Republicans are trying to make court expansion a mortal sin. Don't let them.

[Zorro]

Opinion by Eugene Robinson

As Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation hearings begin and the 2020 presidential election enters its final stretches, Republicans are accusing Democrats of wanting to manipulate the size of the Supreme Court to achieve political ends. Let's be clear about one thing, though: It is Republicans who have tried to warp the court's dimensions in recent years. And they're doing it again right now.

Whether Democrats would consider returning the favor at some point in the future is entirely hypothetical and depends on a host of unknowable variables. Joe Biden and Kamala D. Harris are right not to be baited into answering a question — "Will you or won't you?" — that presently has no meaning.

Ask them again if and when Biden is president and Democrats control both houses of Congress. Then, and only then, will Biden's view on expanding the number of Supreme Court justices be meaningful — because then, and only then, will court-packing be an actual possibility.

But there is more than one way to skew — or unskew — the ideology of the high court by manipulating the number of sitting justices.

You could do it by effectively reducing the number of seats on the court to eight, keeping one seat vacant for more than a year and refusing to give an eminently qualified nominee even a committee hearing — as Republicans did with Barack Obama's nominee Merrick Garland in 2016. Or you could rush someone through a hasty confirmation process at a time when voters are already casting ballots in an election that your party, according to polls, is likely to lose — as Republicans are doing with President Trump's nominee this week.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-are-trying-to-make-court-expansion-a-mortal-sin-dont-let-them/2020/10/12/7e746e5a-0cb4-11eb-8a35-237ef1eb2ef7_story.html

[samsingh]

1. i hope we understand that what repugs say is unimportant if we get back into power

they are a corrupted party filled with what i would think are traitors, imbeciles, losers, liars, crybabies, racists, fools and sociopaths

[Chainfire]

2. The Republicans have thrown the rulebooks out the window

They should not be surprised when it comes back to bite them in the ass. I don't think that the Democrats have any choice but to increase the SC or succumb to the will of the minority.

[lagomorph777]

4. Yup - it's Mitch's Rules now. Gloves off, brass knuckles on.

Mitch is gonna rue the day that he decided to pack the courts.

[rlegro]

3. And let's note this, from Heather Cox Richardson:

"In 2016, when it looked like Hillary Clinton was going to win the presidency, Republicans announced that they would not fill any Supreme Court seats during her term, and if that meant they had to reduce the size of the Supreme Court, they were willing." Anyway, let's stop feeding into the GOP frame by calling any redress "packing the courts." That's what they did already. We're re-balancing them, for sure.

[dalton99a]

5. Unpack the Trump Court, or live forever under their rule

Kill the filibuster, and expand to 15.