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More old state court packing articles
GOP has been aggressively trying to pack supreme courts at state level, study says
WaPo
https://archive.ph/Wdlif
Democratic lawmakers and their allies increasingly see a Joe Biden victory in November as an opening to expand and rebalance the Supreme Court.
Republicans cast “court-packing” as a radical change that would politicize the court, while many Democrats counter that it’s a proportionate response to GOP refusals to confirm President Barack Obama’s federal court picks, particularly his Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland. Biden himself hasn’t been eager to discuss the issue but recently said he’s “not a fan” of court-packing. Either way, the issue takes center stage during confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, whose selection would cement a 6-to-3 conservative majority on the nation’s highest court.
In a study published earlier this year, well before the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Levy documented court-packing attempts in at least 11 states in recent years. Most of those efforts were initiated by Republicans, including the two that succeeded. Moreover, compared to earlier decades court packing attempts are now more common and more explicitly partisan.
“The norm against court packing might be more vulnerable than some have thought — at least as it concerns the state courts,” Levy wrote. “If court packing and unpacking were considered strictly verboten, one would not expect to see over twenty different bills to pack and unpack the highest court in eleven different states.”
Here’s a state-by-state rundown of the court packing attempts Levy documented.
...
Republicans cast “court-packing” as a radical change that would politicize the court, while many Democrats counter that it’s a proportionate response to GOP refusals to confirm President Barack Obama’s federal court picks, particularly his Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland. Biden himself hasn’t been eager to discuss the issue but recently said he’s “not a fan” of court-packing. Either way, the issue takes center stage during confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, whose selection would cement a 6-to-3 conservative majority on the nation’s highest court.
In a study published earlier this year, well before the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Levy documented court-packing attempts in at least 11 states in recent years. Most of those efforts were initiated by Republicans, including the two that succeeded. Moreover, compared to earlier decades court packing attempts are now more common and more explicitly partisan.
“The norm against court packing might be more vulnerable than some have thought — at least as it concerns the state courts,” Levy wrote. “If court packing and unpacking were considered strictly verboten, one would not expect to see over twenty different bills to pack and unpack the highest court in eleven different states.”
Here’s a state-by-state rundown of the court packing attempts Levy documented.
...
