I have previously criticized Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., for his almost unrivaled advocacy of censorship and speech controls. Blumenthal previously threatened social media companies not to “backslide” in censoring opposing views. Now, Blumenthal is taking up the cudgel of court packing with not so subtle threats to conservative justices that, if they do not vote with their liberal colleagues, the Court may be fundamentally altered. He is not alone in such reckless and coercive rhetoric.
Blumenthal told The Hill:
“It will inevitably fuel and drive an effort to expand the Supreme Court if this activist majority betrays fundamental constitutional principles. It’s already driving that movement. Chipping away at Roe v. Wade will precipitate a seismic movement to reform the Supreme Court. It may not be expanding the Supreme Court, it may be making changes to its jurisdiction, or requiring a certain numbers of votes to strike down certain past precedents.”
The statement is reminiscent of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer declaring in front of the Supreme Court “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.”
Democratic leaders not only have embraced court packing but now openly threaten the Court to vote with the liberal justices or face dire consequences for the Court. The effort seems to be a play for the change in voting on the Court the followed prior threats for court packing in the 1930s. Faced with a conservative majority ruling against his New Deal legislation, Roosevelt called for up to six additional justices, one for every justice older than 70. That was basically the profile of the “four horsemen” blocking his measures.
Like the latest calls, the FDR plan was based on politics rather than principle. When the politics changed, the plan died. FDR dropped his plan as soon as he got what he wanted with a favorable majority. That is why the switch of Justice Owen Roberts in favor of a New Deal case became known as a “switch in time that saved nine.”
The Democrats are pushing to engage in court packing despite polls showing heavy opposition to the move from voters as well as opposition from the justices themselves. Before Ginsburg died, nine nominations had occurred in election years since 1900, and Ginsburg herself said in 2016 that the Senate had to do its “job” and vote on such nominations because “there’s nothing in the Constitution that says the president stops being president in his last year.” Moreover, Ginsburg also opposed expanding the Court, but she is not being cited by liberals as the reason to doing precisely what she opposed as inimical to the functioning of the Court. Justice Steven Breyer has also denounced the move to pack the court.
None of that matters to Democratic members who know that court packing is popular with the most extreme elements of their party.
Many of us have discussed the expansion of the Supreme Court through the years. Over 20 years ago, I recommended the expansion of the Court to 17 or 19 members. However, that recommendation would occur over many years and would not give advocates the short-term majority that they are seeking. That is the difference between reforming and packing the Court.
It is particularly chilling to see United States senators openly pressuring justices to vote with their side or face severe consequences. Blumenthal went as far as to mention specific cases and the expected rulings. This follows raw demands in the confirmation hearing of now Justice Amy Coney Barrett that she promise to rule on particular cases “correctly” as a condition for her confirmation.
The question is whether the Democrats are overplaying their hand. Recently, a Democratic “dark money” group called Demand Justice, had a billboard truck in Washington the next day in the streets of Washington warning “Breyer, retire. Don’t risk your legacy.” The group is calling for open court packing to force a liberal majority. (Demand Justice once employed White House press secretary Jen Psaki as a communications consultant, and Psaki was on the advisory board of one of its voting projects.) The question is whether Breyer will accommodate such demands from the left or feel conversely that he should remain on the bench to show that such tactics do not influence members.
These not-so-veiled threats could have the same inverse impact on members like Chief Justice John Roberts, who could view the attempt to influence the justices as a far greater threat than any court-packing scheme.
How does someone as ignorant and feral as Blumenthal get elected to the Senate? He epitomizes the intolerant, totalitarian Left.
Because Blumenthal lives in the Left wing cesspool called “Connecticut”.
Their government is having trouble paying all the government financial commitments the politicians traded public service unions for votes. That is the primary reason that public servants should not be permitted to unionize, they find the campaigns of those who will provide more taxpayer goodies after they’re elected. The arrangement is immoral and negotiations are not an arms-length transaction as the taxpayers are not at the table. Even none other than FDR agreed with that!
Professor,
You’ll have to forgive “Blumie” Blumeanderthal. He still suffers a teensy bit from PTSD, caused by years of pretending he was fighting in Viet Nam.
My recollection is that attorneys who threaten judges get disbarred or censured.
SCOTUS went Communist 7 to 2.
So… “Think like me, or else?”
