Free Republic

Lifetime appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court would end, under a proposal unveiled Monday by conservative, progressive, and libertarian constitutional scholars. Supreme Court justices would serve staggered 18-year terms moving forward. The change to Supreme Court tenure stood out among a set of five proposed constitutional amendments prepared for the National Constitution Center. None of the amendments has been introduced formally, either to Congress or through the states. “There shall be nine judges of the supreme court, who shall hold their offices for staggered terms of eighteen years, such that every two years there shall be a vacancy,” according to...

How can one write history so that it seems like a thriller? How does one write a biography without making the subject the centerpiece of the narrative? I have no idea if David Pietrusza asked himself these questions — or this one: How can history be written as a newspaper headline? Call this a biography by indirection. Franklin Delano Roosevelt is defined by competing individuals and movements: Huey Long, Father Coughlan, Al Smith, the Liberty League, Earl Browder and the Communist Party, Dr. Francis Townsend and the Townsend Plan, Norman Thomas and the Socialist Party. They threatened FDR’s majority in...

A majority of Americans oppose adding more seats to the Supreme Court, in contrast with recent calls to expand the number of justices in the nation's highest court raised by progressive Democrats and members of the public, according to a new poll. After the Supreme Court voted in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade last week thanks to the support of the conservative supermajority of justices, the idea of expanding the number of seats in the court to re-establish some balance and fairness has been floated. The expansion is legally possible, as the size of the court isn't fixed by...

Court-packing - the attempt to enlarge the size of the Supreme Court for short-term political purposes - used to be a dirty word in the history of American jurisprudence. The tradition of a nine-person Supreme Court is now 153 years old. The last attempt to expand it for political gain was President Franklin Roosevelt's failed effort in 1937. FDR's gambit was so blatantly political that even his overwhelming Democratic majority in Congress rebuffed him. Yet now "court packing" is a law school cause celebre. It is hailed as a supposedly quick fix to reverse the current 5-4 conservative majority. Recently,...

The Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court unanimously approved its nearly 300-page report on court reform Tuesday. Established in April by executive order, the commission was tasked with producing a report that examined the contemporary debate over court reform, historical cases of when there were calls for court reform, and an analysis of the main arguments for and against certain proposals to reform the court, such as expansion, term limits, ethics reform, and more. No specific recommendations were given in the report, and on the issue of court packing, the commission noted that the "profound disagreement among Commissioners" mirrors "the...

The U. S. Supreme Court issued two 6-3 decisions as it completed its last term, causing Democrats to renew their call for expanding the number of justices by four. Under President Biden, this would undoubtedly result in more liberal justices to uphold the agenda of the Democrat Party. The left’s court packing scheme, if successful, will weaken the constitutional system of checks and balances that preserves the American republic and protects against tyranny. The Founding Fathers were wary of a powerful central government that would oppress and restrict the liberties of individuals. Their experience under Britain's tyranny made them determined...

I like to apply free market analysis to American politics. Within established laws, politicians compete for votes and are rewarded for maximizing voters' preferences. As in economics, there are sometimes market failures, but mostly the system seems to be self-regulating. This sounds nice, but it doesn't seem to describe what's been happening over the past five or so years. Both parties seem to be ignoring voters' clear signals. Neither seems to be rationally maximizing its votes and its chances of winning presidential elections or congressional majorities. National Democrats have indeed won the popular vote in six of the last seven...

Democrats on Thursday expressed their displeasure with the Supreme Court's final decisions of its 2020-2021 term, accusing the justices of doing "severe damage" to the political system and in some cases re-upping their calls to pack the court with liberal justices appointed by President Biden. One decision was on a challenge to Arizona election laws, including a ban on ballot harvesting. The other was about a California law that required nonprofits to disclose their largest donors to the state government for law enforcement purposes. The court upheld the Arizona laws – which liberals saw as voting rights restrictions and conservatives...

I have previously criticized Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., for his almost unrivaled advocacy of censorship and speech controls. Blumenthal previously threatened social media companies not to “backslide” in censoring opposing views. Now, Blumenthal is taking up the cudgel of court packing with not so subtle threats to conservative justices that, if they do not vote with their liberal colleagues, the Court may be fundamentally altered. He is not alone in such reckless and coercive rhetoric. Blumenthal told The Hill: “It will inevitably fuel and drive an effort to expand the Supreme Court if this activist majority betrays fundamental constitutional principles....

