Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
One of the big threats we faced with a potential “blue wave” from the 2020 elections was court packing. President Donald Trump filled vacant appointments at a prodigious rate, but they were just vacant seats. In the process, though, he changed the judiciary significantly. That, coupled with the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, made it so regardless of the outcome of the election, Trump’s legacy would be felt for years to come.
And Democrats don’t like that.
After all, we’ve been seeing common sense come out of the Ninth Circuit, which was unprecedented. That couldn’t be tolerated, but neither could the fact that anti-gun Democrats know that the current makeup of the court isn’t likely to uphold their agenda in the least.
They know they need to pack the court to change it.
Yet over and over again, we were told that President Joe Biden opposed court packing, that we had nothing to worry about.
CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS PLAN to unveil legislation expanding the size of the Supreme Court on Thursday, according to three congressional sources familiar with the closely held measure.
The bill would add four seats to the high court, bringing the total to 13 from the current nine. The bill is led by House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler, subcommittee Chair Hank Johnson, and first-term Rep. Mondaire Jones. In the Senate, the bill is being championed by Ed Markey of Massachusetts.
The number of justices on the court, which is set by Congress, has fluctuated throughout the course of the nation’s history, reaching as many as 10 seats before settling on nine in 1869. In 2016, Sen. Ted Cruz suggested that if Hillary Clinton were elected, the Republican Senate should keep Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat empty, effectively bringing the number of justices down to eight.
By raising the total number of justices to 13, Biden would get to pick four justices, tipping the balance just over to the progressive side.
Honestly, this is so transparent as to be insulting. Anyone with half a brain can look at what they’re doing and see their motivations.
Now, to be clear, there’s no law saying they can’t raise the number of justices. As noted, the number on the Supreme Court has fluctuated from time to time.
Yet just because you can do something, it doesn’t mean you should. Court packing is one of those things. For one thing, what a Democratic Congress can do, a Republican Congress can do as well. There’s absolutely nothing to stop a Republican-controlled Congress from stacking the court again when they have a favorable president in the Oval Office. This could create a back-and-forth that would be absolutely ridiculous.
There is one saving grace, and it’s the saving grace for just about everything else, and that’s the filibuster.
Basically, there’s no way Senate Democrats are going to get 10 Republicans to sign onto this idiocy, and that tells us precisely what this bill really is. It’s posturing.
See, they know it won’t pass, so they figure they can weather any ramifications come the midterm elections. Instead, they’re posturing for their base so they can say, “See, we tried to do what you wanted, but those meany Republicans wouldn’t let us. Give us more money so we can get rid of them for good!”
That’s all this really is.
Thankfully. Because if they could really do it, our gun rights would become meaningless within a week.