Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg apparently got the message this week that he cannot hope to win the Democratic nomination without promising radical measures, including the packing of the Supreme Court. After denouncing the current Court as “rogue” for not ruling as the left has demanded, Buttigieg endorsed the plan of Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren to pack the Court to reverse adverse constitutional interpretations.
For years, the Supreme Court had a liberal majority that overturned dozens of long-standing cases. That was not viewed as the work of a rogue court. Yet, even as President Donald Trump attacks this Court for ruling repeatedly against him, liberals are now demanding court packing. As the party becomes more radicalized, any candidate expressing doubts over radical demands like court packing is unlikely to make it out of the primaries.
Accordingly, “Mayor Pete” is reaching for Court-Packing Kool-Aid.
In making his pitch to the Rainbow PUSH Coalition convention, Buttigieg knew that he had to offer some radical bona fides. He decided to offer up the Supreme Court:
“We have to do [something] with the Supreme Court, that is now a rogue Supreme Court. To see them eviscerate the Voting Rights Act is to see them reverse some of the most important progress this country ever made, wiping out Black political representation, but also wiping out part of what actually is great within the complex American story.”
That description is part of a campaign of disinformation about the Court’s recent decision to end racial gerrymandering. The Court reaffirmed that the Voting Rights Act would be used to prevent any intentional racial discrimination. It banned states (almost entirely Democratic states) from engaging in racial discrimination to guarantee election results based on the race of the candidates.
He then thrilled the crowd by promising to pack the Court to guarantee the results that he and they are demanding. Declaring that it is “time to think big,” Buttigieg explained:
“Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that there have to be nine Supreme Court justices. That one doesn’t even take a constitutional amendment. It just takes a readiness to set up a court that fits this country. We could have 13 seats matching the district structure of the federal judiciary, but also a process that makes it less partisan.”
Buttigieg appears to be referring to the circuit system, not the district court system.
What is most striking is that he promises to reverse decisions on issues like racial gerrymandering by packing the Court, but then says it will make the Court “less partisan.”
The whole point of adding four new justices selected by the Democrats is to create an instant majority to their liking and to reverse past rulings.
Years ago, I wrote an academic piece on the possible expansion of the Supreme Court, but there is a world of difference between that and a court-packing plan. Under my proposal, the court’s expansion would take almost two decades to ensure that no president could pack the court.
Various Democrats have been pledging to not only impeach Trump (and a long list of other figures), but to pack the Supreme Court as soon as they regain power.
James Carville declared, “If the Democrats win the presidency and both houses of Congress, I think on day one, they should expand the Supreme Court to 13. F— it. Eat our dust. Don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it. Just do it.”
This Nike School of Constitutional Law is catching on with a wide array of pundits and professors. Just do it.
Years ago, Harvard professor Michael Klarman laid out a radical agenda to change the system to guarantee Republicans “will never win another election.” However, he warned that “the Supreme Court could strike down everything I just described.” Therefore, the court must be packed in advance to allow these changes to occur.
Former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder has put packing the Supreme Court front and center, explaining, “[We’re] talking about the acquisition and the use of power if there is a Democratic trifecta in 2028.”
At base is a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the Court. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) not only renewed her previous call to pack the court but said the court was illegitimate for rendering decisions against “widely held public opinion.” Former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) said the court “defies the will of the people.” Reporter John Haltiwanger insisted that “the court is clearly not representative of the U.S. public. It’s supposed to be the people’s court.”
In reality, the court was never meant to be that. It was meant to be the Constitution’s court, designed to stand against everyone and everything except the Constitution. In a system designed to protect the minority, the court (like the Constitution) is counter-majoritarian in much of what it does.
With the Supreme Court removed as a barrier to the left’s radical agenda, Democrats could indeed fulfill the objectives laid out by figures like Klarman to ensure they never lose power again.
That will make the 2028 election the most consequential election for our constitutional history in decades. The outcome will most immediately decide the fate of an institution that has been a stabilizing force for centuries. Even though this Court has ruled against the Trump Administration on a variety of key issues, the left is still demanding that it either yield to all of their demands or face a hostile takeover.
On our 250th anniversary, these reckless and radical voices remind us that (as Benjamin Franklin warned us) this is our Republic if we can keep it.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
Then why do Republicans like to invoke Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln? The Republicans of the past were a lot different from the Republicans of today.
Better idea. Impeach and convict every justice who fails to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void, and impeach and convict all congressmen and senators who fail to impeach and convict.
“…courts…must…declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void.”
“…men…do…what their powers do not authorize, [and] what [their powers] forbid.”
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“[A] limited Constitution … can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing … To deny this would be to affirm … that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.”
– Alexander Hamilton
It was a Democratic administration that defeated Germany and Japan, a noteworthy accomplishment.
It was the might of the US military. The Supreme leader of allied forces in Europe became a Republican president.
