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Alan Dershowitz: Packing Supreme Court Would be a ‘Disaster’ for the Court, Due Process, Free Speech

Alan Dershowitz: Packing Supreme Court Would be a ‘Disaster’ for the Court, Due Process, Free Speech

“If the Democrats get a chance to pack the court, they’ll pack it with radical opponents of free speech and due process, people who call themselves progressives but are really regressives”

Democrats are actively looking for a way to pack the U.S. Supreme Court with four additional, presumably liberal, justices. Biden has even launched a committee to study the issue.

Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz says this would be a disaster in many ways.

This weekend, Dershowitz discussed the issue during an interview on Newsmax.

From Sandy Fitzgerald of Newsmax:

Dershowitz to Newsmax TV: ‘Disaster’ to Add More Supreme Court Justices

It would be a “disaster for the Supreme Court” if a Democrat bill to add four more justices to the bench is approved, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz said on Newsmax TV Saturday.

“It would be a disaster for the Supreme Court and it would be a disaster for freedom of speech and due process,” Dershowitz said on Newsmax TV’s “Saturday Report.” “If the Democrats get a chance to pack the court, they’ll pack it with radical opponents of free speech and due process, people who call themselves progressives but are really regressives.”…

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she does not favor the expansion, but Dershowitz pointed out Saturday that in her comments, she said that times have changed and there may still be regional and other considerations that require expanding the number of justices.

“That’s total nonsense,” Dershowitz said. “The Supreme Court is the most underworked institution in the American government. They decide fewer than 100 cases a year. They have four or five law clerks each and they don’t work all that hard.”

He added that there is no real reason to expand the number of justices, except to add people who are the “ideological” match of people like Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., in the court.

Watch the whole segment below:

Another law professor, Jonathan Turley of George Washington University, has described the idea of packing the U.S. Supreme Court as a hostile takeover.

He writes at his blog:

Hostile Takeover: Democrats To Introduce Bill To Pack The Supreme Court

We recently discussed the controversial commission created by President Joe Biden to discuss calls to pack the Supreme Court as well as a number of truly looney ideas for circumventing or reducing the authority of the Court’s conservative majority. Some members however decided not to wait even for a commission that is itself packed with liberal members. House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler, D-NY, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass, and others will be announcing their plan to immediately add four new justices to the Court. The number is calculated purely to give liberals a 7-6 majority on the Court. It is about a subtle as a B-52 run.

Many of us have discussed the expansion of the Supreme Court through the years. Over 20 years ago, I recommended the expansion of the Court to 17 or 19 members. However, that recommendation would occur over many years and would not give advocates the short-term majority that they are seeking. That is the difference between reforming and packing the Court.

The bill today strips away any pretense of principle. It is pure unadulterated court packing.

It should be noted that neither Dershowitz nor Turley are conservatives.

The Democrats are attempting a power grab that is unprecedented in our time, and everyone knows it, including them.

Featured image via YouTube.

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Comments

Glad to hear Dershowitz set the record straight. I’ve even heard a few “conservative” attorneys say expanding the court the right way should be considered because the court can’t handle everything coming their way. As Dersh points out, that’s by CHOICE. Not manpower limited.

    henrybowman in reply to 1A_Rules. | April 18, 2021 at 5:03 pm

    And it’s a stupid excuse anyway. They ALL decide the cases TOGETHER, so it’s not as if they are going to double their thruput by splitting up cases.

“If the Democrats get a chance to pack the court, they’ll pack it with radical opponents of free speech and due process, people who call themselves progressives but are really regressives”

These Dems/Progs are enemies of the United States and everything it represents.

When will Allen finally come to grips that His Democrat Party is just an “idea” long ago replaced by closet totalitarians?

The “fundamental transformation” of the USA is a planned upheaval…no organic evolution. He really believed today’s Dem Party is redeemable.

They stole the election and they won’t stop now. full speed ahead for the Dems. Like Obama said let’s transform America.

How much longer can Alan still call himself a member of the so-called “Democratic Party”. The party has been infiltrated by radicals and no longer bears, in material ways, any resemblance to the party of 20 years ago. Biden is just a figurehead – needed so most Americans will remain complacent and not question the radical agenda.

I don’t think the SCOTUS needs to be enlarged but I do think if it’s expanded the new members should be nominated slowly and one president doesn’t get to nominate all of them.

That said I do think they need more district level courts and maybe another circuit. The SCOTUS controls its docket, but the district level and circuit levels seem to have too much backlog.

