On April 22, 2021, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee – Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas Ted Cruz (R-Texas) held a press conference outside the U.S. Supreme Court to oppose the addition of justices to the Supreme Court.
Republican Senators Marsha Blackburn, Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham held a press conference Thursday (April 22) to oppose the expansion of the U.S. Supreme Court to 13 seats from the current nine.
The three Republican senators are all members of the Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC). On Thursday, they held a press conference outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., saying the Democrats’ push for more justices is an attempt to “rig” the Supreme Court and will ultimately “undermine judicial independence.
“Stuffing the courts and tearing down the institutions that protect our rights is simply wrong,” Cruz said. Cruz said, “They (Democrats) are trying to rig the game …… to fix the system.”
Democrats introduced the Judiciary Act of 2021 last week, a proposal that would add four seats to the U.S. Supreme Court, thus effectively reversing the current 6-to-3 ratio of conservative to liberal justices to 6-to-7.
The bill is co-sponsored by Democratic Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Democratic Representatives Jerrold Nadler of New York, Hank Johnson of Georgia, and Mondaire Jones of New York. introduced.
Nadler said the 13 seats would be matched with 13 circuit courts as a way to justify the proposal.
Graham said at a news conference Thursday that Democrats pushed to expand the Supreme Court “to give the court more latitude so that when they lose at the ballot box, they can let the Supreme Court implement their agenda.”
He said, “This has been the dream of liberals for decades, and as we know, they are willing to undermine the rule of law to achieve their goals, and they are willing to change the structure of the U.S. Senate to achieve their goals.”
The Republican senator noted that under former President Donald Trump, Republicans were in the “same position” as today’s Democrats, but they did not make the same moves as Democrats, including eliminating “lengthy debates” ( filibuster).
“We have a Republican Senate, a Republican president, and a Republican House of Representatives. We could have done that, but we didn’t.” Graham said.
“We will not allow the most radical liberal movement in modern American history to undermine the rule of law for partisan purposes.” He added.
The move by Democrats comes as Republicans have launched countermeasures in an effort to keep the number of Supreme Court justices at nine.
On Thursday, 20 Republican state attorneys general sent a public letter to President Joe Biden and congressional leaders urging them not to expand the Supreme Court, calling the effort a “naked political power grab.
Some Democrats, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), speaker of the House, have yet to fully support the bill.
Speaking to reporters in Washington, Pelosi said, “I have no plans to bring it to Congress.” Instead, she said she supports President Joe Biden’s “commission” to study what reforms might be made to the courts.
Earlier this month, Biden signed an executive order creating a commission to study how to reform the Supreme Court, including proposals to expand the court. He proposed the “commission” approach as an alternative to “court stuffing.
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