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Republicans Sound Like They're Getting Nervous About Supreme Court Expansion by Madiba K. Dennie
On Thursday, House Judiciary Committee Republicans held a hearing to discuss, as they put it in the hearing’s official title, “a threat to the Supreme Court’s legitimacy.” The threat to which they referred, though, was not the Court’s myriad ethical scandals, or its efforts to gut both the Voting Rights Act and the Fifteenth Amendment, or its 200-plus-year track record of concentrating power in the hands of well-connected white guys named John.
Instead, the threat that had House Republicans all riled up is the idea of increasing the number of justices on the Court. On its website, the Judiciary Committee promised during the hearing to “examine the history and perils of court packing,” as well as “other policy proposals that threaten to undermine the integrity of the judicial branch.”
Throughout the morning, Republicans framed their resistance to Court expansion as a defense of the institution’s legitimacy. The GOP’s first witness, Missouri Solicitor General Louis Capozzi, claimed that expansion would undermine the Court’s “insulation from partisan politics,” which enables it to make decisions based on “what the law requires, and not the fleeting goals of political actors.” The second witness, Cumberland School of Law professor William Ross, claimed that expansion would let the elected branches “manipulate the outcome of judicial decisions” by appointing justices who “would be expected to conform to the political predilections of the president.”
The third witness, a law firm partner named Gene Schaerr, claimed that expansion proposals “distract from the more important work of building political and legislative coalitions.” Schaerr further suggested that people who don’t like the Court’s interpretation of the Voting Rights Act should simply ask the Republican-controlled Congress to amend the statute.
Instead, the threat that had House Republicans all riled up is the idea of increasing the number of justices on the Court. On its website, the Judiciary Committee promised during the hearing to “examine the history and perils of court packing,” as well as “other policy proposals that threaten to undermine the integrity of the judicial branch.”
Throughout the morning, Republicans framed their resistance to Court expansion as a defense of the institution’s legitimacy. The GOP’s first witness, Missouri Solicitor General Louis Capozzi, claimed that expansion would undermine the Court’s “insulation from partisan politics,” which enables it to make decisions based on “what the law requires, and not the fleeting goals of political actors.” The second witness, Cumberland School of Law professor William Ross, claimed that expansion would let the elected branches “manipulate the outcome of judicial decisions” by appointing justices who “would be expected to conform to the political predilections of the president.”
The third witness, a law firm partner named Gene Schaerr, claimed that expansion proposals “distract from the more important work of building political and legislative coalitions.” Schaerr further suggested that people who don’t like the Court’s interpretation of the Voting Rights Act should simply ask the Republican-controlled Congress to amend the statute.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/republicans-sound-like-theyre-getting-nervous-about-supreme-court-expansion]
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