President Joe Biden’s commission on the Supreme Court released its draft final report on Tuesday, which warned that the benefits of expanding the Court — as many Democrats wish — would be a “significant” change with “uncertain” benefits.
The conclusion is likely to disappoint many on the left who have pushed court-packing legislation that would expand the Supreme Court from nine judges to thirteen, enabling Biden to appoint four liberal justices to the resulting four vacancies.
As Breitbart News reported in October, liberals were already dismayed that the draft documents of the commission did not explicitly endorse court packing. House Democrats, anticipating that the commission would allow the Biden administration to avoid taking a firm stand on the issue, introduced legislation in April that would expand the Court before the commission had even met.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has said in the past that she would consider the proposal,
Biden originally opposed court-packing as late as 2019, but dodged the issue on the campaign trail in 2020 because of the growing enthusiasm among Democrats for the idea. He finally announced he would create a commission to study the issue.
The left’s enthusiasm for court-packing began in 2018, when Justice Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed, retaining a 5-4 margin of Republican appointees, who might overturn the landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade (1973), which created a right to abortion.
That push only intensified in 2020, when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and President Donald Trump appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett as her replacement. The Court is currently hearing an important case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which it must determine the constitutionality of a Mississippi law barring abortion after 15 weeks. The decision could also see Roe or a subsequent case, Casey v. Planned Parenthood, overturned, leaving abortion to the states.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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