Dems and Media Redefine “Court Packing” To Mean Opposite Of What It Really Means To Help Biden Out Of Jam
Whataboutism – Accusing Republicans of “court packing” for filling existing vacancies, when the term actually means expanding the size of the Supreme Court to fulfill an agenda
Democrats and their media cohorts are scrambling to figure out what to do about Joe Biden’s self-inflicted court packing problem. Biden, as we noted yesterday, not only asserted that American voters “don’t deserve” to know where he stands on court packing but made the absurd statement that Republicans are “court packing” by lawfully filling an open seat on the Supreme Court. A move Biden ludicrously claims is “not constitutional.”
The word gaming seems intended to convince low information voters, presumably those who vote for Democrats, that the term “court packing” doesn’t mean what it means.
Court packing, of course, refers to a foiled FDR plan, the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, to add seats to the Supreme Court in order to further his New Deal agenda. It was called court packing then, and has been ever since. The terms means what it means: adding seats to the Supreme Court to have upheld an agenda the existing court has or likely will rule unconstitutional.
It’s possible to be horrified by Trump in numerous ways and to ALSO notice that what Biden is saying here is argle bargle. Nominating a supreme court justice during an election is not court packing. Adding justices to the supreme court is. https://t.co/JB0L2cJlSQ
— Eli Lake (@EliLake) October 10, 2020
It is stunning how fast this propaganda is spreading. That's simply not what court-packing means. Filling existing vacancies — even with ample bad faith, cynicism, skullduggery whatever — is not "court packing." It's amazing to watch people who know this say otherwise. https://t.co/mEeMssYaTz
— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) October 11, 2020
So far, this typical leftist tactic of redefining words, terms, norms has drawn justifiable ire from Republicans, confusion among the media talking heads, and truly weird extrapolation from Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE).
Watch Coons claim that “court packing” means nominating and confirming “unqualified” (i.e. non-leftist) judges to lower courts. He’s so earnest, to practiced, so smooth in telling a bald-faced lie that you are almost certain that Chris Wallace will point out that he’s not only not answered the question but has completely botched the proper use of the term.
Coons may not be the brightest bulb on the Democratic Party’s ‘Winter holiday’ tree, but he absolutely knows what court packing is, so this display is particularly repugnant.
He goes on to get back on script and parrots Biden’s moronic claim that confirming Judge Amy Coney Barrett is “court packing.”
Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Chris Coons said on Sunday that the Senate moving to confirm President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett “constitutes court-packing,” and called the nominee’s views “disqualifying.”
Coons, D-Del., made the comments during an interview with “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace. Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., also spoke with Wallace Sunday.
“I’m going to be laying out the ways in which Judge Barrett’s views … are not just extreme, they’re disqualifying,” Coons said of Democrats’ strategy for Barrett’s hearings. “It constitutes court-packing.”
Court-packing’s traditional definition is expanding the Supreme Court by law and then confirming justices to those seats, not what Republicans are doing, which is filling a naturally occurring vacancy. Sasse shot back that Coons’ definition of court-packing was “obviously” incorrect and accused the Democrat of using “Orwellian” language.
Sen. Chris Coons just told Chris Wallace on Fox that the Senate confirming Amy Coney Barrett "constitutes court-packing." That statement is constitutionally unintelligible . . . https://t.co/8Vfz9KfAZd
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) October 11, 2020
Coons is not the only one on the media hotseat, though. Watch Jake Tapper take a Biden surrogate to task over Biden’s refusal to state his stance on court packing (actual court packing, not whatever Dems are claiming it is at any given moment).
At the end, Tapper pushes back on the Biden campaign narrative that the court packing issue is a “game”: “I think a serious policy question is not a game, and I don’t think it’s Trump’s game.”
I particularly appreciate Tapper pointing out that the court packing issue came from the left. He doesn’t name names, but here at LI, we have covered the various threats Democrats have issued to Republicans and the war gaming they are engaged in . . . including not only court packing but adding states to shore up a permanent Democrat Senate majority and nuking the Senate filibuster.
Like Coons, prominent leftists are already trying on different definitions of “court packing” for size. Leslie Marshall, for example, claims—with apparent sincerity—that a conservative majority SCOTUS “IS packing the court.”
Amazing but not surprising how liberals have redefined the term “court packing” to mean the opposite of what it really means in order to get Biden out of the jam he is in. How much longer before they declare that NOT packing the court is racist? https://t.co/vOlY2TGfLj
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) October 11, 2020
On the one hand, the media can’t ignore that Biden is refusing to answer a constitutionally critical question about the structure and nature of the Supreme Court of the United States, one of the three coequal branches of government, and on the other hand, Democrats are attempting to iterate, expand on, rewrite, and improve Biden’s word gaming on the issue.