    Connivin Caniff in reply to kimd09876. | April 18, 2021 at 2:14 pm

    The difference between court packing and court reform for efficiency or other reasons is that in court reform the Democrats pick two people and the Republicans pick two. More hands available, no bias.

      TX-rifraph in reply to Connivin Caniff. | April 18, 2021 at 2:28 pm

      “…Democrats pick two people and the Republicans pick two.” is not “No bias.” It is no difference.

      Besides, the bribed and/or extorted SC is now only for show as they demonstrated during the election fraud. Packing only eliminates the need for the extortion.

      CountMontyC in reply to Connivin Caniff. | April 18, 2021 at 4:58 pm

      If they expand the court block all nominations until 2025 and let the people decide who gets to be the POTUS and nominate the new judges. In fact the GOP should announce that is what they will do.

      henrybowman in reply to Connivin Caniff. | April 18, 2021 at 5:06 pm

      More hands available to do what? They work in lockstep anyway.

      This is like making the service at the DMV faster not by adding windows but by putting three clerks on every window… with every window still serving one customer.

        Connivin Caniff in reply to henrybowman. | April 18, 2021 at 10:16 pm

        I don’t disagree with you. I think I was a little too subtle for the room. I was trying to give a “reasonable and fair” alternative to the D’Rat proposal, as “reasonable and fair” is absolutely anathema to the D’Rats. Hopefully, the inherent merit of my argument would unhorse the D’Rats, as they could not refute it. (Unhorsed and thrown into the mud in which they are most accustomed.) Thus, end of ridiculous packing campaign, and the optimum 9 number is preserved.

Dershowitz is right. However, long ago, Judge Learned Hand observed that once liberty dies in the hearts of the people, no Constitution or court can save it. Here in the USA, we have been subjected to nearly a century of Progressives promising us that government can solve all of our problems, and that the only reason why Marxism-Leninism failed was because of the Slavic entermensch and “primitive Asiatic” and, BTW, they called the rest of us racists). We now have our major media willing to sacrifice freedom of speech and the press in return for, perhaps, a gov’t bailout of the NYTimes and WAPo.

I don’t welcome this. I believe packing the court is as much a threat and a bad idea now as it was in the 1930’s. But, it looks as if Hand’s prophecy is coming to pass.

    henrybowman in reply to Kepha H. | April 18, 2021 at 5:11 pm

    Fortunately, Hand is not America’s only prophet.
    Me, I’m partial to the works of Bruce Banner.

Lucifer Morningstar | April 18, 2021 at 9:08 pm

Really Mr. Dershowitz, why not tell us something we don’t already know.

We are all very well aware of the political and social ramifications of democrats packing the Supreme Court with their chosen lackeys and what in would mean to the United States.

But thanks for playing anyway.

George_Kaplan | April 18, 2021 at 9:36 pm

Democrat plans to pack the court, to make it a branch of the Democrat Party rather than the US federal government would simply delegitimize it as an institution. Its decrees would have no more merit than those of CNN or the HuffPo, but come backed with the full weight of the Democrat Party’s control of the federal machine.

Someone has made the baseball analogy that packing SCOTUS is like being down 4 games to none in the World Series, and then demanding the Series be extended to best of 11. There’s not a sports fan in American who wouldn’t see the inherent unfairness in that, but, alas, many of those same sports fans don’t have a problem with court-packing.

Dems are just intolerant of the concept that “sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.” They demand to win all the time, and will change the rules in order to do so.

Yes, it would be a complete disaster, which is PRECISELY why they are pushing this course.

“Alan Dershowitz: Packing Supreme Court Would be a ‘Disaster’ for the Court, Due Process, Free Speech”

And that, Professor Dershowitz, is precisely the goal. It will be the final step in the creation of a Leftist dictatorship.

I am not a legal expert so I’d like to hear from the experts at Legal Insurrection what the prospect would be to have the Supreme Court hear a case that an expansion of the Court, as the Democrats have signaled their intention to do, is unconstitutional?

My thought is that it violates the separation of powers when the political branches can overrun the judicial branch simply by packing the Court or even threatening to do so when its rulings displease Congress or the White House.

I understand that expansion per se is not unconstitutional and the magic number nine isn’t hardwired, but it seems that any change to it should be for “cause” of a specific kind, and should not be changeable by simple legislation. Otherwise the Supreme Court cannot fend of intrusion of its judicial powers from the other two branches.

The way things are going it might be the only way to stop it, as I see Democrats only getting stronger after the 2022 election.