Why Would Someone Testify Agains You in Court
When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed abroad on September 18, 2020, many Americans didn't take the proper fourth dimension to grieve — instead, they panicked about what her passing meant for the future of the country. Holding the balance of an entire democracy is too groovy a burden for anyone's shoulders, and Justice Ginsburg had been carrying that weight for a long, long fourth dimension. Instead of holding space for her passing, Republican politicians wasted no fourth dimension in queuing up a nominee for the empty Supreme Courtroom seat, somewhen landing on Amy Coney Barrett — a longtime Notre Dame Law School professor who served fewer than three years on the 7th Circuit earlier her nomination to the highest courtroom in the American judicial organisation.
In 2016, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell infamously vowed to block President Obama'southward approachable Supreme Courtroom nomination of Merrick Garland on the grounds that the American people should have a "voice" and that to rush a nomination (and confirmation) would be to overly politicize the event. In 2020, however, McConnell didn't hold to those principles he outlined four years earlier, leading to Barrett's confirmation hearings and equally rushed swearing in ceremony, which took place nigh a calendar week before Election Day on Oct 26, 2020.
This move led many to criticize McConnell, including New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC), who simply tweeted, "Expand the court." Additionally, Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey (@EdMarkey), who is Ocasio-Cortez's Greenish New Deal co-author, tweeted, "Mitch McConnell gear up the precedent. No Supreme Court vacancies filled in an ballot yr. If he violates it, when Democrats control the Senate in the side by side Congress, we must abolish the filibuster and expand the Supreme Courtroom."
The Number of Supreme Courtroom Seats Has Been Adapted Before — Here's How It'south Done
This call for a SCOTUS expansion has led many to wonder: Is such a motion fifty-fifty possible? The short answer: yes. Congress could easily alter the number of seats on the Supreme Court bench. According to the Supreme Courtroom'southward website, "The Constitution places the ability to determine the number of Justices in the easily of Congress" — merely another example of those supposed checks and balances that guide a ramble government. In fact, the number of Justices has shifted several times throughout the Courtroom'due south history. In 1789, the first Judiciary Act set the number of Justices at half-dozen; during the Civil State of war, the number of seats went upwards to nine and so briefly ten; and, once President Andrew Johnson took office, Congress passed the Judicial Circuits Act in 1866, cutting the number of Justices to seven so that Johnson couldn't stack the court in favor of Southern states.
Since 1869, yet, the Supreme Court has been composed of ix Justices. In semi-recent history, there's been one notable attempt to expand the Court — one that will live in infamy, and then to speak. Back in 1937, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt aimed to expand the Court, which kept shooting down some of his New Deal legislation. More specifically, FDR felt that many of the older Justices were out of touch with the times, so much so that they were colloquially dubbed the "nine old men."
FDR'due south proposal? Add together one Justice to the Supreme Court for every 70-twelvemonth-old Justice residing on the demote. That would've resulted in 15 Supreme Court Justices, just fifty-fifty the Democrat-controlled Congress — and FDR'south own Vice President — were against the idea. Since FDR'due south infamous defeat, no try to expand or reduce the Supreme Court has gathered much steam — until now.
How Likely Is It That Democrats Will Aggrandize the Supreme Court in 2021?
Interestingly enough, Politician points out that President Biden has been outspoken about not expanding the court. In 2019, President Biden fifty-fifty went equally far as maxim "we'll live to rue that day [nosotros expand the Court]," arguing that an expansion would lead to abiding changes — more expansions, more reductions. In curt, it would shake the American people'due south religion in the legitimacy of the Supreme Court (and potentially the Democratic party). Of class, that's merely one scenario — and i that hasn't happened in the past. But, in the by, Vice President Kamala Harris has shown some support for the thought, saying she'd exist "open" to it. However, both Vice President Harris and President Biden have besides dodged questions surrounding court-packing and Supreme Court expansion.
On the other mitt, more outspoken proponents have tried to assemble momentum for the idea. Representative Ocasio-Cortez expanded upon her initial "Expand the Court" tweet, calling out Republicans' hypocrisy toward appointing new Justices during presidential election years. "Republicans practice this because they don't believe Dems have the stones to play hardball like they practise. And for a long time they've been correct," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. "Merely do not let them bully the public into thinking their bulldozing is normal simply a response isn't. In that location is a legal process for expansion."
In the face of a 6–iii Bourgeois bulk, folks similar Representative Ocasio-Cortez argue that the Supreme Courtroom is out of residual — and, more than that, it isn't quite reflective of the American people'due south concerns and values. So much lies in the hands of the court: the fate of the Affordable Care Act, Roe v. Wade and wedlock equality, merely to name a few. Now, we'll just have to come across if this imbalance — and Barrett'south speedy appointment — are enough to convince President Biden and members of Congress to seriously consider a Supreme Court expansion.
Source: https://www.ask.com/culture/ask-answers-expand-supreme-court?utm_content=params%3Ao%3D740004%26ad%3DdirN%26qo%3DserpIndex
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