Thursday April 15, 2021
Enlargement of the Supreme Court
US Democrats present change plans
Topics related to the Supreme Court in the USA repeatedly lead to fierce partisan disputes. A move by the Democrats to enlarge the Supreme Court to include more constitutional judges is again causing a lot of criticism – also within its own ranks.
US Democratic MPs want to enlarge the Supreme Court after the bitter dispute over the appointment of Conservative Constitutional Judge Amy Coney Barrett. A group of MPs and senators tabled a bill that would increase the number of constitutional judges from the current 9 to 13. Currently, Conservative Supreme Court justices have a six to three majority. With four new judges, the majority situation could change.
The project of the democratic parliamentarians is currently given no prospect of success: The chairman of the House of Representatives, the Democrat Nancy Pelosi, answered the question of whether she supported the plans with a tight “no”. She added that she would not put the bill to a vote.
President Joe Biden had just set up a commission of experts last week to examine possible reforms of the Supreme Court. This will also include the number of judges and the length of their term of office. The constitutional judges are appointed by the president for life and must be confirmed by the senate.
Filling posts leads to party-political disputes
Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump made the conservative lawyer Barrett a constitutional judge shortly before the presidential election on November 3, 2020, after the left-wing liberal judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. This increased the conservative majority in the Supreme Court to six to three judges and potentially cemented it for years or even decades.
The Democrats had asked Trump in vain not to fill the vacant post so soon before the election. They recalled that the Republican-dominated Senate had blocked a judge candidate nominated by then President Barack Obama for months in 2016. After the 2016 presidential election, Trump was able to fill the vacant post with a conservative judge.
The powerful court of justice plays a central role in the institutional structure of the United States. The Supreme Court decides on the constitutionality of laws and generally has the last word on legal disputes. This also includes highly controversial issues such as abortion law, gun law and potentially elections. The selection and confirmation of the constitutional judges therefore repeatedly lead to violent party-political disputes.
The left wing of the Democrats in particular is now pushing for the Supreme Court to be enlarged in order to create a liberal majority of judges. The Republicans made it clear that they would fiercely oppose such attempts. Senate Conservative Minority Leader Mitch McConnell accused the Democrats of wanting to “destroy” the “legitimacy” of the Supreme Court and “guarantee the verdicts the Liberals want”. The number of US constitutional judges had changed several times in the 19th century. Since 1869 the number has been nine.
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