But also, the D party of 90 years ago was not insane.
Anon– Well and truly said.
What about Alger Hiss et al., including his president who implemented communist programs far and wide, many that still exist today when their “sunsetting” was guaranteed.
Eisenhower may have been a Republican, but Ike had his doubts about the rightwing faction of the party. They weren’t Ike’s people and he was clear on that.
That would be a far right fringe – there is still a small far right fringe. Nothing is different – except that left wing nuts call all republicans rightwing.
Ike was more conservative than most republicans today.
Anon– If you think Democrats then were much like the lunatics calling themselves Democrats now you are recently hatched and something of a bewildered chick.
They had their delusions but they didn’t root against America in the war nor did they wish we would lose.
The Communists, whom the current ‘Democrats’ closely resemble, were loudly opposed to American involvement in the war when the Soviet Union was allied with Nazi Germany at the beginning, both attacking Poland and murdering Poles. But when Hitler attacked Russia, suddenly our Commies were demanding we intervene. They, like current Democrats, were not on the side of America or civilization, but embraced our once and future enemy.
I will allow that some of the evil seeds were present among Democrats even then. It was a Democrat president who rounded up American citizens of Japanese descent and put them in concentration camps.
Also, it was the Democrat progressives with Roosevelt whose programs actually extended The Great Depression by several miserable years.
Finally, it was visionaries like Musk, Kaiser for one, Higgins for another, but there were many more who gave our soldiers the tools to win. When Goebbels saw our reported production stats he refused to believe them, propaganda!, but they were true. Roosevelt was smart enough to get the government out of the way of the visionaries. No ‘Democrat’ today seems that smart.
The same point I was making.
https://x.com/RocketPulpHack/status/2066213540214472796
Yeah, the same one that sent us into the Great Depression. The same one that served three consecutive terms.
Hoover did that. The collections of impoverished and homeless were called Hoovervilles because of Hoover.
Actually the Depression was caused by the federal reserve – just like the great recession they kept interest rates too low for Too long.
Hayek predicted the great depression in advance.
But Hoover did botch handling the great depresion – Hoover WAS NOT a conservative – he was a republican progressive.
FDR called him a socialist in campaign adds.
And then as president FDR doubled down on the bad policies of Hoover – and made the great depression last even longer.
Historian Amity Shlaes has an excellent book on the great depression called “The Forgotten Man”
Very Good read
Campaign ads are often lies.
Didn’t know that investors chasing a bubble were doing so because the U.S. Fed controlled the entire world economy.
10,000 monkeys making 10,000 predictions will find one of them right from time to time.
Investors chasing a bubble didn’t cause a depression. It took active government involvement to do that, i.e. the Fed, which having caused the bubble by expanding the money supply, overreacted to the crash and drastically reduced the money supply, thus turning what should have been a recession into a depression. Then, just as it was ending, FDR was elected and plunged the country back into an even deeper depression.
YES… AND HISTORIANS TO-DAY FREQUENTLY COMPARE DONALD TRUMP TO HARRY TRUMAN saying that they both showed the same kind of Resolve and Toughness when it came to Protecting the USA
And yet. It was a Republican one that set the stage. The Civil war made the important advances to destroy the slavery that had kept us bound up. When you bring more blacks to the court don’t be surprised than more Clarence Thomases will emerge.
Not if you appoint committed neo-Marxists and statists.
I have begun to think that most Democrat political figures should have their faces on wanted posters, either for fraud, sedition, terrorism, or for merely being escaped lunatics.
I couldn’t make up some of the crap they espouse if I were writing a fantasy dystopian novel.
Young, EXCELLENT!!!
Faces on wanted posters…or their heads in guillotines.
Talk about serving up the Kool Aid. More MAGA pundit trash talk. Kavanaugh, Barrett and Gorsuch all lied about Roe v. Wade and stare decisis to get onto the Court. Their views and values are far right of the opinions and values of most Americans, who don’t want to wait for some of the Federalist Society choices to die or resign, and there’s nothing wrong with that because the Constitution, that Republicans used to support, until they got Federalist Society judges, does not require any certain number, and there have been differing numbers over the years. Here’s an excerpt from the Brennan Center for Justice on public sentiment regarding the SCOTUS:
” A Gallup poll measuring Supreme Court approval rating reached its lowest point (39 percent) since starting in 2000. This steep decline occurred after the contentious confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett following Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, and stayed low amid a series of ethics scandals involving the justices.
At the same time, Supreme Court reform remains overwhelmingly popular with the public. In September 2025, an Annenberg Public Policy Center poll found that 69 percent of Americans favor setting a specific number of years that Supreme Court justices can serve as opposed to lifetime appointments. Public support for term limits has been consistently popular over the past few years, with approval as high as 83 percent.
