lpetrich
Contributor
Adam Harding on Twitter: "As Republicans show support for moving forward with a Supreme Court nominee quickly, @AOC tells me if that happens, “we should leave all options on the table, including the number of Justices that are on the Supreme Court.” Adds expanding is “absolutely” an option worth weighing. https://t.co/9KgoyrmUkL" / Twitter
AOC is thus saying that packing the Supreme Court is something worth considering. She is not alone.
Ed Markey on Twitter: "Mitch McConnell set the precedent. No Supreme Court vacancies filled in an election year. If he violates it, when Democrats control the Senate in the next Congress, we must abolish the filibuster and expand the Supreme Court." / Twitter
How Democrats Could Pack the Supreme Court in 2021 - POLITICO
AOC is thus saying that packing the Supreme Court is something worth considering. She is not alone.
Ed Markey on Twitter: "Mitch McConnell set the precedent. No Supreme Court vacancies filled in an election year. If he violates it, when Democrats control the Senate in the next Congress, we must abolish the filibuster and expand the Supreme Court." / Twitter
How Democrats Could Pack the Supreme Court in 2021 - POLITICO
More recently, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders have opposed court packing. But that was before RBG died.It’s true that Congress can shape the size of the court to its political desires. In 1866, with a Congress at permanent war with President Andrew Johnson, it passed the Judicial Circuits Act, which cut the size of the court from nine to seven, and barred Johnson from appointing any new justices. (After Ulysses Grant was elected president in 1868, the number was bumped back up to nine, where it has remained ever since.)
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The most famous example was the effort by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1937 to deal with a court that was striking down much of his New Deal legislation. After his landslide reelection in 1936, he proposed to add one justice for every judge who’d reached the age of 70, up to a total of 15. (It was the “nine old men”, political folklore had it, who were thwarting the president.) Despite his popularity, and the overwhelming control of Congress by Democrats, the proposal became the first political defeat of FDR’s presidency—and came at the hands of his own party. His own vice president, John Garner, fought it. The Democratic leader in the Senate rejected it. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, responding to the urgings of liberal court-packing foe Montana Sen. Burton Wheeler, wrote a public letter saying that, contrary to FDR’s concerns, the court was not overworked at all, thank you very much. The proposal died in Congress before a vote was taken.