The Power of Judicial Review Is Explicitly Given by the Constitution to the Supreme Court
When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed abroad on September 18, 2020, many Americans didn't take the proper time to grieve — instead, they panicked about what her passing meant for the future of the state. Holding the balance of an unabridged democracy is too swell a burden for anyone'south shoulders, and Justice Ginsburg had been carrying that weight for a long, long time. Instead of holding space for her passing, Republican politicians wasted no time in queuing up a nominee for the empty Supreme Court seat, eventually landing on Amy Coney Barrett — a longtime Notre Dame Law School professor who served fewer than three years on the Seventh Circuit before her nomination to the highest court in the American judicial organisation.
In 2016, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell infamously vowed to cake President Obama's approachable Supreme Courtroom nomination of Merrick Garland on the grounds that the American people should accept a "voice" and that to rush a nomination (and confirmation) would be to overly politicize the issue. In 2020, however, McConnell didn't hold to those principles he outlined four years earlier, leading to Barrett's confirmation hearings and every bit rushed swearing in ceremony, which took place nearly a week before Election Day on Oct 26, 2020.
This motion led many to criticize McConnell, including New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC), who merely tweeted, "Expand the courtroom." Additionally, Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey (@EdMarkey), who is Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Bargain co-author, tweeted, "Mitch McConnell prepare the precedent. No Supreme Courtroom vacancies filled in an ballot year. If he violates it, when Democrats control the Senate in the side by side Congress, we must abolish the filibuster and expand the Supreme Court."
The Number of Supreme Court Seats Has Been Adjusted Before — Here'south How Information technology's Done
This phone call for a SCOTUS expansion has led many to wonder: Is such a move even possible? The short answer: yep. Congress could easily alter the number of seats on the Supreme Courtroom bench. Co-ordinate to the Supreme Courtroom'due south website, "The Constitution places the power to determine the number of Justices in the hands of Congress" — just another example of those supposed checks and balances that guide a constitutional government. In fact, the number of Justices has shifted several times throughout the Court'southward history. In 1789, the showtime Judiciary Human activity set up the number of Justices at six; during the Civil War, the number of seats went up to nine and then briefly 10; and, once President Andrew Johnson took office, Congress passed the Judicial Circuits Act in 1866, cut the number of Justices to seven so that Johnson couldn't stack the court in favor of Southern states.
Since 1869, however, the Supreme Court has been composed of nine Justices. In semi-recent history, there's been ane notable endeavor to expand the Courtroom — ane that will live in infamy, so 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 then that they were colloquially dubbed the "nine quondam men."
FDR's proposal? Add one Justice to the Supreme Court for every 70-year-sometime Justice residing on the bench. That would've resulted in 15 Supreme Court Justices, but fifty-fifty the Democrat-controlled Congress — and FDR's own Vice President — were against the thought. Since FDR's infamous defeat, no endeavour to expand or reduce the Supreme Court has gathered much steam — until now.
How Likely Is Information technology That Democrats Volition Aggrandize the Supreme Court in 2021?
Interestingly enough, Pol points out that President Biden has been outspoken about not expanding the court. In 2019, President Biden even went as far as saying "nosotros'll live to rue that solar day [we aggrandize the Court]," arguing that an expansion would lead to constant changes — more than expansions, more reductions. In brusk, information technology would shake the American people's faith in the legitimacy of the Supreme Court (and potentially the Democratic party). Of grade, that's just one scenario — and one that hasn't happened in the past. Only, in the past, Vice President Kamala Harris has shown some support for the idea, saying she'd exist "open up" to it. Nevertheless, both Vice President Harris and President Biden take also dodged questions surrounding court-packing and Supreme Courtroom expansion.
On the other mitt, more than outspoken proponents take 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 do this because they don't believe Dems accept the stones to play hardball like they do. And for a long time they've been correct," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. "Only do not let them keen the public into thinking their bulldozing is normal merely a response isn't. At that place is a legal process for expansion."
In the face of a 6–3 Conservative majority, folks similar Representative Ocasio-Cortez argue that the Supreme Courtroom is out of residual — and, more than that, it isn't quite cogitating of the American people's concerns and values. And then much lies in the hands of the courtroom: the fate of the Affordable Intendance Act, Roe v. Wade and marriage equality, just to name a few. Now, we'll just accept to see if this imbalance — and Barrett's speedy appointment — are enough to convince President Biden and members of Congress to seriously consider a Supreme Court expansion.
frodshamnouse1983.blogspot.com
Source: https://www.ask.com/culture/ask-answers-expand-supreme-court?utm_content=params%3Ao%3D740004%26ad%3DdirN%26qo%3DserpIndex