Dem Rep. Jones: We Need Court-Packing So There’s Majority on Court That Is ‘Pro-Democracy’

On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Ayman Mohyeldin Reports,” Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY) argued in favor of packing the Supreme Court because we need “a majority of people on the court who are pro-democracy” and because there’s a “conservative majority on the court that has not seen a voter suppression law that it disagrees with.”

Jones said, “I think we can look at the fact that Mitch McConnell packed the court on two different occasions over the past several years. We can also look to the fact that the size of the Supreme Court has changed seven times before in our nation’s history. This is a deeply American concept. It is rooted in Article I of the Constitution. Congress has the authority to do precisely this. And it is necessary to have a majority of people on the court who are pro-democracy. This isn’t about Republicans versus Democrats. Justices John Paul Souter — excuse me, Justices John Paul Stevens and David Souter were Republican justices, but they voted to protect the fundamental right to vote in this country. And so, that is the message. If you care about saving American democracy, if you care about a court that will uphold the Voting Rights Act, which was nearly unanimously reauthorized in 2006, but yet gutted anyway by a 5-4 majority in 2013 in that Shelby decision, you ought to be deeply concerned about the state of affairs when now there is an even more partisan 6-3 conservative majority on the court that has not seen a voter suppression law that it disagrees with.”

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