Discover Top American-Made Products!
Support local craftsmanship with these high-quality, American-made items—shop now on Amazon!
Shop NowIn response to the leaked Roe v. Wade opinion, leading Democrats are doubling down on their demands for court-packing and an end to the filibuster. With Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren leading the charge, Democrats in Congress are vowing to impose a federal abortion mandate by any means necessary. President Joe Biden has toyed with embracing a court-packing scheme in the past and the rest of the party is increasingly receptive to the idea.
Court-packing plans revived
Like the supposed right to abortion, the number of justices meant to be on the Supreme Court is not explicitly discussed in the United States Constitution.
The size of the court fluctuated over time until the Judiciary Act of 1869 settled the issue and established the current nine member composition of the court.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the last to seriously challenge the nine-member court in 1937 before the idea was revived by Democrats in recent years.
Roosevelt became frustrated with the court’s unwillingness to fall in line with many of his New Deal programs and decided that he had an opportunity to force the court to cooperate after his landslide victory in 1936.
He had miscalculated and even Democrats in the Senate rallied to shut down the court-packing scheme, which was seen as a blatant assault on the independence of the judicial branch.
Opposition to the plan was overwhelming and lawmakers expressed hopes that their emphatic refusal to support Roosevelt would convince any future presidents to stay away from the idea.
Time running out for Senate Democrats
Retiring liberal Justice Stephen Breyer has been strongly opposed to court-packing, as was Joe Biden during his time in the Senate.
Now he is not so unwilling to embrace the idea, and his allies are enthusiastically calling for an expanded court that can nullify the votes of all of the justices appointed by President Trump.
Warren and the far-left wing of the Democratic Party believe that the current court is illegitimate and far-right, and that if the conservative justices cannot be replaced then the court itself must go.
Court-packing would effectively mean the end of the judicial branch of the federal government, as the high court could simply be expanded until it becomes cooperative again under any future administration.
Abortion access is far more important to many Democrats than is the independence of the court, but for now they still lack the votes to enshrine a federal right to abortion if the Roe v. wade decision proceeds.
The Senate is almost evenly split and at least two of the Democrats are likely to oppose a court-packing attempt. If Warren and her allies have any chance at all, it will likely be gone after the November elections.