My! How very Husseinian of you.
As a radically libertarian Christian, I agree with AOC (even broken analog 12-hour clocks are right twice a day) in that 9 people with the last say is not tenable. She is wrong to think that the numbers make right (202- elections show they don’t really believe it either, the liars).
Nobody has the right to coerce somebody else to do anything, to give up anything. Voluntary transactions yield the best optimal outcome for two parties to an agreement as the participants view the case, the boat of voluntary market trade lifts both boats. Now add that up to the entire population one by one. There is no way that inserting a negative (coercion, or initiation of force or threat of force) can make the sum any better.
Sure that’s a simplification of how it works. Go get Murray Rothbard’s Man Economy and the State to understand it better.
Freedom reigns. And wins in the end. And God will make it so.
The Supreme Court can rule a law unconstitutional. Without it, there would be no stopping legislators from ignoring the Constitution entirely.
It is entirely possible and probably that a majority of people would eventually vote for a law that unconstitutionally impacts a minority. By definition, a minority is helpless in a democracy that targets it. The SCOTUS is that last line of defense, the veto of an unconstitutional law.
Without it, the fickle mob would just ignore the Constitution.
That is the better argument. The Constitution and the court protect the rights of the minority the same as a majority. The Bill of Rights is most specifically designed to protect the minority. What would sen Blumenthal think if Breyer and Thomas came out and said, shut up and just do your branches work, or we swear to God that we will vote the opposite of what you want every time. They would never say that of course because they are professionals who know that one branch of government should not threaten another branch. So Democrats in Congress think that they should decide what is Constitutional. Where will the power grab end.
When they lose power. . Sooner the better.
Is Connecticut the leasing stste for lobotomies?
SCOTUS went Communist 7 to 2.
Am I incorrect or does the Senator always look like he just bit into a lemon?
Notice that there is a trend of Democrats making threats if votes or court cases don’t go their way?
Remember when Maxine Waters encouraged violence if the Chauvin jury didn’t return the verdicts she wanted?
Warning to conservative justices: deny your Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, and your little dog, too.
Another liberal scumbag who thinks he is above the courts. They rule what they rule.
Well, Da Nang Dick needs to be arrested for threatening and attempting to extort a federal judge.
This is the second chapter of the coming opus from the Esteemed Senator Blumenthal. It is to be entitled “Profiles in Courage Again”. The first, rather brief, chapter details his heroic efforts, above and beyond the call of duty and at severe peril to his own life, in the jungles of VietNam.
And somewhere in that book it’ll recount how he captained Harvard’s swim team while he was a leading law student.
This country is GREAT
The organizing principle is that the Democrats and their media enablers will take whatever position they think will help them gain and hold power.
Anonymous wonders:
“I have often wondered why the good professor attracts looney tunes like this so frequently…”
More to the point, why are there NO academics apparently willing to contribute to this forum. At least none who are prepared to be so identified. Isn’t that rather damning? I can’t help but wonder what Turley must think when he casts his pearls of wisdom before swine?
JS:
“More to the point, why are there NO academics apparently willing to contribute to this forum. “
******************
How could you possibly know that? Are you a swami, too?
Btw, I know for a fact that some do.
Why would any academics engage (other than anonymously) in today’s world of cancellation. Also, truth be told, there aren’t many academics left out there.
The important question in the “court packing” debate is why the communists (liberals, progressives, socialist, democrats, RINOs) are threatening the Supreme Court.
The answer is that they know that their entire American welfare state is illicit, illegitimate and unconstitutional.
Were a Supreme Court which supported the literal Constitution to suddenly appear, there would be no communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs) because they and the principles of communism they espouse and impose are irrefutably unconstitutional, antithetical and anti-American.
The manifest tenor:
Article 1, Section 8, provides Congress the power to tax ONLY for “…general Welfare…,” omitting and, thereby, excluding any power to tax for individual or specific welfare, redistribution of wealth or charity. The same article provides Congress the power to regulate ONLY money, the “flow” of commerce and land and naval Forces. Additionally, the 5th Amendment right to private property is not qualified by the Constitution and is, therefore, absolute, allowing Congress no power to claim or exercise dominion over private property, the sole exception being the full taking of property under the principle of eminent domain.
Government exists, under the Constitution and Bill of Rights, to provide maximal freedom to individuals while it is severely limited and restricted to merely facilitating that maximal freedom of individuals through the provision of security and infrastructure.
