WASHINGTON, DC, Aug 12 — At the rate he’s been going, they’ll be calling President Biden “Packman.” No Chief of State has ever appointed more federal judges — mainly those with a progressive socialist outlook on life — than he has in such a short time. Since his inauguration in January, he has to date, named 33 nominees for the federal bench. Nine of them have already been confirmed, seven of whom in July alone.
Russell Wheeler, a judiciary expert at the Brookings Institution, told The Hill that no president in four decades has appointed as many judges in such a short period of time. The news site says that progressives have been urging Mr. Biden to stop President Trump’s appointment of 234 judges during his four years in office.
Included in President Biden’s picks are two openly LGBT women — Vermont associate justice Beth Robinson and attorney Charlotte Sweeney.
Biden has long been against the notion of court-packing.
In 1983 he called it a “bonehead” idea, and during a presidential primary debate in 2019, he denounced the notion of packing the Supreme Court. In a social media message posted during the debate, he declared, “no, I am not prepared to go on and try to pack the court, because we’ll live to rue that day.”
So, what was the point of him convening a commission in April to study the future of the Supreme Court? Was it to encourage Democrats in both houses of Congress to put through a bill that would add four additional Justices before the commission hands down its recommendations?
It is likely that the commission will listen to the voice of the people — especially those of the traditional Democratic persuasion and those with an independent bent?
A poll conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy asked 1,100 registered voters: “Do you feel President Joe Biden should or should not back a plan proposed by Congressional Democrats to increase the number of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States from nine members to thirteen members?” The results were definitive and bi-partisan, with 65% of respondents — Democrats, Republicans, and independents — saying they are against court-packing.
It is interesting to note that just 31% of Democrats in that survey were in favor of expanding the numbers of Justices on the Court and that 72% of those who identified themselves as independents sided with the vast majority of Republican respondents — 95% — who said they were against increasing the number of Justices.
It would appear that politicians who identify themselves as Democrats — particularly progressive socialist Democrats — are feeling their oats. They took the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives in the last election. It would be a home run for them if only they can own the Supreme Court, and right about now, they may be beginning to feel powerful. But as the saying goes, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and so it is scary to envision — remote, as it is — the possibility of the party winding up someday with absolute control of the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches of government with total control of the way we live.
Back to Russell Wheeler and his take on the issue: “Groups on the left began, well before the 2020 election, to press candidates to pledge action to enlarge the Supreme Court. They criticized President Trump’s early 2017 appointment of Justice Gorsuch after the Republican Senate refused to consider President Obama’s March 2016 nominee (then circuit judge, now attorney general) Merrick Garland for the same vacancy created by Justice Scalia’s death. The controversy-infused appointment of Justice Kavanaugh in 2018 bolstered these calls for expansion. They gained more strength due to Justice [Amy Vivian] Barrett’s rapid October 2020 confirmation even as voters were beginning to cast the ballots that most everyone predicted would end the Trump presidency. Fears that the Court will further restrict abortion rights and expand gun owners’ rights next term have fueled the flames, especially given Barrett’s replacement of Justice Ginsburg.”
My only thought, “Why pack the Supreme Court now, just get as many Left/Progressive judges into the lower positions now and decisions will not make their entrance into the Supreme Court.”
We need to discuss the root cause of this issue, The federal government and federal courts should have very little say on how people live their lives in the states. We are a country of communities, counties, and states that have formed a federal “union’ for the purpose of trade and self protection. Nothing more. Otherwise we would not be call the “united” states but instead we would be call a single name like France, Spain, England, Switzerland, Austria, Australia, Poland, etc. We instead are a group of States that have agreed to a union to meet certain common needs.
In order for democracy and freedom to work at their best which enables us to be a free people, government must be most powerful within the smallest level of geographic and political subdivisions. In this case we are talking about communities, towns, cities, and then States. The last place in which to place political power is in a central government over a population of over 330 million.
As the size of the population centers become increasing larger the amount of government power should be reduced accordingly. In this case the population of even some of our cities and states have become too large to properly represent its people. Our federal government should possess almost no government control over the states, counties, cities, towns, and communities. Government must be given less and less power as the seat of government moves away from the community. The primary goal of government is to answer to the people it governs which occurs best when the population it governs is small. The result is a system that requires discourse, debate, and compromise to satisfy the broadest possible number of public interests, leading to majority rule. The check and balance to this limited government is that people can choose where they live and therefore the laws that they are required to follow.
Therefore the people of California should be able to establish their own laws. No other state or federal government should be able to veto California law. Yes this change will impact the 14 amendment of the US constitution. Each State will adhere to the own bill of rights. California or any state can tax their self to their hearts content. They can steal from the rich and give what they steal to others to buy votes. Californians should be able to ban guns, offer on demand abortion, etc. as long as the laws only apply to their own citizens.
Yes some states will pass laws that other states do not agree with. That is call freedom. However the people of both states provide a simple check and balance. The better the laws the more people the state will attract putting pressure on the less free state to amend their ways or lose their tax base through population decreases..
If the power to the federal government was limited to only the enumerated powers, there would be no need for as many federal judges nor term limits.