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.
We are screwed. My heart sank when I heard about this on the news this morning.
Why not? We’ve lost complete faith in the legislative branch, under 10% approval; We’ve lost faith in the executive branch; they’re destroying the military with ‘woke’ directives; so why spare the judicial branch? Disrupt and destroy-it’s what progressives do. Just look at Minneapolis or Kenosha.
I feel like I am watching 1st and 2nd Kings repeat itself. The kings and their councils went wayward doing wicked evil and the kingdoms of Samaria. Even Judah went into exile: the temple, the Jerusalem walls, the cities, their sovereign governance crushed because of their ancestors’ bad choices.
Term limits for federal judges runs into this constitutional problem:
“The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour;…”
ALL federal judges serve for life as long as they behave.
Adding justices to the SCOTUS is a different situation. There’s no constitutional limit on the number of justices.
If the SCOTUS confined their activities within their constitutional restrictions, though, the number of justices serving and their political leanings wouldn’t be of as much concern.
The Constitution grants lawmaking power to Congress and Congress alone…that means that Presidential Executive Orders AND judges making new law from the bench are both unconstitutional.
Article I, Section 8, under “The Congress shall have Power” states:
“To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”
Congress shall have the power to make ALL laws…the President executes the laws and the SCOTUS sits in judgement of the constitutionality of those laws.
NOWHERE in the Constitution is the Executive Branch given the power to issue one-man decrees (aka EOs) nor does the Constitution grant the Supreme Court the power to do anything other than to apply the laws as written or to strike them down as unconstitutional.
Wake up and recognize that the federal government has taken vast unconstitutional powers over our lives.
PJ OLSON, you are absolutely technically correct and for about 100 years that was how the system successfully worked. Then came the progressives, who ‘reinterpret’ the document to make words mean what they want (Orwell???). The ‘general welfare’ clause now means a free house, free food and free health care for people voting the proper way. There is no ‘right to privacy’ justifying abortion (but ‘right to life is mentioned in founding documents). There is no way around this because any law, no matter how intended or written, will be ‘reinterpreted’ to mean what progressives want it to mean today. Another case in point: define ‘good behavior.’ To a progressive that could mean deciding the proper way and removal for violating their dogma.
Great thinking and writing Lance, sorry you were cheated out of your seat, we could use an adult in Juneau instead of beer pong kids. Let’s get real, you honestly won.
…as if McConnell’s “court packing” of the Barrett nomination wasn’t gonna make a difference?
Mac’s was almost certainly legal, though it didn’t pass the smell test. (Hypocrisy, thy name is Skrump.)
Biden’s packing the court may also be legal, but it too probably won’t pass the smell test. That doesn’t mean McConnell’s scam didn’t stink.
As does Pruitt’s screed.
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