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Democrats shoot down talk of expanding Supreme Court
Sept 23, 2020 |~~ By Jordain Carney
Senate Democrats are tamping down talk of expanding the Supreme Court if Republicans fill the seat held by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Progressive activists and some lawmakers have raised the idea since Ginsburg's death was announced on Friday night, arguing the party needs to be ready to take bold steps if they have the Senate majority and the White House next year while facing a 6-3 conservative court.
The effort would tie together two controversial ideas: nixing the 60-vote legislative filibuster and then passing legislation to add seats to the Supreme Court, which has been set at nine justices since 1869. But several Democratic senators, including senior members of the caucus, are shooting down the idea altogether or warning that debating it now is a distraction from the fight over Ginsburg's seat.
Comment:
The Progressive Marxist Socialist/DSA Democrat Left decided that their threat to expand SCOTUS would backfire on them if the GOP beat them to the punch after Trump wins the 2020 election. But don't think they won't try to do it when and if they gain the presidency and the Senate...
FDR infamously failed to expand the size of the Supreme Court in 1937 to 15 after the court rejected a number of his New Deal reforms. His court expansion proposal failed in Congress.
Even RBG commented on the Democrat possible expansion of SCOTUS judges and rejected the idea. She said, "If anything, [it] would make the court look partisan," she said of the court-packing plans advocated by some Democrats. "It would be that — one side saying, 'When we're in power, we're going to enlarge the number of judges, so we would have more people who would vote the way we want them to.'" “Nine seems to be a good number. It’s been that way for a long time,” she said.