It’s time to fix the cracks within the marble
President Biden and House Democrats make big moves to restructure the U.S. Supreme Court
Baylynne Brunetti / Asst. Opinion Editor / The USD Vista
On April 9, President Biden signed an executive order to establish a Presidential Committee on the Supreme Court of the United States. This executive order marks the first major step to look at Supreme Court reform since President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his push to “pack the Court” in order to push forth his New Deal legislation.
The executive order creates a short-term bipartisan committee with several functions to analyze the Supreme Court and the nomination process. Notably, in recent years the Supreme Court has become a hyper-partisan hotspot with Democrats and Republicans clashing on nominations in the Senate. It has not always been this way; Antonin Scalia, a staunch constitutionalist and conservative on the bench, was confirmed 98-0. Additionally, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was a liberal and more of a judicial activist, was confirmed 96-3. This is proof that within the last decade, confirmation wars have become the new norm as both sides battle to win the ideological balance of the Court. With the hyper-partisanship in the U.S., the Supreme Court has quickly become a political pawn — a dangerous entity to become.
The executive order states under Sec. 3 that one of the committee’s duties is to produce an account of the contemporary commentary and debate about the role and operation of the Supreme Court in our constitutional system. The next duty is stimulating a conversation about the functioning of the constitutional process by which the President nominates. Their final duty is, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appointing Justices to the Supreme Court.
Establishing this committee is one of the most important steps to Supreme Court reform. The court is very rapidly declining in its power and integrity due to the nominations within the last four years. Most notably, Senate Republicans’ unconstitutional effort that blocked President Obama’s Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland in 2016. Additionally, in 2020, the Republicans pushed through the nomination of the most unqualified justice of all time, Amy Coney Barrett, before the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s body was even laid to rest and after 60 million Americans had voted.
It is likely this committee will look at reform that includes some Senate accountability. The root of the Supreme Court nomination control and hypocrisy has stemmed from Mitch McConnell in the last decade. The former Senate majority leader has garnered too much power in the nomination process — especially for being a Senator from Kentucky. Kentucky’s population is nowhere near representative of the United States. A senator from a state that small should not have had the power he had to set up the Supreme Court to have a conservative ideological balance for years to come.
Additionally, according to NBC News, Congressional Democrats introduced legislation on April 14 to expand the Supreme Court from nine to 13 justices, joining progressive activists pushing to transform the court. This argument to expand the Court will likely be examined by the new committee.
As previously stated, there is a reluctance associated with expanding the Supreme Court due to the negative connotation associated with expansion under FDR and his court-packing bid. However, with significant population increases and stark ideological differences, it is pertinent to add seats to the Court.
By redistributing the number of justices to 13, we see equal representation for all the districts for the U.S. Courts of Appeals. This number is still a small enough number for general consensus but large enough to give more representation to the people. Around the time the first Supreme Court heard a case, the population of the United States was 3,929,214. Now, our population is over 328 million people. As the Supreme Court is handling cases that concern not only the healthcare of millions of people but also human rights issues, it is time to add more justices to the Court that can open the horizons for representation.
The Court itself is in crisis because of the actions of presidents and senators past. When the integrity of the Court is called into question, the Court loses its power.
There are several steps to restructuring the Supreme Court in its capacity to help make it less of a political pawn between parties and the new commission will likely explore all of those options.
For the sake of the Supreme Court and its integrity, it is imperative we fix the cracks within the marble or we risk losing an entity meant to right legislative wrongs, one of the biggest checks we the people hold against the government.
The views expressed in the editorial and op-ed sections are not necessarily those of The USD Vista staff, the University of San Diego, or its student body.