By Michael Caves
Last month, Biden’s Commission on Court Reform met for the first time. We should be concerned about Biden’s efforts to put political pressure on the judicial branch, a branch of government that was intended to be insulated from political pressure. This attempt to inject politics into the judicial branch is particularly troublesome since democrats already control (at least for now) the House and the Senate, as well as the White House. Right now, the Supreme Court is the only institution in government that has the ability to effectively stand up for individual rights and to prevent the Unconstitutional expansion of both the size and the scope of federal government intrusion into the lives of everyday Americans. Our Founders understood how important it was to have checks and balances in government.
It’s no coincidence that the last major effort at court-packing was attempted by a democrat who, like Biden, was also intent on the Unconstitutional expansion of big government at the expense of individual freedoms. Fortunately, FDR’s effort to pack the courts failed (largely because even democrats that the time realized the expansion was unconstitutional). Realizing the dangers that court-packing posed to the very structure of our Constitutional system of government, nine democrats opposed FDR’s court-packing plan. To punish those democrats who opposed him, FDR actually backed primary opponents for all nine democrats. All nine were reelected.
Even the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (nominated to the court by Bill Clinton) acknowledged that packing the court is a bad idea now, just as it was in 1937 because it makes the Supreme Court seem partisan.
The last time an overzealous democrat president attempted to politicize the Supreme Court to permit the Unconstitutional expansion of big government, fellow democrats had the good sense to oppose their president. I don’t know if the American people will be so lucky this time, given how radically far-left elected democrats have pushed their own party. If our last hope of protecting our Constitutional form of government is rational thinking and moderation from the socialists that seem to have more control over the democrat party under Biden than at any other time in history, I am not optimistic.
Although FDR’s court-packing plan failed, some of the justifications for various parts of his plan would prove difficult to argue with, at least in light of President Biden’s actions so far. For example, to justify FDR’s plan to add a new Supreme Court Justice for every current justice over the age of 70, FDR explained that individuals over 70 were less likely to be able to make smart decisions: : “A lowered mental or physical vigor leads men to avoid an examination of complicated and changed conditions.” Although FDR’s logic here probably doesn’t apply to most people, I can think of at least one 78-year-old man who does seem to “..avoid an examination of complicated and changed conditions.”