House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she has no plans to bring a bill seeking to expand the Supreme Court from nine to 13 justices to the floor, according to reporter Alex Moe.
House Democratic leaders are planning to introduce legislation Thursday that would expand the high court, an opening salvo over what promises to be a brutal legislative fight with conservatives and Republicans over the high bench’s political balance.
U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler, who chairs the powerful House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Mondaire Jones — both New York Democrats — will announce the bill at a news conference outside the Supreme Court on Thursday, according to their offices. Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson, who chairs the Judiciary Committee’s subpanel on courts, and Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey will also join in announcing the Judiciary Act of 2021.
The Supreme Court, currently dominated 6-3 by conservative-leaning justices, could have its political balance flipped on its head if President Joe Biden gets the opportunity to appoint four new members.
Jones, a progressive freshman who sits on the Judiciary Committee and represents Westchester and Rockland counties, said recent rulings on voting rights show that stripping conservatives of their Supreme Court majority is a matter of protecting democracy.
“Our democracy is hanging by a thread. And the far-right majority on the U.S. Supreme Court is cutting it,” Jones told the Daily News on Wednesday.
The move comes less than a week after Biden unveiled plans for a bipartisan commission, according to USA Today, to study possible changes at the Supreme Court.
The commission, made up of legal scholars and former federal judges, is expected to produce a report for Biden on the issue by this fall.
Progressive groups have been pushing for a number of ideas other than increasing the number of justices. Those include term limits, set perhaps to 18 years; a code of ethics; a more formal process for recusals; and an expansion of lower courts, not only to offset the barrage of Donald Trump appointees but also to deal with growing caseloads.
Republicans have blasted the push for Supreme Court expansion as an attempted partisan power grab by Democrats.
“This is not some new, serious or sober pivot away from Democrats’ political attacks on the court. It’s just an attempt to clothe those ongoing attacks in fake legitimacy,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said after Biden’s commission announcement.
Other Republicans followed suit and spoke about the potential for “court packing.”
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