There you have it folks, the true leftist view that the Supreme Court is there to help liberals achieve policy goals regardless of the Constitution. They are now open about what they want, so why doesn’t Biden just admit the agenda? https://t.co/l9YBLfnsi8
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) October 11, 2020
They’ll be on the same page soon enough. We are watching in real time as Democrats and their media “activist arm” coordinate messaging to save Biden from himself.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Weird. Here’s Sen Mitch McConnell in 2013 referring to filling existing vacancies as court packing: “The left believes the president’s agenda runs straight through the D.C. Circuit Court, that’s why they pressured Senate Democrats to break the rules to change rules – to pack the D.C. Circuit Court”
And Sen John Cornyn: “The majority leader and his allies are attempting to pack the court with judges that will rubber stamp their big-government agenda.”
And Sen Mike Lee: “I certainly hope that neither the White House nor my Democratic colleagues will instead decide to play politics and seek without any legitimate justification to pack the D.C. Circuit with unneeded judges, simply in order to advance a partisan agenda”
And Sen Ted Cruz: “ Right now, the DC Circuit is evenly divided among active judges, with four Republicans and four Democrats. And you find yourself one of three nominees from the president. The president and senior Democrats on this committee have made clear that they want to pick a fight on the DC Circuit. They want to pick a fight on the DC Circuit, and unfortunately I believe part of this pressure, part of the effort of stopping qualified Republican nominees and then deciding to pick a fight now, is a desire to pack the court.”
I can keep going.
Looks to me like they were in fact talking about a plan to increase the number of judges in those courts.
That is packing. That is exactly what packing means.
Appointing one justice to fill one vacant pre-existing seat, not so much.
They were talking about filling three then-existing vacancies on the DC circuit in 2013. The rule change was ending the filibuster for circuit nominees.
Cruz’s comment makes this unambiguous. There were 8 seats filled out of the 11 on the DC Circuit. He called filling any of the three and breaking the 4-4 split packing the court.
Obama expanded the DC Court of Appeals by three… that is packing.
No, he did not. The current number of authorized judges was set by statute in January of 2008.
And that reduced the court’s size from 12.
“Packed” still equals 9 on the SC no matter who said what then.
Awing, do you really see no difference between a split government (Dem WH, GOP Senate) and a unified government (GOP WH and GOP Senate), or are you just being a bit . . . erm, ridiculous? I’m not sure that TDS can be cured, but you might try chilling the F out and stop being a crazy person.
The government is no more split today than it was in 2013, one party controlled the WH and the Senate, the other controlled the House … not that that has anything to do with the fact that Republicans called filling existing judicial vacancies packing the courts.
This isn’t hard stuff, bud.
Know your surroundings, son.
RUT ROH!!!!!!!
More Democrat Party / MSM
self projecting……..
Biden Says ‘Chicanery’ At Polls Is The Only Way He Could Lose U.S. Election – Weasel Zippers
Okay, let me type really really slowly . . . Obama couldn’t get his nominee through because the GOP controlled the Senate.
Follow along . . . The Republican President has nominated a judge to fill a vacancy left by RBG’s death, and a Republican Senate will confirm her replacement.
Period.
Can you envision a Dem Senate with a Dem WH not doing the same thing . . . and being perfectly within their rights to do so?
Let me type even slower for you … every one of the quotes I provided were from 2013. Every single one. In 2013, Democrats controlled both the White House and the Senate. Democrats used this fact to fill judicial vacancies, including vacancies on the DC Circuit. Republicans, who could not stop it beca They were in the minority in the Senate, called this packing the court.
Time to pack the MSM
and all their trolls.
Bwahaha
Moreover, however one defines “court packing” is really irrelevant. The problem is Biden’s contemptuous lack of transparency on his intentions with regard to the court (and other issues for that matter). The president is perfectly transparent. Biden and the democrats want to hide their plans.
Awing is correct. 0bama added no seats to the DC Circuit, he merely nominated judges to vacancies that had been open for several years, and a bunch of Republicans called it “packing”. You can say they were incorrect then and the Dems are incorrect now. But the Dems are entitled to disagree with your peculiar choice of terminology, and point out that you had no objection to the term being used in that way then, so you have no right to object to it now.
