The most important moment in the recent Presidential debate was DimJoe Biden’s refusal to answer a simple question: if elected will you support expanding the Supreme Court? It sounds almost innocuous, harmless, but the future of our fragile Republic hangs on the answer.
DimJoe doesn’t believe that you need to know. He later said that voters will “know my opinion on court-packing when the election is over.” In case you didn’t get the message, when DimJoe was asked “Don’t the voters deserve to know where you stand on court packing?” DimJoe responded “No, they don’t deserve (sic), I’m not going to play his (Trump’s) game.” Well DimJoe, to The Railer this is no game and Americans should be deathly afraid of your intentions.
FDR was the last wannabe tyrant, a Democrat of course, to threaten this in 1937. Frustrated by Supreme Court rulings against his parade of socialist schemes, FDR wanted to expand the number of judges from 9 to 15, guaranteeing that his hand-picked additions would rubber stamp his agenda. With this sword hanging overhead, Justice Owen Roberts flipped sides on a key ruling, effectively ending a Judicial era that had opposed socialism and heavy government regulation. Humorist Cal Tinney coined the famous spin on an old phrase, “the switch in time that saved nine.”
The Democrat Senate voted down FDR’s proposal to “pack the court,” but the coincident retirement of Justice Van Devanter gave FDR his desired complicit majority.
So here we are, 80 some years later, facing the same leftist totalitarian urges. We see this sort of thing routinely in leftist-led South and Central American countries. An aspiring dictator doesn’t’ get his way through democratic means so he threatens or bullies a court to overturn an election or grant extraconstitutional powers. That’s how democracy dies, and it is very tough to rebuild it once broken.
Today’s Democrats are trying to fool the American people by redefining the term “packing the court.” They’ve tried two Orwellian redefinitions already and more will surely come.
History Rewrite 1 is that Trump’s nomination of Judge Barrett is “packing the court.” DimJoe said in the debate it is unconstitutional: “You know, that’s exactly what they want me to talk about so we don’t talk about how they’re violating the Constitution now.” After all, DimJoe is an expert, a scholar. He says he “taught constitutional law for over 20 years.” Putting aside this typical resume inflation, he should review that Constitution that he claims to know so well.
Article II, Section 2:
He (the President) shall have Power, … and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, ,,,
President Trump was duly elected to serve a 4-year term. The sitting President is obligated to submit candidates to fill judicial vacancies. The members of the Senate were duly elected to give advice and consent, to approve or disapprove his nominee. There is NOTHING in the Constitution or precedence to do otherwise. Obama submitted Judge Garland’s name for a Supreme Court vacancy during his final year in office. The Republican Senate did not approve. Simple as that. There was no vote taken, but none was needed. The votes were not there to approve that nomination. Obama nominated, but the Senate did not give its consent.
History Rewrite 2 is that the Republicans have been “packing the (lower) courts” with conservative judges during Trump’s term. That is not the definition of “packing the court.” There was no expansion and it didn’t involve the Supreme Court. Republicans simply filled vacancies – regular order, perfectly constitutional. Trump and his Republican Senate have filled a record number over the last 4 years. The difference now is that then Senate Majority Leader, Democrat Harry Reid, abolished the filibuster for judges in 2013 in order to do his own cram job. Republicans begged him not to do it, but the arrogant and hard-headed Reid pressed ahead. The “Reid Rule” has allowed Republicans to move their nominees smoothly through the process.
Democrats are philosophically predisposed to be rule breakers, whether it is criminal behavior, busting social norms, violent protesting, rewriting history, etc. Republicans are rule-followers, embrace social norms, seek to “conserve” what is good about America. But the Reid Rule and the new threat to “pack the court” are examples of a long pattern. Like children, Democrats break the rules only to regret it later when the Republicans use it against them. Worse, these changes only deepen the gulf between the two parties. In this case, by removing the previous need for compromise and accommodation on judges and other matters.
So here we go again, Democrats are threatening to blow up the playground.
How would the Democrat’s court packing gambit play out? Assume that in this election they gain control of the House, Senate, and White House. Blowing the dust from FDR’s scheme, they place 6 new judges on the Supreme Court, judges picked not for their knowledge or respect of the law but for their reliable socialist politics. There would be a flurry of left-wing pleasing decisions, long established precedents tossed, and wholesale rewriting of existing law in damaging and chaotic ways. Stable law, even bad law, gives individuals and businesses a predictable framework for long term decisions. Chaos does not. The backlash would be fierce and inevitable.
Then Republicans retake control and they add 12 new Supreme Court justices using a conservative litmus test. That court then throws out the entire liberal judicial record, whipsawing our nation from one extreme to another.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Every four, eight, twelve, …, years we blow it all up and start over, until the Supreme Court consumes all. Until there’s no one left to nominate.
That’s third world politics, destroying history’s leading democracy. And it isn’t just the Judiciary that is destroyed. Who needs a legislature when you have a court that will write, spin, and interpret the law beyond recognition? Who needs a president when the Supreme Court calls all the shots? It would be the end of our nation. We would look in the mirror and see lawless Somalia rather than an imperfect but striving place of light where “God shed his grace on thee.”