Supreme Court justices are nominated by a sitting president and the parties rotate power in the White House often, making the court fairly balanced until recently. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to bring President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, to the Senate because he said it was the last year of Obama’s term and too late to allow him to choose another SCOTUS justice, then brought the nomination of Amy Comey Barrett to the Supreme Court just weeks before the election.
BREAKING: Congressional Democrats will introduce legislation Thursday to expand the U.S. Supreme Court from 9 to 13 justices; though unlikely to become law, the bill intensifies a high-stakes ideological fight over the future of the court. https://t.co/VDptDhuVNb
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) April 15, 2021
Justice Comes Barrett’s confirmation gave Trump three justices on the Supreme Court, imbalancing the ideology behind court decisions to six conservatives and three liberals. House Democrats have a plan to bring more balance to the Court and will be proposing legislation to expand it from nine justices to thirteen.
According to NBC News:
‘The Democratic bill is led by Ed Markey of Massachusetts in the Senate and Jerry Nadler of New York, the chair of the Judiciary Committee, in the House. It is co-sponsored by Reps. Hank Johnson of Georgia and Mondaire Jones of New York.’
A new bill would add four seats to the Supreme Court, giving Democratic appointees a 7-6 majority. https://t.co/BIcEno8feZ
— Vox (@voxdotcom) April 15, 2021
McConnell’s obvious power grabs, restricting a Democratic president of his constitutional duties to appoint Supreme Court justices and federal justices and then spending the past four years getting every conservative judge and justice Trump chose throughout his presidency. For that reason and many others, the former Senate Majority Leader McConnell became the senate minority leader.
‘It represents an undercurrent of progressive fury at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., for denying a vote in 2016 to President Barack Obama’s pick to fill a vacancy, citing the approaching election, before confirming Trump nominee Amy Coney Barrett the week before the election last year.’
House and Senate Democrats will introduce legislation to expand the number of Supreme Court justices to 13 from 9, drawing more attention to the debate surrounding court reform https://t.co/xeMa8ZtW01
— POLITICO (@politico) April 15, 2021
Although President Joe Biden has previously said that he isn’t in favor of expanding the court, he plans to put together a committee to see if it could be done or if it’s necessary to do so. However, it is unlikely to become law with the slim majority that Democrats have in the Senate, as well as Democratic senators like Joe Manchin, who refuse to vote with their own party on virtually anything.
‘Last week, Biden announced the formation of a commission of liberals and conservatives to study the structure of the Supreme Court, including the number of justices and the length of their service.
‘The size of the Supreme Court, which has fluctuated since it was established in 1789, has remained at nine since 1869.’
#BREAKING: Democrats to introduce bill to expand Supreme Court https://t.co/k10DRrlW1g pic.twitter.com/N2st1hQy0J
— The Hill (@thehill) April 15, 2021