How many judges were in the DC Court in the YEARS prior to Obama? That is the hinge point of this discussion…
When 0bama became president there were two vacancies on the DC Circuit: one created by John Roberts’s elevation to the Supreme Court in 2005, and one by Raymond Randolph’s retirement in 2008. A further vacancy was created by Douglas Ginsburg’s retirement in 2011. All three vacancies remained until 2013, when Reid broke the judicial filibuster and 0bama filled them. That is what the Republicans Awing quoted were complaining about.
I’ll wait for all of your links that prove the media was carrying water for the Republicans on these claims of “court packing”. In fact, it is quite the opposite.
I’ll wait to see the WaPo, the fact checkers, and the MSM links from you. I think in charging this hill you didn’t prove what you sought out to prove. In fact, you proved why Biden is wrong now and all of these scumbags are just bigger liars by their own standards and rules.
Doesn’t really matter how you define it. The problem is Biden’s contemptuous lack of transparency. He thinks the voters don’t deserve to know his plans. The president couldn’t be more open. That’s not too difficult to understand, is it bud?
Unlike you, who just slurps up whatever is vomited, I looked up the McConnell quote in the Congressional Record. His reference to packing was not about filling an existing vacancy in the sense we have with Barrett.
In 2013 there were three vacancies on the DC Circuit Court. Not one. Three. Why three vacancies? Because for years that court wasn’t busy enough to fill them. After Obamacare was shoved down our throats, all of a sudden the (D) party needed judges to make sure Obamacare could still be stuffed down our throats. And this was with an even lighter caseload than several years before 2013. So, yes, packing the court with three (D) appointed judges is exactly what that was all about.
I didn’t bother looking up the other quotes since you were too stupid to know what the first one was about.
Wait, so packing the court does mean filling existing vacancies?
The vacancies hadn’t been filled because the filibuster was used to block them, first by Democrats, then by Republicans. Eventually Democrats decided to nuke it. Nobody on either side actually cared about workload, which is why Mitch has filled the three vacancies that have occurred on that court since Trump took office. I know exactly what happened, why you think that impacts whether or not it’s ok to call filling vacancies packing the court though is beyond me.
If Bush had filled the “vacancies” would the Dems cry “court packing”? Obama took advantage of the opportunity… now Ytump does the same …. so you can’t complain if it isn’t packing then and now.
I’m not complaining about anything, it wasn’t packing then, it’s not packing now, and this abuse of language is bipartisan. This isn’t that hard, idk what’s wrong with y’all that you can’t accept this simple reality.
Bush tried to fill the two vacancies he left. The Dems filibustered it. Then 0bama tried but the Reps filibustered.
I like how you didn’t know it was three vacancies in 2013, or why. I also like how you don’t know that the DC Circuit Court has varied in its seat size many times since its founding in 1893, while the U.S. Supreme Court has been at 9 justices since 1869. The last time the DC Circuit Court changed size was 2008. I like how you didn’t know that it is not uncommon to have a number of vacancies in federal courts for years because there is no need to bring them to the maximum level, unless Congress changes the number, or the amount of work there changes. Where was the work increase at the DC Circuit Court level in 2013? I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t there.
In 2013, there had been no need for those extra justices for years. All of a sudden the (D)s needed them. Because more cases were coming through? No. To make damn sure Obamacare wasn’t touched. That is packing.
Go peddle your stupid whataboutism that isn’t even whataboutism to someone who cares.
And what does Joe have to say about it? He won’t tell us. We don’t deserve to know. That’s really the point in all this isn’t it, not the definition of court packing. Although you’re wrong on the sense of term as applied to the supreme court and, like I said, Joe won’t tell us (or can’t tell us) what he thinks.
I’m sorry, but this is really stupid. Not every use of the word “pack” in a sentence about a “court” is “court packing.” “Court packing” is a specific term that refers to a specific activity, and it has a specific history, referring to Roosevelt’s desire to change the composition of the court to achieve his desired political aims. Good gravy.
What a nonsensical claim, “packing the court” and “court-packing” mean the same thing. But if that’s eh you want, you can go to YouTube and search Grassley Court Packing to hear him talk at length about how filling the vacancies was “A type of court-packing reminiscent of FDR’s era”. Or you can just look up the “Stop Court Packing Act”, by then rep Tom Cotton and 16 other Rs that was aimed at lowering the number of seats to deprive Obama of the appointments.
Calling stuff that isn’t court packing by that term is a bipartisan affair.
No. “Court-packing,” as proposed by Biden, is the plan to add additional justices to the Supreme Court in order to create a majority of hand-picked justices. The term was created in response to FDR’s attempt to do the same. Since your education is obviously lacking (public school?), here are a couple of links for you:
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/roosevelt-announces-court-packing-plan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Procedures_Reform_Bill_of_1937
Biden hasn’t proposed court packing, and refuses to say whether he will. So how can you say what it consists of in his case?
