Quote:
Originally Posted by calgaryred
Not if they win all governments and pack the court within 2 years
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To me the problem with “packing the Court” is that in addition to being a nuclear option that will just mean the GOP does it again next time they can, it doesn’t solve the fundamental (and much more challenging) problem with the American judiciary: it’s not truly independent, and has now clearly become both a political football, and a political tool.
This is a harder problem to fix, but it’s a really big one. Consider the contrast to Canada, where our jurists sometimes face criticism on political grounds but generally don’t descend into the political fray in the way they do in the US. You just don’t know, in the same way, how each of the members of our Supreme Court will vote on a constitutional question before their decision is issued. For example, we can be pretty confident here that a Trudeau appointee will not automatically side with Trudeau in the event of a legal dispute regarding the outcome of the next election, but will make the decision in accordance with how that judge interprets the law.
That independent judiciary is fundamental to a working democratic society, and right now the US just doesn’t have it.
To me, focusing on the fact that the Court is 6-3 Republican RIGHT NOW dangerously misses the point. It would NOT be better if the Court were 7-6 Democratic—that wouldn’t fix the underlying problem at all, which is the fact that we can predict a judge’s vote based on their partisan affiliation at all.
What they need is widespread reform of the judiciary. And one possible ally for a Biden administration in achieving this is John Roberts, who is a smart guy and I SUSPECT understands the problem. Unfortunately, any realistic solution is almost guaranteed to be politically difficult to implement and may be unpopular. So.... my hopes aren’t high. But I do think simply “packing the Court” is a mistake.