Bipartisan Group Seeks to Add Constitutional Amendment to Keep Supreme Court at Nine Justices
“Keeping the number of justices at nine enshrined in the Constitution will prevent any political party from tampering with the court for political gain.”
Now that Democrats are actively pushing to pack the U.S. Supreme Court, there is growing opposition.
One bipartisan group is even trying to add an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to permanently limit the number of judges on the court to nine.
Natalia Mittelstadt writes at Just the News:
Growing national, bipartisan movement for constitutional amendment to keep SCOTUS at 9 justices
Nationwide, a bipartisan majority of Americans are in favor of a constitutional amendment to keep the number of Supreme Court justices at nine, says Roman Buhler, executive director of Keep Nine, the movement leading the charge. However, the issue has become extremely partisan in Congress.
“The most fascinating thing has been the initial bipartisan support that we’ve gotten to the idea of keeping nine justices,” Buhler told the John Solomon Reports podcast. “Our organization actually is led by a Democrat, a former state attorney general of Virginia. And it was originally proposed by a group of 15 former state attorneys general, a majority of whom were Democrat.
“And the Keep Nine Amendment, which says in its entirety, ‘The Supreme Court of the United States shall be composed of nine justices,’ was first introduced in Congress by a Democrat. So this is a bipartisan movement. Polling shows we have overwhelming support from the public, 62% in favor, only 18% against. Of those who have an opinion, overwhelming majorities of both Republicans and Democrats favor this amendment.”
FOX News has more on the House Republicans who support this idea:
A group of six House Republicans Tuesday will introduce a constitutional amendment aimed at setting the number of Supreme Court justices at nine in a reaction to calls from Democrats to pack the court and a commission ordered by President Biden to study the topic.
The proposed amendment, first obtained by Fox News, is sponsored by Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., along with Reps. Chris Jacobs, R-N.Y., Ken Buck, R-Colo., Mo Brooks, R-Ala., Ted Budd, R-N.C., and Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla…
The constitutional amendment proposed by Gallagher would simply require that “The Supreme Court shall be composed of not more than nine justices.”
“We don’t need a commission to know court packing is a radical idea that would undermine confidence in one of our country’s most important — and trusted — institutions,” Gallagher said of the amendment. “The Supreme Court has been comprised of nine justices for more than 150 years, and it’s time we amend the Constitution to make this longstanding precedent permanent before it’s too late.”
A recent poll from Rasmussen found that a majority of likely voters oppose expanding the court. From the Highland County Press:
Poll: Majority of Americans oppose expanding the U.S. Supreme Court
Democrats enthralled their base and alarmed Republicans with the recent announcement of a new push to add four justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the latest polling suggests the majority of Americans don’t favor expanding the highest court in the land.
New polling released by Rasmussen Tuesday found that only a third of likely voters support adding justices to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, 55% of likely voters oppose expanding the bench, which has remained at nine justices for over 150 years.
The poll surveyed 1,000 likely voters between April 15 and April 18 of last week. Respondents were asked:
“The U.S. Supreme Court as defined by law has nine members – a chief justice and eight associate justices, all appointed to lifetime terms. Do you favor or oppose increasing the number of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court?”
Sentiments have remained roughly the same since Rasmussen asked the same question in the fall of last year. Last September, 53% of likely voters said they opposed adding justices to the court while only 32% supported it. The rest were unsure.
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine supports the idea of an amendment to limit the court to nine.
NBC 4 in Ohio reports:
Gov. Mike DeWine joins Ohio Republicans in backing amendment to keep Supreme Court at 9 justices
Gov. Mike DeWine has joined top Ohio Republicans in denouncing plans to expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court.
DeWine issued a statement Tuesday backing a constitutional amendment that would lock the number of justices at nine. He was joined by Lt. Gov. Jon Husted in supporting the measure.
“For over 150 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has been comprised of nine justices,” DeWine said. “Over the years, efforts to alter the composition of the court have always been met with skepticism by the American people of attempting to politicize the court. Keeping the number of justices at nine enshrined in the Constitution will prevent any political party from tampering with the court for political gain.”
Democrats would think nothing of throwing aside 150 years of tradition for their own gain, and make no mistake, that is all this is about.
Democrats want to turn the Supreme Court into another legislative body with the final say over everything. Naturally, they also want to be the majority.
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Comments
You’re supposed to do this before it’s too late.
