Leftists ramp up calls for liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, 82, to retire after he claimed court packing would 'erode trust' in the judicial system
A number of liberals are calling on Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer to step down after he slammed a proposal to pack the court.
President Joe Bide announced Friday that he was establishing a 36 member commission to look into adding more justice to the nine-member Court in a bid to dismantled its current 6-3 conservative majority.
But Breyer, who is one of the three liberals on the Court, opposed the idea in a speech given at Harvard Law School earlier this week, saying: 'It is wrong to think of the court as just another political institution and it is doubly wrong to think of its members as junior league politicians,' he added.
Breyer claimed that 'structural change' to the Court 'motivated by the perception of political influence' may 'erode trust' in the judicial system.
The Justice, who turns 83 this year, has served on the Court since 1994 - and his comments have angered some radical liberals who say it is time for him to retire.
The progressive organization Demand Justice posted to Twitter on Friday: 'We can't afford to risk Democrats losing control of the Senate before President Biden can follow through on his promise to nominate the first Black woman Supreme Court justice. It's time for Justice Breyer to announce his retirement.'
A number of liberals are calling on Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer to step down after he slammed a proposal to pack the court. President Joe Bide announced Friday that he was establishing a 36 member commission to look into adding more justice to the nine-member Court in a bid to dismantled its current 6-3 conservative majority
The progressive organization Demand Justice posted to Twitter on Friday: 'We can't afford to risk Democrats losing control of the Senate before President Biden can follow through on his promise to nominate the first Black woman Supreme Court justice. It's time for Justice Breyer to announce his retirement'
Meanwhile, MSNBC opinion columnist Mehdi Hasan said Breyer's remarks were 'naive, misguided and self-serving.'
Former Clinton campaign staffer Brian Fallon tweeted: 'Stephen Breyer's retirement is infrastructure and we need it urgently.'
However Breyer is not the only liberal Justice to speak out against court packing.
Late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg once said: 'There are some people on the Democratic side who would like to increase the number of judges. I think that was a bad idea…if anything would make the court appear partisan.'
The Supreme Court has had nine justices on it since 1869, towards the end of the Civil War. Any effort to alter it would be explosive, particularly at a moment when Congress is nearly evenly divided. Changing the number of justices would require congressional approval.
President Joe Biden established a presidential commission to examine expanding the Supreme Court
Biden signed an executive order creating a 36 member commission composed of a bipartisan group of experts, including legal and judicial scholars, former administration officials and former federal judges, the White House said in a statement.
Biden's commission will be led by Bob Bauer, who served as White House counsel for Obama, and Cristina Rodriguez, a Yale Law School professor who served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel under Obama.
Among the members are Michelle Adams, who was was recently in Netflix documentary 'Amend: The Fight for America' about the 14th Amendment, Guy-Uriel E. Charles, who writes about law's role in addressing racial subordination, and constitutional law professor William Baude.
The backlash from senior Republicans was immediate.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said: 'Today's announcement is a direct assault on our nation's independent judiciary and yet another sign of the Far Left's influence over the Biden Administration.
'Rational observers know well there is nothing about the structure or operation of the judicial branch that requires "study."
'Constitutional scholars and the justices themselves have repeatedly affirmed the position of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: 'nine seems to be a good number.' Justice Breyer said just this week that 'structural alteration' like court packing would mean 'eroding' the public's trust in the judiciary. And by overwhelming margins, the American people agree.'
'President Biden campaigned on a promise of lowering the temperature and uniting a divided nation. If he really meant it, he would stop giving oxygen to a dangerous, antiquated idea and stand up to the partisans hawking it.'
Republican Senator Ben Sasse said: 'This progressive court packing commission is going nowhere fast. President Biden knows that he doesn't even have the votes in his own party to pack the court; he knows that court packing is a non-starter with the American people; and he knows that this commission's report is just going to be a taxpayer-funded door stopper.
'What the President doesn't have his the courage to come out and flatly tell the radical left that he's not going to pack the Supreme Court.'
Republican congressman Jim Jordan said bluntly: 'Why study something we already know? Democrats want to pack the Supreme Court.'
GOP Senator Marsha Blackburn said: 'Joe Biden and the radical left will destroy our institutions to seize power. This means eradicating the electoral college and the filibuster and packing the Supreme Court.'
There have been nine justices on the Supreme Court since just after the Civil War - a 2018 photo of the Supreme Court justices. Biden's move would essentially wipe out the conservative 6-3 majority Donald Trump brought in when he successfully got Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett onto the bench
The panel has a mix of conservative and liberal members.
The commission's creation comes six months after the confirmation of conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court following the September 20 death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, a liberal icon.
Trump nominated Barrett days after Ginsberg's death, even though it was just weeks before the November 2020 election.
The confirmation process triggered outrage from many Democrats, who pointed to the Senate Republican leadership's refusal even to hold hearings for President Barack Obama's Supreme Court pick in early 2016, much less a vote, on grounds that it was too close to that year's November presidential election.
In the past Biden has said he's 'not a fan' of adding justices to the bench. In 2005 he said bids to pack the court with more liberal judges were a 'power grab' and he once called it a 'bonehead idea'.
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