By LANCE PRUITT
With everything happening on Friday, one thing thing that went under the radar that should be front and center: President Joe Biden’s executive order to create a commission to study expanding the U.S. Supreme Court, and setting term limits for Justices.
The long-term effects of this action could alter the United States, our culture, and society in such a dramatic way, that everyone should be concerned.
Recently liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, the eldest member of the court, warned against expanding the court for political reasons, indicating that it could undermine the trust in the the court and its decisions.
That independence, as much as we may disagree depending on their ruling, is a foundational factor in everything from crime and punishment to trust in our currency.
In fact, it is the independence of our judiciary that is one of the reasons that the U.S. dollar will remain the global reserve currency, even as China’s economy eclipses ours in size and moves their currency digital in an attempt to push the dollar out.
Court packing, as it is referred to, is a dream of the progressive left. During his campaign for president, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg made a case for adding six seats to the courts and packing them with liberal judges. The argument does hold precedent: At our nation’s founding there were only six justices compared to the nine we have now. In 1937, a frustrated President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed to expand the court to 15, when his New Deal policies kept getting struck down.
FDR’s attempt to pack the court also, in a way touched on term limits. Those additional judges that could be appointed were to be appointed for justices that had not resigned six months after they reached their 70th birthday. It was a way to circumvent the elder justices of the time by offsetting their impact on rulings, a Depression-era version of ageism. It was clearly seen as a power grab, because he could not get his New Deal policies to stick. It was such a disaster that the Democrats lost eight Senate Seats and 81 House seats in the following election, even though it failed by a 70-20 vote in the Senate.
We don’t have to go back to FDR to see the consequences of court packing. In 1978, Congress doubled the size of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and subsequently President Jimmy Carter had the ability to appoint all 10 of those new judges. He did not just appoint left leaning judges, he appointed extremely passionate progressives to the court. In all, President Carter appointed 15 people to the court, three of which still serve as senior members. He completely transformed not just the court, but the decisions that have come out of the court as evidenced by so many rulings impacting Alaska and Alaskan jobs.
Some will say President Biden is just following through on a campaign promise, or that the new commission is bipartisan and is not set to give specific recommendations, so don’t worry. But President Biden is doing this because of pressure from activists, and a commission and study alone will not satisfy their desires.
Keep an eye on this, because its consequences will last for generations.
Lance Pruitt is a former House of Representatives lawmaker from District 27.