Now they want to shut the barn door after the horse is half way to China.
You go back to 2016 to tell people to go for a constitutional amendment against court packing and someone thinks that is an issue at the time? This isn’t a late response.
/this.
I wrote about the Dem’s plan for court packing (and for adding new states) and comments were along the lines of “that will never happen.” There is nothing out of bounds for Democrats, and that is the lesson here.
To push my luck by adding a second point that goes along with what you just said.
If we win in 2024 (which is a big if I am hoping we do of course) Republican congressmen and senators won’t take FBI claims that (fill in blank) is a Manchurian candidate with a grain of salt they will take it with the entire salt mine and threaten perjury charges.
Can the same be said if the US Navy claims “(fill in name) is a Manchurian candidate”?
We need to be prepared not just for what they want to get but how they want to get it.
If anything was to be learned from the 2020 presidential election it is that the Republicans need to do a better job at anticipating what the Democrats might do and be more proactive at heading it off.
Proactive is the proper strategy, yet not a word I would use to describe preparing to play defense against Democrat innovations.
I guess they realized Republicans might add even more seats after 2024.
I do wish them luck but as said that horse got out of the barn I think so no point in closing it.
Since when did the Democrat Party care about fairness or the majority of American citizens? For that matter, since when did Republicans (or at least RINOs) care either?
If the Democrat thought is to pack the court, why not just do away with it? And, while they’re at it, do away with the Presidency and the Congress as well. Just install a Comrade President, declare the US to be another Communist country and be done with it. It would appear that tyranny is the goal any way!
And this differs from the current regime… exactly how?
The next GOP President should add 10 Justices. lol. By the end of the century we can have a Supreme Court replace Congress with 535 members.
I still don’t see why the Dems would even consider expanding the court when they’re so successful at flipping “Republican” justices, viz. Roberts and Kavanaugh.
why does everyone keep calling them “Democrats”? These “elected” officials appear to be devoted to the destruction of the United States of America.
Oath of Office – what’s that!?
Not to put too fine a point on it, but what good would a Constitutional amendment do? In many blue states the Bill of Right (especially the 2nd amendment) is either evaded or flatly ignored; the Fourteenth Amendment has been battered out of all recognition in order to discover a host of “rights”; and the Fifteenth Amendment has been substantially diluted by ballot harvesting, massive absentee voting, “motor voting” and other measures designed to promote voting fraud. The current US Supreme Court is garbage and cannot be counted upon to actually apply the existing Constitution.
The only valid point you made is one you made by accident which is that the DOJ enforcing the law in a biased manner is a violation of equal protection under the law, and it wasn’t one you intended to do your intention was to screech out that elections are rigged by voter fraud again so therefore don’t bother to show up to vote and Chuck Schumer thanks you for that screech because he is hoping to gain seats 2022 so he could abolish the filibuster and truly be unleashed.
What a Constitutional amendment would do would be keep the Supreme Court to 9 seats and make the conservative justices feel secure enough to just do the right thing in high profile cases without worrying that their verdict will piss off the wrong senators. That would make a gigantic difference.
I don’t think so. Whatever has been keeping the shock collar on Roberts’ neck for the past 15 years, it hasn’t been fear of court packing.
There is more in the supreme court than Roberts.
Seems like a reasonable amendment, it should however be tied in with how justices are chosen ie setting a standard for who gets to choose to ensure consistency
That’s been done. The Constitution says the president nominates and the Senate approves or rejects the nominee. The latter task belongs to the Senate because that’s where the states are represented as nominally sovereign geo-political entities, where they are all equal in status, and because the founders wanted to keep the appointment of justices out of the House, where the popular sentiment was likely to approve of justices more likely to pry open the goody box.
Of course, this only works properly when Senators are appointed by the legislatures of their respective states, because the Senate is where the states were meant to defend their prerogatives against the House. The Senate therefore would send justices to SCOTUS that would, through its nullification of laws, protect the states’ prerogatives from federal encroachment. This is why the 17th Amendment should be repealed. Having two chambers of Congress selected by, and representing, the same constituents eliminated the “check and balance” between the two chambers you were never taught about in school.
Well not really otherwise we wouldn’t have had the situation where the Republi ans could bloke Merrick Garlands nomination on the basis of it being an election year then do the very same thing for there own appointments. Height of hypocrisy