The entire communistic American welfare state is unconstitutional, including but not limited to, affirmative action, quotas, welfare, food stamps, rent control, social services, forced busing, minimum wage, utility subsidies, WIC, TANF, SNAP, HAMP, HARP, TARP, Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Labor, Energy, Obamacare, Social Security, Social Security Disability, Social Security Supplemental Income, Medicare, Medicaid, “Fair Housing” laws, “Non-Discrimination” laws, etc.
Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto 59 years after the adoption of the Constitution because none of the principles of the Communist Manifesto were in the Constitution. Had the principles of the Communist Manifesto been in the Constitution, Karl Marx would have had no reason to write the Communist Manifesto. The principles of the Communist Manifesto were not in the Constitution then and the principles of the Communist Manifesto are not in the Constitution now.
The incremental act of “…fundamentally transforming the United States of America…” began in 1860, contemporaneously with the progressive imposition of communism. Marx theorized the elimination of classes from society. “Crazy Abe” Lincoln did it.
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Freedom and Self-Reliance
A Constitutional solution is to assemble as in the 1st amendment on your state. With; people that will do the work; people that will form a Lawful grand jury and bring a true bill against these evil doers. On Oregon we bring Article I Section 1. We need; people to populate a VII amendment jury of peers to bring forth a verdict that has no appeal in law in Our Article III one supreme Court claiming original jurisdiction. There may be other solutions!! However, this one works; it is we the people in assembly, forming a civilian court of record, implementing Ex Parte Milligan which nullified Lieber Code/martial law.. DOJ, FBI, USMS, USMC, STATE OF OREGON all acquiesced and defaulted. Will you help your state assemble? You have a pulpit. It only takes 45. Americans on a state in a minimum of 21 days.. Invite all non evil Americans. It only takes 45 people, no persons.. all the best of every good fortune for the good, ronvrooman38@gmail.com
I have often wondered why the good professor attracts looney tunes like this so frequently…
Certainly it’s not his fault, as far as I can ascertained, maybe they’re all friends of Crazy George…
I can ascertained that you skipped English Grammar 101 and are unable to debate with cogency; your only proffer being ad hominem.
If you differ, you differ with the American Founders and Framers because I exist on quotes taken directly from their pens.
I apologize. I thought this was a forum for debate. I was unaware the opponents would be unarmed, believing they had previously prevailed, simply by showing up.
Oh, and thanks for reading, again.
“your only proffer being ad hominem.”
If his only proffer is ad hominem then it stands to reason it is likely another nasty comment from Anonymous the Stupid. He comes unarmed when intellect is required.
Anonymous,
The American Founders severely limited and restricted government and the vote – 88.4% of the population did not vote in the 1788 election. The Founders did not limit and restrict the opportunity for every citizen to read and understand the clear English language of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, or for every citizen to enjoy the rights, freedoms, privileges and immunities therein, which are not solely the realm of, not comprehended only by, and are not subject to rewrite or modification-through-“interpretation” by presumed academics, intellectuals and elitists, such as yourself.
In case it escaped your notice, ‘voting’ was not IN the constitution.
I dealt with cognitive dissonance until I was 75. I am no longer doing that. However, it is rampant in the Land of the coward and home of the slave. All the states and territories of the United States are under Lieber Code/martial law except Oregon. We assembled, formed a civilian court of record, implemented Ex Parte Milligan, which nullified Lieber Code/martial law. DOJ, USMS, FBI, USMC and STATE OF OREGON all acquiesced and defaulted to the Oregon Statewide Jural Assembly’s civilian court of record..
If they rule the “wrong way”??? Wherever does Senator Blumenthal think we are? Moscow? Beijing? Damascus?
Wow, I think you nailed it. This guy (and many others in the party) are just “Thugs.” Who voted for this tuurrdd?
Aren’t leftists always telling us to “respect the judiciary”? They only have respect when the courts are being used to promote “social justice” and other leftist political goals.
antonio
Antonio:
In a similar fashion, all women are to be believed…unless they make an accusation against a prominent Democrat.
Feminists support women…unless those women are stay at home mothers, Christians, conservatives, or biological women wishing to compete only against other biological women in sports.
Sure, they’re very supportive…of fellow believers only.