Democrat Threats to Pack the Supreme Court Deflect Attention from Their Own Errors
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ refusal to answer the question of whether a Democrat victory would lead to the packing of the Supreme Court is troubling. It suggests they do indeed intend to pack the court. That would be a threat to our republic, made all the worse because the press is asleep/
Here's why:
If President Trump threatened to pack the Supreme Court there would be 24/7 news coverage with Democrat wailing and gnashing of teeth about Trump’s threat being an extinction event for democracy, blah, blah, blah. But when it’s the Democrat party making such a threat, all you hear from the media is crickets.
So what does it mean to pack the Supreme Court? The phrase is unfamiliar to many Americans, due to the lack of reporting by the press, so I will do my best to explain. Packing the court means adding more justices. How many more? That would be up to whoever decides to do the packing. Article III, section 1 of the Constitution establishes a Supreme Court but does not explicitly state the number of justices who should serve on the court. The pertinent text reads:
"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."
That current number of nine justices was not set by the Constitution, but by the Judiciary Act of 1869 and has been the precedent for over 150 years. The last president who threatened to pack the court was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. With the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, Roosevelt attempted to increase number of justices from nine to 15. FDR was incensed that many of his New Deal laws were struck down as unconstitutional and this was his attempt to appoint judges who would be favorable to his policies.
Roosevelt had huge Democrat majorities in the House and Senate, yet his brazen attempt was met with resistance from members of his own party and even the American people who characterized his actions as an undemocratic power grab.
Fast forward to the present and Democrats are perfectly fine with their promise to pack the court upon returning to power. They sanctimoniously proclaim this is revenge for Mitch McConnell blocking the nomination of Merrick Garland in the spring of 2016. Here’s the part of McConnell’s statement from 2016 that the press uses to accuse McConnell of hypocrisy in going forward with the Amy Coney Barrett confirmation hearing:
"Given that we are in the midst of the presidential election process, we believe that the American people should seize the opportunity to weigh in on whom they trust to nominate the next person for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court..."
Now here’s the part Democrats and the press conveniently ignore:
"It is today the American people, rather than a lame-duck president [Barack Obama] whose priorities and policies they just rejected in the most-recent national election, who should be afforded the opportunity to replace Justice Scalia."
So spoke Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Trump is not officially a lame-duck president as Obama was in 2016. The Democrats can howl in outrage all they want, but if they had controlled the Senate in 2016 Garland would have been confirmed, despite Republican outrage. And if the Democrats controlled the Senate now, you can bet your bottom dollar that they would have blocked ACB. Elections have consequences.
Democrats are trying to justify their judicial radicalism by blaming Senate Majority Leader McConnell as the cause. However, the reality of why Democrats are on the precipice of a 6-3 Republican majority is due precisely to their own efforts.
First, then Majority Leader Harry Reid invoked the nuclear option reducing the number of votes needed to stop a filibuster executive appointments and most judges from 60 to a simple majority. Reid’s radical change did not apply to Supreme Court nominees.
McConnell warned that Reid that would regret his move because the Democrats would one day be in the minority again. That happened in 2014 when Republicans recaptured the Senate and McConnell took Reid’s folly and extended it to Supreme Court nominees. The 60-vote threshold would have made ACB’s confirmation a tougher hill to climb; now the Senate only needs a simple majority and McConnell has said he has the votes.
The next Democrat forced error was Ruth Bader Ginsberg not stepping down when Obama was in power. Democrats should have been calling for RBG to step aside because of her advanced age and health issues, but that never happened. If she would have taken one for the team, Obama’s nominee would have likely sailed through the Senate confirmation process since Republicans do not resort to the slash and burn techniques of destroying judicial nominees as Democrats do. Ginsberg’s selfishness and Democrat hubris that Hillary Clinton would win in 2016 have placed the Democrats in the position they find themselves in today.
As always, instead of looking inward and admitting their errors, Democrats choose to instead blame their enemies. Democrats will never admit the truth that what they are trying to desperately head off is their loss of the Supreme Court as a backstop for when they are out of power.
A 6-3 majority in the Supreme Court is an existential threat to the Democrat agenda which relies on rulings by activist justices and so-called moderate swing votes. Abortion and gay marriage were decreed upon the land by the Supreme Court, not by the two houses of Congress.
The reality learned by the Democrats is that the majority of Americans want no part of their policies. Therefore, the traditional legislative process is a non-starter for the left. The Supreme Court is everything to the left and should the Democrats return to power with the presidency and both houses, they will do whatever it takes to make sure they are never placed in this predicament again.
From its mayors and governors, to its elected representatives, the Democrat Party of today has become a body of tyrants, pure and simple. Democrats do not care about precedent, nor putting the country first. Their intent of winning this upcoming election is not to continue the experiment of liberty, but instead to tear it down and begin the great experiment of socialism/communism. Their violent minions on the street, their satraps of social media, education, entertainment and the press are all united in a new revolution to remake our country into something it was not founded to be. What this means for you as the average American, who may not give much thought to such matters, is that your freedom of speech and your power of the vote will be eroded if Democrats win on Nov. 3. In other words, you will never be able to vote the Democrats out of power. It will be California and New York one-party rule on steroids. This is not a threat or hyperbole, but a fact.
Biden and Harris will not address the charges of packing the Supreme Court, because that is the cornerstone in assuring that Democrat policy is never struck down as unconstitutional. Democrats will then eliminate the filibuster rule in the Senate which grants the minority party the ability to resist the majority. Finally, the Democrats will make District of Columbia and Puerto Rico the newest states. This will give Democrats two liberal senators from each of those regions which would instill Democrat rule in the Senate in perpetuity.
Remember this: a party that cannot be voted out by people will disdain the people. Democrats no longer care about the privilege of serving the people. No… they want to rule the people.
Candidates who will not give a straight answer on matters of tantamount importance to the lives of Americans such as packing the Supreme Court are providing voters with a huge tell: Such people cannot be entrusted to defend liberty. Simply put, a victory for Democrats on Nov. 3 will mark the beginning of the end of America as you know it. Vote to defend this country, reelect President Trump and vote straight Republican, even if it is a RINO you have to hold your nose to select.
(For further information regarding the court packing issue see these excellent columns by Andrea Widburg and Ken Blackwell)
Dex Bahr is the author of the book, No Christian Man is an Island. He is a freelance writer.
Image credit: Pixabay public domain