UPDATE: Biden unveils commission to study possible expansion of Supreme Court
Source: Washington Post
President Biden created a bipartisan commission Friday to study structural changes to the Supreme Court, giving the group 180 days to produce a report on a range of thorny topics including court expansion and term limits. The commission, composed of 36 legal scholars, former federal judges and practicing lawyers, fulfills Biden’s campaign promise to establish such a group after activists pushed him to back expanding the court after Republicans rushed to confirm Justice Amy Coney Barrett shortly before last year’s election. Biden has said he is “not a fan” of adding seats to the Supreme Court, but he has declined to say whether he supports any changes to its structure.
The commission, however, is likely to disappoint liberals who are looking for quick action to blunt the court’s conservative majority while giving the president cover to avoid wading into the contentious debate. The members are not tasked with giving Biden specific recommendations, but rather providing an analysis of a range of proposed changes to the court. The executive order establishing the commission mandates that the group hold public meetings and take input from a range of stakeholders, with the report expected in October.
“The topics it will examine include the genesis of the reform debate; the court’s role in the constitutional system; the length of service and turnover of justices on the court; the membership and size of the court; and the court’s case selection, rules, and practice,” the White House said in a statement Friday. The announcement comes on the heels of Justice Stephen G. Breyer’s remarks against court expansion this week, warning that it could make the court more political and undermine trust in the institution.
“Structural alteration motivated by the perception of political influence can only feed that latter perception, further eroding that trust,” he said in a speech at Harvard Law School on Tuesday. Most of the commission’s members are academics, and they come from a range of political backgrounds and philosophies. Bob Bauer, a top lawyer on Biden’s campaign, and Cristina Rodriguez, a professor at Yale Law School, will chair the commission, which will be run out of the White House Counsel’s Office.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-to-unveil-commission-to-study-possible-expansion-of-supreme-court/2021/04/09/f644552c-9944-11eb-962b-78c1d8228819_story.html
Original NYT article (latest info updated with WaPo) - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/09/us/politics/biden-supreme-court-packing.html
WASHINGTON -- President Biden on Friday will order a 180-day study of adding seats to the Supreme Court, making good on a campaign-year promise to establish a bipartisan commission to examine the potentially explosive subjects of expanding the court or setting term limits for justices, White House officials said. The president acted under pressure from activists pushing for more seats to alter the ideological balance of the court after President Donald J. Trump appointed three justices, including one to a seat that Republicans had blocked his predecessor, Barack Obama, from filling for almost a year.
The result is a court with a conservative 6-3 tilt after the addition of Mr. Trump's choices, including Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who was confirmed to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg just days before last year's presidential election. But while Mr. Biden, a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has asserted that the system of judicial nominations is "getting out of whack," he has declined to say whether he supports altering the size of the court or making other changes -- like imposing term limits -- to the current system of lifetime appointments. It is not clear that the commission being established by Mr. Biden will by itself clarify his position. Under the White House order establishing it, the commission is not set to issue specific recommendations at the end of its study -- an outcome likely to disappoint activists.
In his executive order on Friday, the president will create a 36-member commission charged with examining the history of the court, past changes to the process of nominating justices, and the potential consequences to altering the size of the nation's highest court. The panel will be led by Bob Bauer, who served as White House counsel for former President Barack Obama, and Cristina Rodriguez, a Yale Law School professor who served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel under Mr. Obama.
Progressives say that Republicans unfairly gained an advantage on the court by blocking Mr. Obama's nomination of Merrick B. Garland in 2016, and they see adding seats to the court, setting term limits or instituting other changes as a way to offset the power of any one president to influence its makeup. Conservatives have decried the effort as "court-packing" similar to the failed effort by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s.
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I am really liking the amount of work that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are doing on behalf of the country. They are busy safeguarding Democracy.
While Repubs are busy out there defending their atrocious sexual desires, our PRESIDENT and FL are in the fight. I don't pretend to have any expertise on the SC at all, just the average knowledge that every citizen should have. I think Biden has started it off well. If you don't know something, you investigate. In this case, he has summoned those who can bring him answers. I bet that he has a learned opinion of his own already, but he is being thorough. I sure appreciate that.
I remember that The One Who Shouldn't Be Mentioned started his term off with unbelievable swiftness in making changes. In one year, he swept through our institutions like a tornado, wreaking havoc while still playing golf on the weekend. He only slowed down a bit after he gifted the rich corporations with tax cuts.
So, after all that crap about Biden being feeble, it is heartening to see that he is steadily taking back our country. Down with fascism!
Joe will not be perfect. He will do something that I/We don't like. But, he is a breath of fresh air. I like what I see. And, whatever he does, it will probably be the right thing. That's what we pay him for, and that's what WE elected him to do.
Keep on trucking, Joe and Kamala!
