Once again, we see how it’s always the left that seeks to change the rules when they can’t win fair and square. This time it’s Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) who is looking to change things by introducing a bill to pack the Supreme Court, as well as forcing other changes on a co-equal branch of government.
The bill, even Wyden admits, is going nowhere fast. But consider that the current narrow balance in Congress won’t last forever – and as long as bad ideas like this are around, Democrats will keep trying:
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden (D) introduced a bill on Thursday that would bring fundamental changes to the nation’s high court, including adding six additional seats and forcing all justices to have their tax returns publicly disclosed.
The senator’s office said the Judicial Modernization and Transparency Act aims to “restore balance among the three branches of government, increase transparency to improve public trust in America’s courts, and modernize the courts to ensure greater access to justice for more Americans.”
So, Sen. Wyden seeks to “restore balance” among the three branches of government by upending the structure the Supreme Court has operated under since 1869 – nine justices, lifetime appointments, separated from the day-to-day vagaries of national politics. One can safely look at Wyden’s statement here and translate it as “make the Supreme Court more compliant to the wishes of the political left,” because that’s what this bill would really do:
Among the proposed changes, the bill would expand the court from nine to 15 justices over the course of three presidential terms and would allow the president to appoint one nominee in the first and third years of each presidential term. The bill would also create a process whereby the a nominee is automatically scheduled for a vote if too much time passes (180 days) between the nomination and any significant action.
In other words, this would give what Wyden hopes will be Democrat presidents the opportunity to pack the court with liberal justices – maybe more great legal minds who aren’t biologists and can’t define what a woman is – and will bypass the process by which Mitch McConnel actually presented the American people with the greatest gift he ever managed to give us, namely, ensuring that Merrick Garland never sits on the Supreme Court.
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Sen. Wyden, in introducing this ill-fated piece of legislative dreck, has shown himself to be what we used to call a “sore loser.” Clearly, he – and plenty of others on the left – aren’t enamored of Donald Trump’s three Supreme Court appointments, and are also less than fond of some recent decisions from the Court. Well, that’s too bad. There have been Supreme Court decisions I didn’t care for, such as Kelo v. New London, but I wasn’t calling for Congress to overturn the table following that decision.
Everything Wyden claims about this bill is wrong. The three co-equal branches of government are balanced as they always have been, by the Constitution. The decisions of the Court are perfectly transparent, as a matter of public record; you can read them, along with any concurring or dissenting opinions. And by “modernize the Court,” Wyden means “make the Court more amenable to leftist sensibilities.”
This is a garbage bill and will go nowhere. But that doesn’t mean the left will stop trying. They won’t. This bill and others like it, represent another aspect of the left’s efforts to overturn the constitutional order. This isn’t a battle we can win and walk away from. This is a battle that will continue as long as the republic stands – and if we lose it, we lose the republic. It’s as simple as that.
