House Democrats Blocked GOP Measure to Prevent Supreme Court Packing

Erin Schaff/The New York Times/Bloomberg
Erin Schaff/The New York Times/Bloomberg
Sean Moran

House Democrats blocked on Wednesday a Republican proposal to ensure and require that the Supreme Court be composed of nine justices, which would prevent lawmakers from packing the court.

House Republicans offered a motion to block the previous question, meaning that if the House did not advance the previous question, the chamber would consider Rep. Dusty Johnson’s (R-SD) H.J. Res. 11, which would propose a constitutional amendment to require that the Supreme Court be compromised of nine justices. This would prevent the current Senate Democrat majority from packing the Supreme Court with justices that may agree with their policies.

The motion failed, with 218 Democrats voting to shoot down Johnson’s amendment, and 208 Republicans in favor of the amendment.

The vote followed one swing district Democrat, Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA), comparing the Supreme Court’s decision allowing prayer in some contexts in schools to the Taliban.

She then said that she would support legislation that would expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court to 13.

“Because right now, you’re right – we have the 6-3 majority, but the 6 are quite young,” Wild remarked. “Unfortunately, judges don’t seem to retire at the rate that other people do.”

 n June, 27 House Democrats voted against legislation that would have provided additional security for Supreme Court justices as threats have been made against them, and there was a foiled assassination attempt against Kavanaugh.

Of those Democrats, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) want to pack the Supreme Court with additional justices.

Reps. Tom Cole (R-OK), the ranking member of the Rules Committee, Kelly Armstrong (R-ND), and Johnson spoke in favor of the legislation and why Democrats have a partisan interest in expanding the Supreme Court to advance their leftist agenda:

Cole said, “Fundamentally changing the composition of the court to satisfy the demands of one political party would permanently erode the independence of the judiciary branch and forever alter the separation of powers.”

Johnson said, “Where does it end? Y’all take it to the 13, a few years later we take it to 15, you can take it to 17 after that… We have seen this happen in other countries. Madame Speaker, this leads to madness. This is no way to run a judiciary.”

“Too many in this body seek to exploit congressional inaction, choosing to double down on fundraising pleas by bashing the court and promising the pack onto the court their guaranteed outcome,” Armstrong said.

Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.

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