How Can One Request the Supreme Court to Accept and Review a Legal Case?
When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away on September eighteen, 2020, many Americans didn't take the proper time to grieve — instead, they panicked nigh what her passing meant for the future of the country. Property the balance of an entire democracy is too great a brunt for anyone's shoulders, and Justice Ginsburg had been carrying that weight for a long, long time. Instead of holding infinite for her passing, Republican politicians wasted no fourth dimension in queuing up a nominee for the empty Supreme Court seat, eventually landing on Amy Coney Barrett — a longtime Notre Matriarch Police force School professor who served fewer than three years on the Seventh Circuit before her nomination to the highest court in the American judicial system.
In 2016, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell infamously vowed to block President Obama's outgoing Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland on the grounds that the American people should have a "voice" and that to blitz a nomination (and confirmation) would be to overly politicize the issue. In 2020, however, McConnell didn't hold to those principles he outlined iv years earlier, leading to Barrett'due south confirmation hearings and every bit rushed swearing in ceremony, which took place nigh a week before Election Solar day on Oct 26, 2020.
This movement led many to criticize McConnell, including New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC), who simply tweeted, "Expand the courtroom." Additionally, Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey (@EdMarkey), who is Ocasio-Cortez'south Green New Deal co-writer, tweeted, "Mitch McConnell ready the precedent. No Supreme Courtroom vacancies filled in an election year. If he violates it, when Democrats control the Senate in the adjacent Congress, nosotros must abolish the filibuster and expand the Supreme Court."
The Number of Supreme Court Seats Has Been Adapted Earlier — Here's How It's Done
This call for a SCOTUS expansion has led many to wonder: Is such a move even possible? The short answer: yes. Congress could hands change the number of seats on the Supreme Court bench. According to the Supreme Courtroom'southward website, "The Constitution places the power to determine the number of Justices in the hands of Congress" — merely another example of those supposed checks and balances that guide a constitutional government. In fact, the number of Justices has shifted several times throughout the Court's history. In 1789, the beginning Judiciary Act set the number of Justices at six; during the Ceremonious War, the number of seats went up to 9 so briefly 10; and, once President Andrew Johnson took office, Congress passed the Judicial Circuits Act in 1866, cutting the number of Justices to seven then that Johnson couldn't stack the court in favor of Southern states.
Since 1869, however, the Supreme Courtroom has been composed of nine Justices. In semi-recent history, there's been one notable attempt to expand the Court — 1 that volition live in infamy, so to speak. Back in 1937, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt aimed to expand the Courtroom, which kept shooting down some of his New Bargain legislation. More specifically, FDR felt that many of the older Justices were out of touch with the times, so much so that they were colloquially dubbed the "nine one-time men."
FDR's proposal? Add together one Justice to the Supreme Court for every 70-yr-old Justice residing on the demote. That would've resulted in fifteen Supreme Court Justices, simply fifty-fifty the Democrat-controlled Congress — and FDR's own Vice President — were against the idea. Since FDR'due south infamous defeat, no try to expand or reduce the Supreme Court has gathered much steam — until at present.
How Likely Is It That Democrats Will Aggrandize the Supreme Court in 2021?
Interestingly enough, Pol points out that President Biden has been outspoken most non expanding the courtroom. In 2019, President Biden even went as far as proverb "we'll live to rue that twenty-four hour period [we expand the Court]," arguing that an expansion would lead to constant changes — more expansions, more than reductions. In curt, it would shake the American people's faith in the legitimacy of the Supreme Court (and potentially the Democratic party). Of grade, that'due south merely 1 scenario — and ane that hasn't happened in the past. Only, in the past, Vice President Kamala Harris has shown some back up for the idea, saying she'd be "open" to it. Notwithstanding, both Vice President Harris and President Biden have also dodged questions surrounding court-packing and Supreme Court expansion.
On the other hand, more outspoken proponents have tried to gather momentum for the idea. Representative Ocasio-Cortez expanded upon her initial "Aggrandize the Courtroom" tweet, calling out Republicans' hypocrisy toward appointing new Justices during presidential ballot years. "Republicans practice this because they don't believe Dems have the stones to play hardball like they do. And for a long time they've been right," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. "But do not let them bully the public into thinking their bulldozing is normal but a response isn't. At that place is a legal process for expansion."
In the face of a half dozen–3 Conservative majority, folks like Representative Ocasio-Cortez argue that the Supreme Courtroom is out of balance — and, more than that, information technology isn't quite cogitating of the American people's concerns and values. So much lies in the hands of the courtroom: the fate of the Affordable Care Act, Roe v. Wade and marriage equality, merely to proper noun a few. At present, we'll just have to see if this imbalance — and Barrett's speedy appointment — are enough to convince President Biden and members of Congress to seriously consider a Supreme Court expansion.
Source: https://www.ask.com/culture/ask-answers-expand-supreme-court?utm_content=params%3Ao%3D740004%26ad%3DdirN%26qo%3DserpIndex
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