Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is arguing for expanding the membership of the U.S. Supreme Court in the wake of a wildly controversial ruling from earlier this month that granted presidents a layer of legal immunity, meaning protection from prosecution, for certain actions taken in office.
“Congress has already used its constitutional authority to expand the Supreme Court six times in the past. Court expansion isn’t new. It isn’t radical. It’s what we must do to rein in a Court that Republicans packed and that clearly doesn’t feel limited by the rule of law,” says a recent post from the Senator on X, formerly called Twitter. The idea’s supported by other Democrats in the House and Senate, though with hurdles including the continued Republican control of the House, it remains a tall order.
The immunity ruling followed an appeal from former President Donald Trump, who was challenging a criminal case accusing him of conspiring against the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, meaning Joe Biden’s win that year. He contends that what he was doing was actually within the legal wheelhouse afforded to him by virtue of serving as president and in the interests of the American people generally, though real-world evidence has never proven claims of systematic fraud behind Biden’s win.
Taking Trump’s evident ambitions to their endpoint would have resulted in nullifying the collective impact of tens of millions of duly documented votes for president.
In the House, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) introduced articles of impeachment after the immunity ruling. Her initiative targets Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, who she alleged both remained involved in proceedings where they should have recused themselves, meaning stepped back from it. She’s acknowledged the Republican majority in the House but describes her undertaking as an imperative.
