“Bonehead,” “terrible,” “power grab”…those are just a few of the things Democrats have called court packing.
But with planned legislation to pack the Supreme Court, House and Senate Democrats have abandoned decades of bipartisan agreement – including from Democrats and liberal Justices – that such a move would erode trust and fundamentally damage the institution.
Don’t take my word that court packing is a terrible idea, take theirs…
- Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Court packing is “a bad idea...if anything would make the court appear partisan it would be that – one side saying, when we're in power we're going to enlarge the number of judges...so I am not at all in favor”
WATCH: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg speaks against packing the Supreme Court
- Justice Stephen Breyer: The court’s authority depends on “a trust that the court is guided by legal principle, not politics. Structural alteration motivated by the perception of political influence can only feed that perception, further eroding that trust…If the public sees judges as ‘politicians in robes,’ its confidence in the courts, and in the rule of law itself, can only diminish, diminishing the court’s power, including its power to act as a ‘check’ on the other branches.”
Looking for more evidence of the Democrats’ court packing hypocrisy? Here are just a few examples:
WATCH: Democrats on court packing: “Bonehead idea," “terrible” & “power grab"
- Biden in 1983: Court packing is a “bonehead idea,” and a “terrible, terrible mistake.”
- Biden in 2005: Court packing attempts are “corrupted by power,” “overreach,” and a “power grab.”
- Biden in 2019: “I would not get into court packing … we begin to lose any credibility the court has at all.”
- Biden in 2020: Court packing would be “damaging.”
- Sen. Bernie Sanders: “I think [court packing] is not the ultimate solution.”
- Sen. Dick Durbin: “Seventy-five years ago, we went through this … and I think the Congress was correct in stopping this…”
- Former Sen. Harry Reid: “We better be very, very careful in saying that we need to expand the Supreme Court. I think we better be very, very careful."
- Sen. Cory Booker: “We have a long tradition of nine jurists, and we should be very sober before we start tinkering with things like that.”
- Sen. Jon Tester: “Where does it stop?”
- Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard: “Simply expanding the numbers of Supreme Court justices we have doesn’t solve the problem … could actually end up making it worse.”
- Former Rep. John Delaney: “I kind of think these norms actually matter … court packing goes against that and it just leads you down this terrible path where each side then does it and where does it end.”
- New York Mayor Bill de Blasio: “I do not think expanding the Supreme Court makes sense.”
Democrats know that court packing would erode trust in our system of checks and balances. But in their effort to grab as much power as quickly as possible, House and Senate Democrats proposing this legislation do not care.