Additionally, support for ethics reform is high: The same Annenberg poll found that 78 percent of respondents support the creation of a formal ethics code for Supreme Court justices that allows for them to be investigated if they are accused of an ethical violation.”
So, contrary to the anti-Democrat usual MAGA spam, there is widespread support for change, which could include adding more justices, to make the Court more in line with the views and values of most Americans.
There should be more specialization. Justices make decisions about technologies they don’t understand.
The only technology necessary for the judicial branch to exercise ONLY the judicial power is the “technology” of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, 1789.
Technology has no place in la or government. Justices should NOT specialize.
The law should stay out of places where it does not belong.
Musk has privately built a rocket more powerful than a Saturn V in about the same amount of time, that is reusable, and he has done so with his own Money.
He is putting payloads into orbit for 1/100th the prior cost.
And he has not killed anyone in the process – in fct he saved astronaughts that NASA stranded in space.
Given a choice between government experts and Musk – I will pick Musk everytime.
And musk is just an example. Technology is NOT the business of law or govenrments.
The Supreme court does not need to understand technology to know if a contract was honored or a law was broken or rights were violated.
Musk had 60 years of technology progress to build his rocket. I can build a computer at home that is more capable than was available to NASA when the Saturn 5 was created, but it’s no miracle performance on my part. Musk also didn’t have to meet conflicting requirements as laid out in the laws that authorized the spending and had the benefit of seeing every error made by all the space agencies in the 60 prior years. He did it with the money of investors.
But none of those investors did it. He was the only one who could do it, so they lent him the money. That’s exactly how entrepreneurial expertise works. An entrepreneur puts together other people’s capital, labor, and real estate, and creates wealth that didn’t exist before, and that none of those contributing the capital or the labor could create. The workers get the wages of their labor, the investors get a market return on their investment, the landlord gets the rent for his property, and the surplus properly belongs to the entrepreneur who created it. The government, which contributed nothing, ought to get nothing.
The green-eyed monster comments. And tries to tear down a great achievement with this delusional comparison:
“I can build a computer at home . . .”
ATS – this is left wing nonsense.
Any nominee for a judicial position that tells how they will rule on any case should never be confirmed.
Even Ruth Bader Ginsberg though Rowe was a bad decision.
Further Rowe was overturned long ago by Casey. Rowe established an arbitrary standard – Trimesters. Casey overruled Rowe and switched to a medical science based standard – and that was the writing on the wall for the end of Abortion.
Dobbs was either going to toss the whole thing back to the states where it belongs or accept several states 15 week standard – effectively doing the same, and there were several states moving to 8 weeks – and those would have been before the court soon enough.
There is not and never has been a “right” to an abortion. Whether you beleive abortion should be allowed or not – there is no such Right.
Nor has SCOTUS ever claimed there was a right – the deciding law on Medical Rights is Buck V. Bell – a horrendous decision over a century ago that allowed sterilizing people with diminished capacity.
Buck v Bell was cited by the left in defending Covid Restrictions – it is unfortunately still good law.
If the state can force you to get an injection – it can force you to terminate a pregnancy or to keep a pregnancy – or any other medical decision it wants.
Regardless no on lied to the Senate.
Next Stare Decisis is just the proposition that all other things being close to equal – do not change past rulings.
It has no basis when for whatever reason it is clear that a past decision is unconstitutional.
Further only to democrats voted for Gorsuch – Manchin and Donnelly.
No democrats voted for Barrett – and Collins voted against her.
Two Republicans did not vote for kavanaugh – Murkowski and Daines – but Manchin did.
So no one was lied to.
Never learn to spell jawn. Never shange.
Kavanaugh, Barrett and Gorsuch all lied about Roe v. Wade and stare decisis to get onto the Court.
No, they didn’t. You and all Democrats are lying about this.
All of them correctly described the state of the law at the time. None of them could make any promise about how they would deal with any hypothetical case that might come before them. The Democrats tried to invent some concept they called “super stare decisis”; all three nominees refused to acknowledge such an absurd concept that has no place in American jurisprudence.
The US Senate in 1937, controlled by Democrats, wrote forcefully against the court packing scheme embraced by Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Today’s Democrats are not Democrats but the embodiment of a “needless, futile, and utterly dangerous abandonment of constitutional principle”.
For the attorneys on the blog and those who engage intellectual heft:
REORGANIZATION OF THE FEDERAL JUDICIARY
June 7 (calendar day, June 14), 1937.—Ordered to be printed
Mr. McCarran (for Mr. King), from the Committee on the Judiciary, submitted the following
ADVERSE REPORT
[To accompany S. 1392]
The Committee on the Judiciary, to whom was referred the bill (S. 1392) to reorganize the judicial branch of the Government, after full consideration, having unanimously amended the measure, hereby report the bill adversely with the recommendation that it do not pass.
The amendment agreed to by unanimous consent, is as follows:….
[….]
