Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, nominated in 1994 by Bill Clinton, has come out today warning Democrats against expanding the seats on the nation’s highest court:
NY POST – Justice Stephen Breyer is warning Democrats against “packing” the Supreme Court as a way to undo the current conservative majority.
Breyer, the longest-serving of three Democrat-nominated justices, aired his views shortly before President Biden on Friday announced a 36-member commission to study the issue.
Breyer, 82, denounced the idea during a webcast lecture for Harvard Law School on Thursday, saying that it could undermine “the trust that the court has gradually built.”
“What I’m trying to do is to make those whose instincts may favor important structure change or other similar institutional changes such as forms of court packing think long and hard before they embody those changes in law,” Breyer said.
“I hope and expect that the court will retain its authority… which was hard won. But that authority, like the rule of law, depends on trust. A trust that the court is guided by legal principle, not politics. Structural alteration motivated by the perception of political influence can only feed that later perception, further eroding that trust.”
He’s not wrong. If Democrats increase the number of seats to simply erase the so-called conservative majority, then they will have completely and utterly politicized the court and it will lose the trust Americans have in it, which is already on shaky ground to begin with.
And you know who has long agreed with this sentiment? The puppet sitting in the White House right now:
FLASHBACK THREAD: Remember when Biden asserted that packing the court is “a bonehead idea"? pic.twitter.com/UTi1GTXzXi
— JCN (@judicialnetwork) April 9, 2021
Biden also said that FDR was “corrupted by power” when he attempted to pack the court in 1937. Biden praised Democrats for standing against FDR's court-packing plan, calling it "executive overreach." pic.twitter.com/wgbeEhN852
— JCN (@judicialnetwork) April 9, 2021
And most recently, just two years ago…
In 2019, Biden criticized the idea of court-packing, asking: “What are we talking about?” pic.twitter.com/viKtBf6vx8
— JCN (@judicialnetwork) April 9, 2021
But Biden’s 36-member ‘bipartisan’ commission will be the final thing that changes Teleprompter Joe’s mind on this. Watch.