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Dear editor:
Republicans tell us not to vote for Democrats because they will pack the Supreme Court with justices basing their opinions on political policy, not the Constitution. These “court …
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Dear editor:
Republicans tell us not to vote for Democrats because they will pack the Supreme Court with justices basing their opinions on political policy, not the Constitution. These “court packing” claims ignore that Republicans already did that.
Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell self-declared that his court packing schemes were his proudest legacy. When President Barack Obama nominated moderate Merrick Garland in March 2016, McConnell would not hold confirmation hearings because it was an election year. After President Donald Trump was elected, Neil Gorsuch was too far right to receive the 60 votes needed, so Republicans changed Senate rules to allow confirmation with only 51 votes.
Next came crying coward Brett Kavanaugh who instead of listening to sexual assault testimony, spent his time working up a tear-filled objection to these “Democrat” attacks — like he did a few days earlier on Fox News. He was confirmed with just 50 votes.
Finally, when liberal Ruth Ginsburg died in late September 2020, after early voting had started, McConnell got conservative Amy Barrett confirmed with 52 votes in only 27 days. The election-year “need to wait” scheme simply vanished.
Once seated, the McConnell court discovered, after about 250 years, that our founders secretly intended the president to have some absolute immunity and much presumed immunity for nearly all of his actions. Also, it decided that Congress has mostly never had the authority to set up nonpartisan executive agencies with civil servants protected from political firings — overturning a long-standing 9-0 opposite Supreme Court ruling.
So McConnell and MAGA have already “packed” the court. Before Trump ends his term, Republicans expect retirements with replacements being young far-right judges (or Congressmen like Sen. Ted Cruz). The obvious short-term correction would be to once again require 60 votes for a Supreme Court Justice confirmation.
Long term, a Constitutional amendment limiting terms to 20 years would help assure a more moderate court, avoiding either extreme.
Dennis Reuter
Powell