Summary
We recommend the rejection of this bill as a needless, futile, and utterly dangerous abandonment of constitutional principle.
It was presented to the Congress in a most intricate form and for reasons that obscured its real purpose.
It would not banish age from the bench nor abolish divided decisions.
It would not affect the power of any court to hold laws unconstitutional nor withdraw from any judge the authority to issue injunctions.
It would not reduce the expense of litigation nor speed the decision of cases.
It is a proposal without precedent and without justification.
It would subjugate the courts to the will of Congress and the President and thereby destroy the independence of the judiciary, the only certain shield of individual rights. It contains the germ of a system of centralized administration of law that would enable an executive so minded to send his judges into every judicial district in the land to sit in judgment on controversies between the Government and the citizen.It points the way to the evasion of the Constitution and establishes the method whereby the people may be deprived of their right to pass upon all amendments of the fundamental law. It stands now before the country, acknowledged by its proponents as a plan to force judicial interpretations of the Constitution, a proposal that violates every sacred tradition of American democracy.
Under the form of the Constitution it seeks to do that which is unconstitutional. Its ultimate operation would be to make this Government one of men rather than one of law, and its practical operation would be to make the Constitution what the executive or legislative branches of the Government choose to say it is—an interpretation to be changed with each change of administration.
It is a measure which should be so emphatically rejected that its parallel will never again be presented to the free representatives of the free people of America.
William H. King
Frederick Van Nuys
Patrick McCarran
Carr A. Hatch
Edward R. Burke
Tom Connally
Joseph C. O’Mahoney
William E. Borah
Warren R. Austin.
Frederick Steiwer.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/SERIALSET-10076_00_00-356-0711-0000/pdf/SERIALSET-10076_00_00-356-0711-0000.pdf
See for further discussion:
Barnett, Randy E., The Unconstitutionality of Supreme Court ‘Reform’: Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States Panel 5: ‘Composition of the Supreme Court’ (July 20, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4912326
What if our rights don’t really come from God? Does this mean that the Constitution is premised on a lie?
If 2+2=5 then my entire math edication is premised on a lie.
God-given rights and freedoms are natural and come from “nature” for all you atheists in Rio Linda and its ideological environs.
The Declaration says they are “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” and that “all men . . . are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”
I don’t have a problem with that.
Except the slaves. They had no rights.
The Declaration is clear: all men have the same unalienable rights. The Declaration was an expression of certain people’s opinions. It had no force of law. The constitution, which is law, was deliberately vague on slavery; its framers couldn’t ban the practice, but they refused to endorse it. They went out of their way to keep any mention of slavery out of the constitution, so as not to be seen as endorsing it. They would have banned it if they could, but that just wasn’t possible at that time.
But where did the author of the Declaration get this idea?
The Declaration’s author was not a Christian in any meaningful sense. He was a unitarian, though he didn’t call himself that. He got his ideas from Baroque-era Enlightenment philosophers such as Locke.
The constitution does not say rights come from god – the declaration says our rights come from our creator
It is not specific about who or what that is – and it is correct – man did not exist – and now we do
We were created – you can beleive by god, or nature or evolution – but we were created, more importantly we were created with Free Will.
While some other higher mamas demonstrate some minimal free will – and generally we provide some protections for those animals
No animal comes close to having the free will that humans do.
Free Will is specifically why enslaving a human is wrong – but not a Cow or a Horse
Without rights – we can not have free will. Th fact that we have free will means we have rights.
The constitution doesn’t mention God. It merely presumes that certain rights exist, without specifying where they come from. The Declaration is the document that attributes them to God; but the Declaration is merely a statement of opinion, and has no force of law. The signers were of the opinion that our rights come from God; you are free to disagree with them. You are even free to disagree that our rights exist at all; but if so you are wrong, and if you try to act on your wrong belief we will kill you.
James Comey is guilty of conspiracy to endanger the President with co-conspirators he wittingly or unwittingly created or assisted in inciting.
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“‘Deranged message’ on National Mall sparks police probe as Trump security fears mount”
– Fox News
OT
Deranged message? Was it a copy of Trump’s recent tweets?
James Comey was critical to getting Trump elected in the first place.
I don’t think “conspiracy to endanger the president” is a crime.
Comey is scum, but even if we were to accept the absurd idea that “86” means “kill” rather than merely “eject”, advocating the president’s assassination isn’t and can’t be a crime.
Every day, a new step is taken further away from the Constitution and American freedom.
One wonders why the Founders and Framers wrote the Second Amendment, which even ostensibly actual Americans appear unable to grasp.
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“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
– Declaration of Independence, 1776
What makes you believe that you deserve to live under the Constitution? Maybe you don’t.
Ruling Expected Soon To Let Trump Purge Experts
In 1935, the high court ruled in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States that Congress could shield certain executive branch officials with firing protections.
