It happened to be one of the most controversial political issues between the Republicans and Democrats during the 2020 Presidential Campaign and now it reveals itself once again as Democrats and the Biden administration plan to reveal legislation that will expand the Supreme Court by four justices.
It wasn’t even a full week ago when Biden’s administration announced the creation of a special commission that would be tasked with analyzing and reconsidering the number of justices that serve on the court. Now, his political party is already planning to reveal special legislation that will expand the court.
This generally is not very popular because it can be seen as a partisan power grab and even several Democrats are not in a favor of such a move. It’s generally hard to imagine that any type of legislation like this will pass, but it’s concerning that something like this would even be considered by either political party serving in Washington.
The size of the Supreme Court has not changed for more than 150 years and it would be very significant if Democrats manage to pass any form of legislation that adds a specific number of paritstan justices to the court. For what it’s worth, popular political betting markets like ‘Predict-It’ do not believe even a single justice will be added to the court in 2021 with any form of legislation. The betting markets give the legislation less than a 10% chance of passing this year.
So what exactly is the point of introducing this type of legislation when there’s virtually no chance that it will ever pass? That’s a good question and clearly one that hasn’t been thought about by the Biden administration as well as several leading members of the Democratic Party.
Many public citizens from both political parties are not going to like the idea of expanding the courts and this was clear as Biden faced many controversies when the issue was brought up during the campaign. The issue was so troublesome that Biden even admitted that it would ‘soil his campaign by revealing itself on the front page of the newspapers’.
It’s hard to understand why the Democrats would introduce legislation to expand the courts while holding narrow majorities in both chambers prior to the 2022 midterm elections. They are in a position to defend their majorities and controversial legislation like this is generally not popular with most people. It hasn’t even been 100 days in the White House for the Biden administration but his party is already trying to shove an agenda that is partisan and misjudged in more ways than one.
The fact that several Democratic members within the party do not support this legislation is a good sign. It means that the odds of an expanded court are extremely slim and that the most likely outcome is that the Supreme Court remains at nine justices, just like it has for the last 150 years.
