Packing The Supreme Court – A Zipline to Dictatorship
Packing The Supreme Court – A Zipline to Dictatorship
By Todd Strandberg
The confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court has given the highest court in America a 6-3 conservative majority. The Left is hopping mad over what this prospect means for their political priorities. They’re also angered by the GOP’s unwillingness to hold off on filling late liberal stalwart Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat during an election year.
Several top congressional Democrats have openly called for “packing the court.” They want to rewrite the rules to expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court so they can add more like-minded judges and tip its balance to the left.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one of the most idiotic members of Congress. She said in response to the Barrett vote, “Today will go down as one of the darkest days in American history. God have mercy on our country. We must move full steam ahead to expand the courts and protect the will and the rights of the people.” She later added, “Expand the court.”
Ilhan Omar is a member of the Islamic faith, and she wishes to impose the same political thinking that dominated the Muslim world. She said, “Remember that Republicans have lost 6 of the last 7 popular votes, but have appointed 6 of the last 9 justices. By expanding the court, we fix this broken system and have the court better represent the values of the American people.”
Rashida Tlaib is also a Muslim, and she shares the same mindset. She said, “We are going to take back the White House & Senate next week with a resounding mandate from the people to fight back against Trump’s illegitimately stacked judiciary. We must expand the Court if we’re serious about the transformational change the people are crying out for.”
Unfortunately, the number of justices on the Supreme Court is not set in the Constitution itself. So, Congress could pass a law expanding the number of judges on the court, and a president could sign it into law without technically violating the Constitution. This would then give that same president and Congress, presumably of the same party, the opportunity to add judges they know agree with them and will uphold their agenda.
While doing so would technically be within the letter of the Constitution, the number of justices has remained at nine since 1869. Changing this would be a shredding of norms and rewriting of the rules for political gain. It would have grave consequences for our basic liberties.
This isn’t the first time that someone suggested an expansion of the Supreme Court. President Franklin Roosevelt floated the idea in order to get around the justices that were blocking his New Deal projects. Roosevelt had to drop the idea when the public had a massive negative reaction to the plan.
Court-packing undermines the checks and balances that have helped keep us free from government oppression and violations of our rights. As James Madison famously warned us, “Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.”
The greatest check against Congress abusing its power is that the president can veto legislation that goes too far. Conversely, Congress can impeach a president who abuses his power. Meanwhile, both are kept in check by the judicial branch, which ensures laws are properly followed. The judiciary is, in turn, checked by Congress’s ability to impeach judges who abuse their power, and define judicial jurisdictions.
“If the Democrats pack the court, the GOP will respond in kind as soon as they get the chance,” George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin has written. “The predictable result will not only be a loss of ‘credibility’ for the Supreme Court, but also the elimination of judicial review as an effective check on the other branches of government.”
“If the president can pack the court any time his or her party controls both houses of Congress, they can prevent the court from making decisions that curb unconstitutional policies they may wish to enact,” Somin continued. “It is no accident that court-packing is a standard tool of authoritarian populists seeking to undermine liberal democracy, recently used in such countries as Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela.”
The Founding Fathers purposefully enshrined the separation of powers into our system of governance. They knew that if one branch or official wields too much power, nothing prevents the slide into dictatorship. In reaching this conclusion, the founders were heavily influenced by the work of French philosopher Charles-Louis de Secondat.
“There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person,” Montesquieu theorized. “Were the power of judging joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary power, for the judge would then be the legislator. Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with all the violence of an oppressor.”
The election is a couple of days away from the posting of this article. I hope the Democrats don’t win full control of Congress and the White House. Because we’ve lost three generations to the leftist agenda, it’s only a matter of time before all political power is consolidated under a tyrannical ruler.
“Both hands are skilled in doing evil; the ruler demands gifts, the judge accepts bribes, the powerful dictate what they desire— they all conspire together” (Micah 7:3, NIV).
–Todd