It laid the groundwork over decades for expert agencies to enjoy a degree of independence from the White House. Today, those agencies investigate plane crashes, oversee product recalls, rule on federal worker rights, adjudicate union disputes and more.
Several of the conservative justices have already signaled they want to overturn Humphrey’s Executor, viewing it as a violation of presidential authority. Trump has teed them up to pull the plug.
He has fired various independent agency heads without claiming to have valid cause, and his firing of Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter set up a direct challenge to the precedent.
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5922350-supreme-court-final-opinions-trump-agenda/
………………………………….
If this court overturns precedent, yet again, the ruling should apply to SCOTUS as well; ‘they’ should be overturned and thrown-out like the experts Trump wants to fire.
This idea that one, unstable president should have the authority to chase every real professional out of government could open the door to a government of political hacks; which is exactly what the 1935 decision intended to prevent.
Of course, this is nullification, subversion, insurrection, and treason, comrade.
The legislative and judicial branches enjoy no power to usurp and exercise executive power.
Humphrey’s Executor v. United States is unconstitutional.
The singular American failure is the judicial branch, with emphasis on the Supreme Court.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Article 2, Section 1
The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.
ATS
Your own argument defeats you.
You are free to make any changes you wish to the structure of govenrment – By amendment the constitution.
Without doing so – we have the independent branchs – not 247.
As a practical matter the concept of “independent experts” with anything remotely approaching actual power – is both ludicrously stupid and blatantly unconstitutional.
Both inside and outside government – “Experts” are advisors NOT decision makers.
Businesses have bosses or CEO’s – these CONSULT Experts, they often do as experts recommend – but decisions are made by the boss.
Bosses can DELEGATE a decision, and they do all the time. They can also rescind that delegation.
The same is true outside of business – in YOUR life – the decisions are made by YOU. You consult – often paying for advice from Experts – but YOU make decisions.
The world – not just govenrment works this way – because centuries have taught us this works best.
Some things in the world are top down – others are bottom up.
Nothing is from the middle out.
If you are an “expert” – you have the power and authority to make final decisions ONLY in your live.
Elsewhere you provide advice – and others decide whether to follow that advice or not.
The same it true of the structure of govenrment – The US – and pretty much ALL countries have legislative, executive and judiciary branchs.
Not myriads of independent branches. And – middle out just does not work – not in life, not in government.
Beyond the practical – the constitution created 3 independent branches of govenrment – not 247.
There is a legislative, executive and judicial branch – those are the only branches in our govenrment.
Those are the only constitutionally legitimate independent entities.
ATS can’t wipe his backside without a toilet paper expert telling him how to do it each time.
The constitution explicitly says that the executive power belongs to the president. Not to “experts”, and not to Congress. Every member of the government must be responsible to the president. No one in 1935 had any authority to change that.
What the SCOTUS decided in 1935 was NOT that people independent of the president could wield executive power, but that the FTC, as it was constituted at the time, was not wielding executive power. It wasn’t really part of the government, but more of a quasi-judicial body, or so the court found. Nowadays that is clearly not the case. The FTC executes the law, which is an authority the constitution explicitly reserves for the president alone. So Humphrey’s Executor is not so much wrong as obsolete. It refers to a reality that no longer exists.
Split into your various skin color States. Everyone promptly ignore all federal laws. Fixed it.
Buttgig is an immoral man. You get what you get…
I have a great idea. Let’s take marriage from normal, child-bearing, heterosexual Americans and give full dominion to barren, perversions and freaks of nature, the homosexuals.
Oh, wait. The communist tyrants already did that “fake” marriage thing, huh?
Is Trump a moral man?
@Anonymous
Is Anonymous a remedial high school student?
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
A.I.:
The U.S. Constitution Article III simply establishes the existence of the Court, leaving the power to determine the number of Justices entirely to Congress.
Throughout American history, Congress has used this power to change the size of the Court several times to reflect the growing nation or for political reasons:
• 1789: Set at 6 Justices (1 Chief Justice, 5 Associates).
• 1807: Expanded to 7 Justices.1837: Expanded to 9 Justices.
• 1837: Expanded to 9 Justices.
• 1863: Expanded to 10 Justices.1866: Reduced to 7 Justices.
• 1866: Reduced to 7 Justices.
• 1869: Set at 9 Justices, which has remained the standard to this day.
Because this number is determined by statute rather than the Constitution itself, Congress could theoretically pass a new law to expand or reduce the Court. You can review the exact statutes governing this on Title 28, Section 1 of the U.S. Code.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1
I think the early changes were for good reasons
got anything more recent than 157 years ago?
Wait!
Does that challenge the Constitution and Bill of Rights of 1789???
No, I know, it challenges the Bible of 1200 B.C.
Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness!
There are two issues – the first is whether expanding SCOTUS is constitutional – without any doubt it is.
The 2nd is whether it is a good idea – without any doubt it is not.
