Last Friday, President Biden signed an Executive Order to create a commission to evaluate the “expansion” of the Supreme Court, a potential first step in adding more justices to the highest court in the US. (Even though he avoided and/or denounced such considerations during his campaign.)
Before the commission has met or made a recommendation, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., introduced a bill yesterday, the Judiciary Act of 2021, to add four seats and thus establish a 13-justice Supreme Court.
Democrats have accused Republicans of packing the court when Mitch McConnell held Merrick Garland’s seat open nearly a year before an election, then confirmed Amy Coney Barrett days before the next election. It is frustrating when you are the minority party, but this was a precedent set previously by BOTH parties. But court-packing is NOT filling empty seats on the Supreme Court, as Rep. Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y. has stated. Instead it means ADDING seats to the Supreme Court in order to change the results of its rulings.
A Little History
When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s tried to “pack” the U.S. Supreme Court in 1937, (FDR’s plan would have permitted him to add six justices, immediately securing a pro-New Deal judicial majority) Senate DEMOCRATS rebuked the iconic president of their own party.
The Senate Judiciary Committee report issued at the time used eye-opening, clarion language: “Let us of the Seventy-fifth Congress, in words that will never be disregarded by any succeeding Congress, declare that we would rather have an independent Court, a fearless Court, a Court that will dare to announce its honest opinions in what it believes to be the defense of the liberties of the people, than a Court that, out of fear or sense of obligation to the appointing power, or factional passion, approves any measure we may enact. We are not the judges of the judges. We are not above the Constitution.”
*Side note: In 1983, then-U.S. Senator Joe Biden (also the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee at that time) called President Roosevelt’s plan in the 1930s to pack the Supreme Court a “bonehead idea.”
A Little More History
When the late Venezuelan socialist leader Hugo Chavez first won reelection in 1999, the country’s Supreme Court was independent. After it issued several rulings that went against him, Chavez packed the court by passing a law expanding its size from 20 to 32 justices in 2004. Antonio Canova, a constitutional law professor at Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Venezuela who compiled research on 45,000 rulings issued since 2004, says the court never sided against Chavez’s government after it was packed.
AFTER Chavez stacked the court, he ran on a fully socialist platform. When he won re-election that year, the justices of the Supreme Court stood and chanted a rhyme to the effect of “great, Chavez is not leaving!” Hugo Chavez didn’t overtake a nation. He was elected democratically, then changed the constitution in the nation.
The Democratic party has emerged from four years of the Trump administration more radical than any majority party we have seen in history. When a sitting President says that the “amendments of the constitution aren’t absolute”, you know we have lost the rule of law as our standard.
The Biden administration is showing an intense appetite for overhauls of norms and democratic systems, with no idea too radical to be considered. Packing the court, abolishing the filibuster, abolishing the Electoral College, and granting D.C. statehood are all measures that would dramatically increase the power of Democrats and liberal activists — all without a vote at the ballot box.
What do those of us who love America and our freedoms do in response to the current direction of our country?
Don’t get discouraged – Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful and so worship God. Heb. 12:28
Search for truth/facts. Stop listening to the media propaganda.
Defend the TRUTH. Do not be silenced by the mob.
Pray for our leaders.
As Christians we believe that every word in the Bible is true; this is the foundation upon which we live our lives. Knowing what the Bible says about truth and hiding God’s word in our heart helps us to know when we are listening to the Voice of Truth.
The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever. Psalm 119:160
