
But Im not holding my breath.
Runningdawg
(4,514 posts)It's going to be a moot point after that date.
marble falls
(57,014 posts)... pack voting booths and change the Senate.