As a practical matter – 9 justices is TOO MANY. The court should have either 7 or even better 5.
It is more agile with fewer justices.
While there is a good reason to consider creating something like a Superior Court of the United States – basically a nationwide appellate court with a large number of members that sits between the district appellate courts and the Supreme court, that hears cases in smaller panels, that has roughly the same power as the Supreme Court EXCEPT that its decisions are NOT final.
The purpose of such a superior court of the united states is to relieve the Supreme court of the burden of dealing with the massive number of cases it hears – or declines to hear. Allowing the supreme court to step in ONLY when the US Superior court gets things wrong.
Not all cases appearing before the Supreme Court require the full court to deal with them. They are already confronted with too many cases to handle properly. There is no constitutional support for some intermediate court.
“when the US Superior court gets things wrong”
Who would decide that they got it wrong before it gets to the Supreme Court?
Article III Section 1.
The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.
ALL courts except the Supreme court are established by law – not the constitution – the power to create US Federal courts beongs to congress.
“Who would decide that they got it wrong before it gets to the Supreme Court?”
no one – things would work as they do now – if you lost at the superior court you could appeal to the supreme court
and unless the supreme court could refuse to the the case.
The supreme court would no longer have to deal with circuit splits.
And since the superior court would primarily be concerned with standardizing law accross the country – the Supreme court would only need to step in when they got it wrong.
This would substantially reduce SCOTUS’s workload, while preserving them as the Final Authority and guiding light on the constitution.
there’s no question that Congress can change the number of justices on the Court. The question is why? What reason is there that doesn’t start with “Dems don’t like some of the decisions”
Pete had a Supreme Court plan in 2019 when he ran for President that is discussed in the linked article below. Professor Turley should have mentioned or discussed the 2019 plan in this post. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/inside-pete-buttigieg-s-plan-overhaul-supreme-court-n1012491
Why are we wasting our time on Pete?
The fact that Trump nominated and appointed SCOTUS Justices who have ruled against him tells me that we need no more than nine justices for a healthy Court. (While Trump will criticizes any decision losses, -so did Obama and Clinton.)
Looking at six cases:
“The cases span the October 2025 Term, the final argument of which took place on Wednesday, Apr.29 [2026]. The three unanimous decisions studied (Barrett v. United States, Berk v. Choy, and Ellingburg v. United States) were each resolved 9-0. The three contested decisions (United States Postal Service v. Konan, Bowe v. United States, and Hencely v. Fluor Corp.) divided 5-4, 5-4, and 6-3, respectively..” https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/05/what-oral-argument-behavior-reveals-about-supreme-court-unanimity-and-division/
That’s a sign of good, healthy, jurisprudence.
Adding more justices does nothing to change that—unless they are added for political reasons.
The Justices were selected and presented on a silver platter to Trump by the Federalist Society, which is the organization they truly work for. The Heritage Foundation has similar interests and didn’t challenge the Federalist Society picks. The policies of the Heritage Foundation are the ones that Trump signed as their autopen. It’s a problem for both organization when Trump goes off-script but it is fine for them when he distracts the public from their converting the government into an oligarchy.
So what is your point, clown? Obama gave us one of the most extremely-biased, chip-on-the-shoulder, left-wing hardnose on the Court–Sotomayor.
It’s not Buttigieg, it was Lincoln.
Lincoln’s wartime actions realized Madison’s warning about “instruments of tyranny at home.”
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“If our nation is ever taken over, it will be taken over from within.”
“If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
“A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.”
– James Madison
I have previously given solid reasons that the Supreme Court needs expanding to 15 justices.
Isn’t ‘packing’.
By the way at least 2 of the current justices need removal for lack of good behavior.
It would certainly be “packing” if 6 new justices were added to the court in one fell swoop. Please explain this need for a larger Court. Is there any non-partisan reason, one that is not simply based on the desire to change the ideological makeup of the Court?
Precisely.
There is no reason to make the court larger.
There are excellent reaqson to make it smaller.
In the past DBB has argued that it needs to be larger because the Supreme Court is overworked.
The best way to make that problem worse is to expand the supreme court.
If SCOTUS is overworked – create an intermediate court – between the circuit apeals courts and the supreme court.
That probably shoudl be structured like all other appelate courts – a large number of judges – that hear cases in small panels.
If you creat a US superior court – then SCOTUS only has to hear appeals when the supreior court “Gets it wrong”
Even if that is 50% of the time – it should be far less, you have reduced the workload of the supreme court by 50%.
John Say — Fine. A second layer of appeals court, but with national consequences, not just regional.
Accomplishes the same goal, the elimination of the so-called emergency or shadow docket.
I agree.
I doubt it eliminates the shadow/emergency docket – those matters have to be handled exiditiously regardless.
The superior court could end up with a Shadow/emergency Docket too.