Biden may have zipped his lip about what he meant, but the cat has been let out of the bag by Ed Markey, Joe Kennedy, Eric Holder, Jerry Nadler, and others.
Sorry, but the Democrats have had another Big Mouth Beto Moment, when somebody on the team leaked the playbook.
Awing1, “court packing,” in the context of the Supreme Court has never meant anything other than expanding the number of justices. But that’s beside the point, even if this did constitute court packing (which if most certainly does not)the President’s intentions are clear. He’s not hiding anything. In contrast, Biden has told voters they aren’t entitled to know his intentions. They don’t deserve to know his plans. That’s the offensive part and redefining “court packing” doesn’t change that.
Ten thumbs up for that comment. It could be Biden’s view on any significant issue. SCOTUS-packing is just the issue du jour. To tell the public that they do not deserve a response on any important question and, like Pelosi on Obamacare, they will find out after they vote, is EXTREMELY offensive and IMO disqualifying. To these career politicians, we are all just a “basket of deplorables”.
One party can “pack” a court over time with ideologues following the current, constitutionally mandated processes. The Republicans have been fortunate enough to be able to do this with SCOTUS. The Democrats have only not done this themselves because similar situations have not presented themselves due to both election results and uncontrollable circumstances (aka bad luck – although RBG could have controlled the circumstance of her exit from the court and elected not to do so). This is not “court packing,” a term that applies to expanding a court in order to then change the ideological makeup of the court by appointing justices to the newly-available seats.
“Court packing” and “packing the court” are terms that apply to different processes. The former depends on elections and contingency, the latter depends solely upon elections. The former is considered acceptable and proper, while the latter is not. In fact, FDR’s own party was opposed to the idea when he proposed it – because he had been unable to “pack the court” – and RBG herself was against it. She understood the difference between the processes and I’m betting you do to. You’re just being obstreperous.
Correction: I confused the two terms in the second paragraph, above. (It is bloody confusing, which is exactly why the Dems are trying to conflate the two processes.)
I just read through most of the thread and I think you are correct that many republicans were misusing the term “packing” to score political points. However, that’s why I, and I think many other, feel disenfranchised by both major political parties because both parties are controlled by hypocrites and liars that will flip flop on almost any issue if it suits their purpose. If you can truly be honest with yourself, then you know that if Hillary Clinton had won in 2016, the Senate was majority democrats, Ted Cruz was running and up in the polls and Clarence Thomas had just suddenly passed, then you know the democrats would be rushing a nomination through before the election. This rushing a nomination through the confirmation process is literally child’s play compared to what was done to Brett Kavanaugh. That was true evil and if it that was not criminal then it should be.
I also want to add a thought concerning my revulsion of both political parties. I rarely get to vote for a presidential candidate I like and thus vote against the person I dislike the most. In 2016 I definitely thought Hillary would win the election and was shocked to my core when Trump won. To my surprise he has done a much better job than I ever thought possible and here is the most unbelievable thing to me that I have come to believe. While, I still do not like Trump as a person as I think he is bombastic, a braggart and exaggerates the truth up to and including straight up lying. I also think he is the most honest president of my lifetime and that is despite himself. That is, his rashness, his thin skin, his lack of polished political speak and his access to twitter all have him constantly posting or saying what he actually thinks and damn the consequences.
I live in Ohio and voted FOR Trump last week (in person) primarily because of his Supreme Court nominations. I hope he gets three more.
This is pretty simple, let me explain. Regardless of the terms used, appointing judges to fill vacancies is very different from adding seats. The Dems are purposely conflating these two things in an attempt to mislead and deflect. Please give me examples of Ted Cruz or other Repubs of advocating for adding seats to the court. Or examples of the Repubs trying to conflate these two very different things. I’ll be waiting patiently…
Senator Coons in one of the worst, he’s sad, soft-spoken, and a duplicitous partisan. He’s also also reached his end politically. He lacks the camera presence, the charisma, to go any farther than the US Senate.
Dan Rather is a perpetrator of fake news. Let’s not forget.
Pelosi said about Obama’s NoCare :: you have to vote for it, before you read it.
Nominating a replacement to RBG …. IS …. CONSTITUTIONALLY …. REQUIRED …. of Trump.
The point about a 6-3 court being “packing” is IMO both idiotic and false. With the way Roberts has been behaving since ObamaCare, the court looks to me to be barely 5-4 if ACB is confirmed.
