Congressional Democrats blocked an effort to introduce a constitutional amendment to bar the Court’s expansion, with many members reiterating their demand to pack the Court to create an instant liberal majority. The Democrats insisted the Court is broken and no longer legitimate because of partisan rulings they want reversed by a packed Court. Ironically, the vote came with the release of the latest Harvard-Harris polling showing that Congress itself is still the least respected institution, while the Supreme Court holds higher approval than either the White House or Congress.
Congress is still wallowing at 34 percent approval among the American people. Both parties are equally disliked, with 55% disapproval of the GOP and 53% disapproval of the Democratic Party.
Conversely, the Supreme Court continues to enjoy far greater approval from the public, currently at 49% at “very favorable” or “favorable.”
So which institution is being targeted for elimination or radical reform? Of course, it is the more popular Supreme Court.
Packing the court and other measures are unpopular with the public. Instead, Democrats hope to achieve these reforms through legislation. However, it must then pass judicial review.
Liberal professors and pundits have identified a court takeover as essential to, as one law professor put it, guaranteeing that the Democrats never lose another national election. As former Attorney General Eric Holder and Democratic strategist James Carville have made clear, it is about power and guaranteeing its retention.
There are now calls for a litmus test for Democratic candidates to pack the Court or get the sack.
Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) wants to take over the Court to reverse rulings against racial gerrymandering while other Democrats have demanded packing the Court to reverse immigration rulings.
They join a growing list of figures demanding the hostile takeover of the Court from Kamala Harris to Pete Buttigieg.
At its base is a fundamental misunderstanding of the Court’s role. 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.” However, the court was meant to be counter-majoritarian to protect minority groups and viewpoints from the majority will.
Notably, this effort is not even popular with the majority. It is a power play to force major institutional changes through Congress, including radically changing a Court that is more popular than Congress itself.
A more constructive reform (and less divisive) would be to reform the 1960’s so-called “War On Drugs” U.S. Supreme Court, where rulings like “Terry v. Ohio” completely gutted the 4th Amendment.
Rulings like “Terry v. Ohio” essentially illegally amended the 4th Amendment (changing the spirit or intent of search & seizure laws).
The 1960’s members of the U.S. Supreme Court did not have the authority to change the letter & spirit of the 4th Amendment without a new constitutional amendment.
Why these illegal 1960’s rulings matter? It led to “Stop & Frisk” warrantless body searches, selectively enforced against poor people mostly African-Americans. Then allowed the illegal preemption and search practices in the Bush era’s “War On A Tactic”.
Since the 4th Amendment was not enforced equally in the richer white suburbs, millions of African-Americans were had lifetime criminal records and served jail time by police officers and prosecutors violating 4th Amendment law. Criminal justice experts estimated that marijuana and drug use was about equal in the richer suburbs, but suburban kids weren’t subjected to Stop & Frisk, arrested or convicted like poor kids in mostly non-white neighborhoods.
In more recent 4th Amendment law breaking, officials in some Southern states were violating the 4th Amendment rights of women traveling to states where abortion was legal – without judicial warrants from judges.
Constitutional law is a “construction” – so an illegal “foundation” was created during the so-called “War on Drugs”. That illegal foundation was then built upon w its more illegal rulings. The 4th Amendment is arguably the clearest worded amendment in the U.S. Constitution.
The duty of the 1960’s U.S. Supreme Court was to interpret the letter & spirit of the U.S. Constitution and apply it to modern times and modern technology. On 4th Amendment law, the current Supreme Court has actually done a great job correcting many of the bad rulings from the 1960’s and 1970’s.
On 4th Amendment law, the current U.S. Supreme Court has passed “Jones v. U.S.” (outlawing warrantless GPS searches) and “Carpenter v. U.S.” (outlawing warrantless cell phone tracking).
In the “Carpenter” ruling, the court created the “Personal Mapping Clause” – outlawing warrantless totalitarian style surveillance itself. The actual longterm surveillance itself is a “search” and requires a warrant.
Likely happening later this year, the high court will rule whether the federal government can practice (warrantless) totalitarian style surveillance on small lobster fisherman in Maine – where no probable cause of a crime exists and no police officer/agent has accused them of any wrongdoing to a judge.
When FDR threatened ṭo pack the court, everybody rallied against it, and history says that he lost that battle. In reality, the court felt so threatened that it started ruling for FDRs unconstitutional policies.
From “Demand Justice”:
“A new poll from Marquette University Law school shows that 54% of Americans support increasing the number of justices on the Supreme Court, while only 46% oppose it. That is the highest level of support and lowest level of opposition to Supreme Court expansion Marquette has found since it started asking about the proposal in 2019. A new Morning Consult | Politico poll similarly shows +8 support for expansion.
Support for structural reform makes sense when you consider the evidence shows Americans’ trust in the Court has cratered in the wake of partisan rulings and ethics scandals:
Gallup reports that views of the Court “remain near record lows,” with 58% of Americans saying they disapprove of the way the Supreme Court is handling its job, compared to just 41% who approve of it. Meanwhile, Gallup shows fewer than half of Americans say they have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in the judicial branch for only the second time since 1973.
Marquette reports that “approval of the Court has remained below 50% since May 2022,” with the latest numbers showing 57% of respondents disapprove of the job the Court is doing while just 43% approve. Marquette also finds that a majority of Americans believe the justices’ decisions are motivated mainly by politics, rather than the law.”
Now that MAGA and Leo Leonard’s Federalist Society have packed and stacked the SCOTUS with ultra-right wingers who ignore the Constitution and stare decisis, they want to portray a more balanced Court as some kind of left-wing anti-Constitutional undemocratic move. Not working.
“A new poll from Marquette University Law school shows that *54%* of Americans support increasing the number of justices on the Supreme Court, while only *46%* oppose it.” (emphases added)
You misread or lied about your own poll. Nicely done.
More importantly, the validity of a political policy is not determined by majority feelings.
Next up IMHO – propose expanding the court now why R’s control the road – any bets on what the D/Left would do – besides not vote for it.
Scene: Villainous leadership of powerful organization reveal their plan to achieve their nefarious goals by eliminating obstacles in their path to power, especially opponents who are more popular than themselves.
The Left’s “demand to pack the Court to create an instant liberal majority.”
Either out of ignorance or intellectual dishonesty, some conflate *expanding* the court and *packing* the court.
The expanding argument: It’s needed for the efficient operation of justice.
The packing argument (the D’s): It’s needed so we can seize and maintain power.
Then Leftists turn on that equivocation to claim (falsely) that those who support *expanding* the court also support their efforts to *pack* the court.