And any decision of the superior court COULD be appealed to the supreme court.
But the frequency of that would be reduced.
Most court decisions do not get appealed.
Most lost appeals do not get appealed higher.
….
A single national court below the supreme court would likely reduce supreme court cases by half – and that is even if it was hyper left partisan. And likely by 90% if it was sane and constitutional.
The Supreme court does not have to take any case.
It does not take a case unless 4 justices agree to. That is less likely if the case was decided correctly below.
With a national court between the supreme court and the lower courts – the problem of circuit splits would go away.
Normalizing national law would be the superior courts job. Fixing it ONLY when they get that wrong the supreme courts job.
Further – this is just my proposal. I think it is a good idea. But doing nothing is not all that bad.
I would also gradually reduce the supreme court to 7 and then to 5 justices – that would make the supreme court more agile.
I would suggest a superious court of 2 or 3 fro each circuit – you could even rotate them. but only 5 hearing each case.
As a completely separate matter – we do need more federal judges – probably twice as many as we have.
But neither party is going to allow the other party to appoint that many and the judges themselves have a vested interest in thwarting the expansion of the courts.
Right now the big money interests speed run failing at lower courts to get to the Supreme Court. Adding another level just adds to the cost and does nothing to stop the flow. If the District Courts are not enough to stop it, another layer also won’t stop it.
I can not make the slightest sense of your post.
we do not elect federal judges – we appoint them for life.
That is purportedly so they are immune to special interests.
That does not work perfectly – but it works pretty well.
The case load for lower court is WAY higher than they can expiditiously handle.
Money gets you better lawyers – it does not get you a judge – and if it does – they should go to jail.
Does adding another layer make it more expensive to fight all the way to the supreme court – absolutely.
But most cases are not appealed, and most lost appeals are not kicked a level higher.
The change in total is consequential only if you are going to fight a near certain losing battle to the bitter end.
DBB – there is no good reason to expand the court – large deliberative bodies are horribly inefficient.
This is why even congress has committees and subcommittees.
The US Supreme court would work better with FEWER justices – not more.
The more members you put on the court -0 the more messy decisions will be.
If you wish to completely destroy precedent – expand the court to 15 members.
To the greatest extent possible SCOTUS should make narrow decisions and do so if at all possible – unanimously.
The more members you put on the court the more fractured decisions you will get and rhe more disents and concurrances and the more likely you get weak plurality decisions and large by not quite large enough dissents.
Which leave lower courts even more lattitude than the currently have to do their own thing.
And that is a VERY BAD IDEA.
It is better for SCOTUS to make the WRONG decision that an unclear on.
When WRONG decisions are made – often there is a backlash that ultimately results in change.
Muddy decisions, just end up with a mess.
This is also why the court will hopefully overrule humphries executor.
As none other than FDR said almost a century ago – the US has ONE president at a time.
Again – Bad decisions often are temporary. The very worst decisons are unprincipled complex compromises that provide no direction.
You rant that SCOUTS needs more members – you state this as an obvious fact – but you do not actually make an argument – just a naked asserttion.
The FACT is that large deliberative bodies are HORRIBLY inefficient and muddy and get very little done.
If you wish to Weaken the Supreme court – expand it further.
If you wish to try to pack the court with left wing judges – do it the same way both parties have tried for decades.
Not by changing the rules midstream.
All that does is drive a never ending partisanship game.
Is this era the rise of the 3rd world?
Barack Hussein Obama (aka Barry Soetoro) was first to say the quiet part out loud ‘TO FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORM THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA; a constitutional republic created under God embracing and celebrating capitalism, free markets and individual freedoms.
Individual freedoms?
Like paying for welfare, affirmative action, forced busing, militarily-forced racial integration, and nullification of the absolute right to private property including unfair “fair housing” laws, discriminatory “non discrimination” laws, population-replacement immigration-invasion, etc. ???
The Running Mate Kamala Harris Didn’t Dare Choose
“I love Pete,” she writes in her new book. But picking a gay man would have been too risky.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/09/kamala-harris-running-mate-pete-buttigieg/684249/
Pete was rejected by Kamala Harris as a running mate because he is gay, was dismissed as a limp wrist for Tim Waltz, but still shills for Democrats. Pete is a man who is desperate and embodies true self-loathing
Sorry, Pete, Democrats have no respect for you. Perhaps if you reached out to Scott Bessent, you could follow his trajectory in being a successful, intelligent and impactful leader
The best choice would have been Josh Shapiro but he’s Jewish which is contrary to the party’s beliefs. So they went with the only political dumber than Carmela herself, which I didn’t think was possible.
I live in PA – I do not like Shapiro.
He promised School Choice in order to get elected – and reneged once in office.
One of the reasons that voters are loyal to Trump is he keeps his promises.
That said – as Democrats go – Shapiro is about the least looney choice Harris could have made.
