About How Many Cases Are Reviewed Every Year by the Supreme Court?
When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away on September xviii, 2020, many Americans didn't take the proper time to grieve — instead, they panicked about what her passing meant for the future of the country. Belongings the balance of an unabridged democracy is too dandy a burden for anyone's shoulders, and Justice Ginsburg had been conveying that weight for a long, long time. Instead of belongings infinite for her passing, Republican politicians wasted no time in queuing upwards a nominee for the empty Supreme Court seat, eventually landing on Amy Coney Barrett — a longtime Notre Dame Law School professor who served fewer than 3 years on the Seventh Excursion before her nomination to the highest court in the American judicial system.
In 2016, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell infamously vowed to block President Obama'south outgoing Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland on the grounds that the American people should have a "vocalism" and that to rush a nomination (and confirmation) would be to overly politicize the issue. In 2020, however, McConnell didn't hold to those principles he outlined four years earlier, leading to Barrett's confirmation hearings and equally rushed swearing in ceremony, which took identify virtually a week before Election Day on October 26, 2020.
This move led many to criticize McConnell, including New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC), who only tweeted, "Expand the court." Additionally, Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey (@EdMarkey), who is Ocasio-Cortez'due south Greenish New Deal co-author, tweeted, "Mitch McConnell prepare the precedent. No Supreme Courtroom vacancies filled in an election year. If he violates it, when Democrats control the Senate in the next Congress, we must cancel the delay and aggrandize the Supreme Court."
The Number of Supreme Court Seats Has Been Adjusted Earlier — Here's How It's Done
This call for a SCOTUS expansion has led many to wonder: Is such a move fifty-fifty possible? The brusque answer: yes. Congress could hands change the number of seats on the Supreme Court bench. According to the Supreme Court's website, "The Constitution places the power to determine the number of Justices in the hands of Congress" — only another example of those supposed checks and balances that guide a ramble regime. In fact, the number of Justices has shifted several times throughout the Court'due south history. In 1789, the showtime Judiciary Act ready the number of Justices at six; during the Civil State of war, the number of seats went upward to nine then briefly ten; and, in one case President Andrew Johnson took office, Congress passed the Judicial Circuits Act in 1866, cutting the number of Justices to vii so that Johnson couldn't stack the court in favor of Southern states.
Since 1869, notwithstanding, the Supreme Courtroom has been equanimous of nine Justices. In semi-contempo history, there's been ane notable attempt to expand the Court — one that volition alive in infamy, then to speak. Back in 1937, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt aimed to aggrandize the Court, which kept shooting downwardly some of his New Deal legislation. More than specifically, FDR felt that many of the older Justices were out of touch with the times, so much so that they were colloquially dubbed the "nine erstwhile men."
FDR'south proposal? Add 1 Justice to the Supreme Court for every 70-yr-old Justice residing on the bench. That would've resulted in fifteen Supreme Courtroom Justices, but even the Democrat-controlled Congress — and FDR's own Vice President — were against the idea. Since FDR'southward infamous defeat, no endeavour to expand or reduce the Supreme Court has gathered much steam — until now.
How Likely Is Information technology That Democrats Will Aggrandize the Supreme Court in 2021?
Interestingly enough, Politico points out that President Biden has been outspoken about not expanding the court. In 2019, President Biden fifty-fifty went as far as saying "we'll live to rue that day [we expand the Court]," arguing that an expansion would lead to constant changes — more expansions, more reductions. In brusk, it would shake the American people'due south organized religion in the legitimacy of the Supreme Courtroom (and potentially the Autonomous party). Of course, that's just one scenario — and 1 that hasn't happened in the past. But, in the by, Vice President Kamala Harris has shown some support for the idea, saying she'd be "open" to it. Withal, both Vice President Harris and President Biden have also dodged questions surrounding courtroom-packing and Supreme Court expansion.
On the other hand, more outspoken proponents have tried to assemble momentum for the thought. Representative Ocasio-Cortez expanded upon her initial "Expand the Court" tweet, calling out Republicans' hypocrisy toward appointing new Justices during presidential election years. "Republicans do this because they don't believe Dems have the stones to play hardball similar they do. And for a long time they've been right," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. "Simply practise not permit them keen the public into thinking their bulldozing is normal merely a response isn't. In that location is a legal process for expansion."
In the face up of a 6–3 Conservative majority, folks like Representative Ocasio-Cortez argue that the Supreme Court is out of residuum — and, more that, information technology isn't quite cogitating of the American people'due south concerns and values. So much lies in the easily of the court: the fate of the Affordable Care Act, Roe v. Wade and marriage equality, just to proper name a few. Now, we'll just accept to encounter if this imbalance — and Barrett'south speedy appointment — are enough to convince President Biden and members of Congress to seriously consider a Supreme Courtroom expansion.
Source: https://www.ask.com/culture/ask-answers-expand-supreme-court?utm_content=params%3Ao%3D740004%26ad%3DdirN%26qo%3DserpIndex
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