Dem senator pushes bill to pack, regulate Supreme Court

The Democrats have been threatening to pack the Supreme Court ever since President Donald Trump successfully introduced some more conservative voices to the mix in Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanagh and Amy Coney Barrett. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced a bill Wednesday that will not only enlarge the court but control it by making it more difficult to repeal decisions made by previous justices. Judges would also be audited, the Washington Post reported.

Democrats will sell the bill as a means of “democratizing” the high court while Republicans will see it as an attempt by liberals to control it at a crucial juncture in American history, when the country has been invaded by tens of millions of illegal immigrants.

Wyden, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, told the Post that his goal is simply to make the court popular with the public again and restore its luster, which he apparently believes has been tarnished by political in-fighting.

“It’s not an atomic secret that the process for selecting justices is politicized,” Wyden told The Post. “You’ve got this thoroughly politicized process resulting in a Supreme Court that now frequently issues sweeping rulings to overturn laws and upend precedents. We are proposing a way to restore some balance between the three branches of government.”

Wyden envisions almost doubling the size of the court form nine justices to 15 over the next dozen years. He argues that such a long transition would negate the chances of one party dominating the packing process. Presidents would nominate a justice in the first and third years of their tenures. The bill would also make it necessary for a two-thirds majority in both the Supreme Court and the circuit courts of appeals, to repeal an act of Congress.

Any Supreme Court nominee would also be automatically moved to the Senate for a vote after 180 days in committee. This component of the bill was apparently inspired by the actions of then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) who avoided any possible confirmation of President Barack Obama-nominated Merrick Garland in 2016 by simply refusing to hold a vote. 

Wyden also imagines expanding the number of federal judicial circuits from 13 to 15, which would add another 100 district court judges and 60 appellate judges.

Although Supreme Court justices are subject to the same revenue laws and regulations as every other American, Wyden thinks they should submit to an annual audit from the Internal Revenue Service that would then publish the findings for all to read. Nominees would have to declare three years of past tax returns to be eligible for confirmation. If two-thirds of the justices felt one member should have to recuse his or herself from a case, they could force the matter. Each justice would also have to release all of their legal opinions, even those related voting on an emergency basis.

Jeremy Fogel, executive director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute and a former federal judge and a judicial ethics expert, pointed to Canada as an example of why the United States should have a much larger court. “Canada is a fraction the size of the United States in terms of population and it has 15 justices,” Fogel told the Post. “Most of the larger democracies in the world have bigger apex courts than we do.”