Democrats are vowing that any action by the United States Supreme Court to alter the legal precedent on abortion will add “fuel” to the push among some in their party to add seats to the nation's highest court. Congressional Democrats issued the warning after the Supreme Court announced that it would decide on the constitutionality of Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban by hearing the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The state of Mississippi is asking the court to review a lower court decision finding that the ban on abortions more than 15 weeks into a pregnancy is unconstitutional....

A Georgetown law student confronted Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Thursday about "court packing," redefining the term to demand why Cruz was opposed to efforts by Democrats to expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court by four. Cruz was speaking at a news conference with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) in front of the Supreme Court about a Democratic bill to expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court from nine to 13. The senator from Texas accused Democrats of making a "power grab." "You didn't see Republicans, when we had control of the...

If the past few weeks are any indication, one thing is crystal clear: the Democrat Party is intent on fundamentally transforming the United States of America. Their radical legislative wish list includes federalizing our elections, dismantling the Electoral College, and making D.C. and Puerto Rico a state. These are just a few of the far-Left agenda items that Congressional Democrats have sponsored as of this writing. If these bills become law – or if they are forced through by Executive Order - the one and only safeguard for the American people will be the Supreme Court of the United States....

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has backed Democrats’ effort to pack the Supreme Court by adding four new seats that would be filled by President Joe Biden, arguing the courts should not be allowed to overturn laws passed by Congress. The Washington Times reported: “I do think we should be expanding the court,” she told reporters. The New York Democrat, part of the progressive “Squad” collective on Capitol Hill, reasoned the justices overturning laws is part of the problem with the 6-3 conservative majority. “The idea that nine people, that a nine-person court, can overturn laws that … hundreds and thousands...

I haven't seen much humor in life during the past year or so, but one thing that has been uproariously hilarious lately is the orchestrated media narrative that President Joe Biden is bipartisan and conciliatory. Please give me a moment to catch my breath. I think it was Karl Rove who recently observed that the media's effective definition of bipartisan legislation is not that significant numbers of both parties' lawmakers support a bill but that some poll somewhere shows that a large percentage of Americans of each party support some vaguely described initiative, even if zero Republican legislators support the...

Even if it requires nuking the filibuster, President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats stand ready to pack the Supreme Court with liberal justices.In a clear partisan effort to pack the U.S. Supreme Court with more liberal justices, congressional Democrats introduced a bill on Thursday seeking to expand the number of justices from nine to 13.The bill was introduced just days after Biden commissioned 36 left-leaning scholars, former judges, and lawyers led by a former Obama adviser to evaluate expanding the number of justices. The White House marketed the so-called “bipartisan” commission as a 180-day effort to examine and outline...

Joe Biden and the progressive wing of the Democrat Party just got a wake-up call from House Speaker and California Rep. Nancy Pelosi and some other top Democrats. “Do you support Jerry Nadler's bill to expand the Supreme Court by 4 seats and would you commit to bringing that bill to the floor,” a reporter asked the Speaker. “No,” she said matter of factly. “'I support the president's commission to study such a proposal,' Pelosi added. 'But, frankly, I'm not – right now, we're back, our members – committees are working putting together the infrastructure bill and the rest,” Speaker...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi does not support the effort by her fellow Democratic congressional leaders to expand the Supreme Court from nine justices to 13 — and will not bring such a bill to the floor for a vote, she said Thursday. Pelosi made the revelation while during her weekly press conference, offering a stark “No” after being asked about the measure being introduced to expand the nation’s highest bench.

Just hit the wires… Congressional Democrats plan to unveil legislation expanding the size of the Supreme Court on Thursday, according to three congressional sources familiar with the closely held measure. The bill would add four seats to the high court, bringing the total to 13, from the current 9. The number of justices on the Court has fluctuated widely throughout the course of the nation’s history. Republicans currently hold 6 seats, while Democrats hold just 3 after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg and the quick confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett. The bill is led by House Judiciary...

Democratic officials within the U.S. House and the Senate are reportedly preparing legislation to pack the Supreme Court with four new justices. During a hearing on Wednesday, Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan confronted House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler on his reported plans to pack the Supreme Court. Nadler pounded the gavel and refused to answer Jordan’s questions.

House and Senate Democrats are poised to introduce legislation to expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court so President Biden can add several of his own picks -- a practice known as court-packing -- but the late liberal icon Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg once firmly came out against the idea. In a 2019 interview with NPR, Ginsburg addressed the idea that has gained momentum among Democrats in recent years. "I have heard that there are some people on the Democratic side who would like to increase the number of judges," Ginsburg said. "I think that was a bad...