what were the browns and other families asking the supreme court to do?
When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away on September 18, 2020, many Americans didn't have the proper fourth dimension to grieve — instead, they panicked about what her passing meant for the future of the country. Holding the residual of an entire democracy is besides corking a burden for anyone's shoulders, and Justice Ginsburg had been conveying that weight for a long, long time. Instead of holding space for her passing, Republican politicians wasted no time in queuing up 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 iii years on the Seventh Excursion before her nomination to the highest court in the American judicial system.
In 2016, and so-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell infamously vowed to block President Obama's approachable Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland on the grounds that the American people should have a "vox" and that to rush a nomination (and confirmation) would be to overly politicize the consequence. In 2020, however, McConnell didn't hold to those principles he outlined four years earlier, leading to Barrett'due south confirmation hearings and as rushed swearing in ceremony, which took place about a calendar week before Election Twenty-four hours on Oct 26, 2020.
This movement led many to criticize McConnell, including New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC), who simply tweeted, "Aggrandize the court." Additionally, Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey (@EdMarkey), who is Ocasio-Cortez'southward Green New Deal co-author, tweeted, "Mitch McConnell set the precedent. No Supreme Court vacancies filled in an ballot year. If he violates it, when Democrats control the Senate in the next Congress, we must abolish the filibuster and aggrandize the Supreme Courtroom."
The Number of Supreme Court Seats Has Been Adjusted Before — Here's How It's Washed
This call for a SCOTUS expansion has led many to wonder: Is such a movement even possible? The short answer: yes. Congress could easily alter the number of seats on the Supreme Court bench. According to the Supreme Court's website, "The Constitution places the power to make up one's mind the number of Justices in the hands of Congress" — only another example of those supposed checks and balances that guide a constitutional government. In fact, the number of Justices has shifted several times throughout the Court'southward history. In 1789, the kickoff Judiciary Human action set the number of Justices at six; during the Civil War, the number of seats went up to nine and then briefly x; and, once President Andrew Johnson took function, Congress passed the Judicial Circuits Act in 1866, cutting the number of Justices to seven and so that Johnson couldn't stack the court in favor of Southern states.
Since 1869, however, the Supreme Court has been composed of 9 Justices. In semi-recent history, there'due south been one notable attempt to expand the Courtroom — one that will live in infamy, so to speak. Back in 1937, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt aimed to expand 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 old men."
FDR's proposal? Add one Justice to the Supreme Courtroom for every lxx-year-erstwhile Justice residing on the demote. That would've resulted in xv Supreme Court Justices, but fifty-fifty the Democrat-controlled Congress — and FDR'due south own Vice President — were against the idea. Since FDR'southward infamous defeat, no attempt to expand or reduce the Supreme Court has gathered much steam — until at present.
How Likely Is It That Democrats Volition Aggrandize the Supreme Court in 2021?
Interestingly enough, Politico points out that President Biden has been outspoken nigh not expanding the court. In 2019, President Biden even went as far as proverb "we'll live to rue that day [nosotros aggrandize the Court]," arguing that an expansion would pb to abiding changes — more expansions, more reductions. In short, information technology would milkshake the American people'south faith in the legitimacy of the Supreme Court (and potentially the Autonomous party). Of grade, that's just one scenario — and one that hasn't happened in the by. Merely, in the past, Vice President Kamala Harris has shown some back up for the idea, saying she'd be "open up" to it. Still, both Vice President Harris and President Biden have too dodged questions surrounding court-packing and Supreme Court expansion.
On the other hand, more outspoken proponents accept tried to assemble momentum for the idea. Representative Ocasio-Cortez expanded upon her initial "Expand the Courtroom" 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 correct," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. "But practise non let them bully the public into thinking their bulldozing is normal only a response isn't. There is a legal process for expansion."
In the face of a 6–3 Conservative bulk, folks like Representative Ocasio-Cortez argue that the Supreme Court is out of balance — and, more than that, it isn't quite cogitating of the American people's concerns and values. So much lies in the easily of the court: the fate of the Affordable Care Act, Roe v. Wade and union equality, just to name a few. At present, we'll simply take to see if this imbalance — and Barrett'due south speedy date — 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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