But the rumors I heard when Harris was picking – was that Shapiro and many others turned Harris Down.
That they beleived that being on a ticket with Harris was an end to their political carreer.
Worked out that way for Walz.
Yeah – Trump delivered on lower gas prices. And lower grocery prices. And no wars.
People are loyal to Trump because he harms the people that his followers wish they could harm. He’s the Grand Wizard of the modern Ku Klux Klan who has taken off the hood and done the work in the light of day.
“Trump delivered on lower gas prices. And lower grocery prices. And no wars.”
None of those are in his platform.
That said – Gas prices are still below the Biden average – and the news tells me that the price of oil dropped to almost the same price it was in February today.
Most current inflation is the consequence of Energy prices Taxes for most americans are much lower, wages are up more than inflation,
Venezuela is no longer disrupting the US or her neighbors. Left wing nut governments all over south america have fallen.
The UK, Germany and FRance will near certainly have conservative governents in the next election. La Penn is promising that either the EU gives France more soveriegnity – particularly over borders, or there will be FRexit. And La Penn is polling at more than double any other contender.
The world is rejecting left wing nuts. The process is just slow.
I have no idea if the deal struck with Iran will be honored – but unlike the JCPOA – this deal has teeth. The teeth are not in the document – whatever it says, but in the knowledge that if Iran does not behave – the US and Israel will be back.
Further this has united most of the mideast – With Israel against Iran. If Iran does not behave – the other nations in the mideast may solve the problem themselves. Israel now has military security agreements with most gulf nations.
Lots of people are debating what is in this deal – it does not matter. What matters is that the nations of the mideast are fed up with Iran.
Trump did not promise no wars – no president will ever promise that.
He promised no forever wars, No pointless wars not in US interests.
Interestingly – now that there appears to be a Peace Deal – Europe wants to be a part of it.
Those on the right are MOSTLY right – this was Not Our Fight – it was a necescry war. But not ours.
Israel and other mideast nations should have done this. Europe should have joined long before we did.
Iran was a decade away from being a nuclear threat to the US – she was 5 years away from being a nuclear threat to Europe.
And 2 years away from being a threat to Israel and other gulf nations.
More importantly – this was very likely the last moment that could be stopped.
The leader of Tren De Aragua was take out today – a joint US Venezuelan mission.
Cuba is collapsing slowly.
the odds of Russia winning in Ukrane have flipped.
Expect a peace deal in Russia.Ukraine shortly.
Russia China, and Cuba were all more negatively impacted by this than anywhere else.
We have not seen a retreat of the left like this since the collapse of the berlin wall.
Russia is not producing enough oil to meet domestic needs – even though they have the 3rd largest reserves in the world.
They are in trouble in Crimea and Ukraine – The Iran war cut off 40% of their munitions.
China and Cuba were dependant on oil from the shadow fleet.
“People are loyal to Trump because he harms the people that his followers wish they could harm.”
Trump harms the people who harm them.
YOU are the threat to THEM – Trump is their protection.
All they want is to be left alone.
Not told what pronouns they must use
Not force to have their ids educated in values they do not hold and sexualized and possibly perved or raped at a young age.
Not told they must buy dishwashers that do not work, Cars whose engines disintegrate after 40,000 miles,
Not told they must inject themselves with an experimental vaccine that data from Japan now indicates increases excess deaths by a factor of 4 over the unvaccinated and it gets worse with each now shot.
Not told they can not go to church
Not told they can not go to the jim.
Not told that they must surrender their jobs to illegal aliens and see their rents rise, crime rise, drug deaths rise, medical costs rise – all of which are dramatically changing – because 2.9M people either were deported or self deported in 2025
Not to be spied on for their beleifs.
not told what they can and can not say or post on social media.
Not be alled Nazis because they will not kowtow to your nonsense.
All they want is for idiots like you – who have not succeeded in ANYTHING you have ever done to FORCE your will on them.
You are free to screw up your own life as much as you wish.
LEAVE THE REST OF US ALONE.
And yes – lots of people want to see those on the left who pulled all this crap lawlessly fitted for orange jumpsuits.
https://www.pixelstalk.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Dont-Tread-On-Me-Photos.jpg
He didn’t keep his promises. He promised no new wars. He started one. He promised lower prices. They’ve been riding. He promised lower inflation. It’s rising.
What promises has he kept?
He did not promise any of those things.
Buttigieg: a man without accomplishments whose ambition vastly exceeds his talent and ability.
Buttigieg is hoping that he can declare his very first accomplishment and ambition as going down in history as the first openly-gay president. I could care less if he is gay, but I know he would want network media to show him and his “wife” kissing, hugging, and congratulating.
He believes his greatest accomplishment was taking paternity leave as Transportation Secretary at the height of the supply chain crisis during Covid.
The realest thing about Buttplug are his breasts…