The election battle may be mostly over the vote of Independents who become even more turned off by this verbal nonsense. I have always thought calling half the country “a basket of deplorables” was the key reason Hillary lost the election; and hope Biden saying that voters “do not deserve an answer” to a very important question will be his.
Hillary is most certainly an expert, being a deplorable and tending her herd of deplorable’s.
Democrats interested only in fudge-packing the court. Every word out of their mouths is a lie and only a lie, period.
“Whatever it takes”… Right, you lefty scumbags?
“Every word out of their mouths is a lie and only a lie, period.”
Right, making them collectively deplorable.
You do understand what that term means, and why it’s offensive?
Not really here to look out for other people’s feelings.
I have an entrepreneurial fantasy of starting a fudge production business in Green Bay, WI. It will be “Green Bay Fudge” and the byline will be “Proudly packed in Green Bay, Wisconsin!”
The media has to to do everything that it can to make Biden appear a viable candidate.
IMHO, Trump will win reelection, if all of his supporters vote. And, it will be a substantial win. Biden has little grassroots support. He lags far behind Trump in the two kitchen table issues which always dominate elections; the economy and security from criminal activity. And, Trump dominates in those areas. Also, as the election is effectively voters who so not like Trump personally and those who want to push a very unpopular agenda versus people who see Trump delivering far greater freedom. So, issues like expanding and packing the court will have little effect on those groups. Also, the number of undecided voters is also just about nil. The only thing most undecideds are undecided about is whether or not to vote. So, why is the court expansion and Biden’s reluctance to address it important? Down ballot elections. Demographics gave changed across the country. Safe Republican districts have become fewer. And, due to population movement and redistricting, a Republican majority is becoming harder to maintain.
Biden is toast, if Trump voters vote and vote fraud does not reach unbelievable levels. But, Congressional race results could change the landscape significantly.
Diversity of meaning. How colorful.
I am hanging on to my paper copy of Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (1973) and guarding it with my life. Anyone who depends on an online source for word definitions is not getting the truth.
Not only that, but Big Brother probably knows all the words you look up and that could be used against you. (Oooh, he looked up “segregation”-must be a white supremacist.)
FDR’s plan was a bit more subtle than just increasing the number of associate justices. It would indeed increase the number of them, but only temporarily.
His plan would have allowed him to jump the gun on appointments. His problem was judges he wanted to replace who had reached retirement age but showed no signs of retiring, thus preventing him from replacing them with New Deal-approved candidates. So he wanted to appoint their replacements without waiting for their seats to actually open up. This would nullify their anti-FDR votes with pro-FDR votes until they got around to dying or retiring. In the long term, the size of SCOTUS would remain unchanged.
All in all, a rather inventive bit of razzle-dazzle which didn’t fool anybody much.
Nevertheless, the effect would have been the same – changing the rules in order to immediately alter the ideological status of the court. In the end, when the numbers went back down, the ideological status of the court would have already been changed. FDR just wasn’t willing to wait for that to happen under the current law.
Although I appreciate the history lesson (and will look up and read more about it), it’s a distinction without a difference.
If the Left lost Jonah they are losing
Did you see how the Associated Press now is censoring the word ‘packing,’ as in Joe Biden packing the Supreme Court, and replacing it with the word ‘depoliticizing’?
The totalitarian pigs have taken over the AP. This is the once-respected news organization whose reporters the Obama-Biden administration spied on. I guess they like being falsely labeled criminal suspects in the courts, as the Obama-Biden administration did label them.
It’s time the AP and its member news organizations also were ‘depoliticized,’ packed with enough Independents and Republicans to reflect the American population.
How would you propose doing that?
The same way conservatives packed Air America.
It’s so nauseating, the slavish water-carrying of the Dhimmi-crat prostitute-propagandists. Their anti-Trump bias and fervor is so pronounced that, even when they issue a mild critique of Biden, they always have to preface their statement with an obligatory statement to demonstrate their ideological fealty to anti-Trumpism. It’s feckless and childish. None of these idiots has any integrity or backbone:
“It’s possible to be horrified by Trump in numerous ways and to ALSO notice that what Biden is saying here is argle bargle. Nominating a supreme court justice during an election is not court packing. Adding justices to the supreme court is.”
This is a prime example of a large problem with Dems/Progs, and the dinosaur media, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democrat party. Words have meanings. A collection of words, notably the United States Constitution have meaning. They want to warp, “interpret” the content to mean things the framers never thought of.
Liberals want to keep you in an upside-down world. All a part of the plot by idiots who found high-school civics class “too hard”.
I’m waiting for the left to start redefining “ballot box stuffing” to mean Republicans flooding the polls.