You can tell a lot about a person by the questions they refuse to answer.
Joe Biden — professional political weathervane — ducks and weaves any time someone dares to pin him down on the particulars of his political philosophy.
The tap-dancing he has done around the question of packing the courts is a perfect example. He doesn’t want to answer the question, because there is no ‘safe’ answer he can give.
If that sounds familiar, it should. It’s exactly the same kind of slippery duplicity Jesus called out in the group tagged with the original use of the word hypocrites — the Pharisees.
One day as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple courts and proclaiming the good news, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, together with the elders, came up to him. “Tell us by what authority you are doing these things,” they said. “Who gave you this authority?” He replied, “I will also ask you a question. Tell me: John’s baptism—was it from heaven, or of human origin?” They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ all the people will stone us, because they are persuaded that John was a prophet.” So they answered, “We don’t know where it was from.” Jesus said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.” — Luke 20:1-8 (ESV)
Their actual belief was not one they were prepared to air in public, for fear of public opinion turning against them. But if they agreed with the public, word would get back to the other Pharisees that they had broken ranks and supported an idea they oppose. So they ducked the question. (Sound familiar?)
It is pretty evident that Democrats are really upset about losing their backdoor access to political power. Even in a reliably blue state like California, it took a SCOTUS opinion to overturn the will of the people (Prop 8). A court filled with originalists and textualists is (for them and their ambitions) a ‘nightmare’ scenario.
Their field of Presidential candidates, and their surrogates, openly mused about stacking the courts to gain back the political edge. This would effectively be the death-blow to any pretense of our courts being non-partisan or apolitical.
A solution is being floated to block that agenda.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner, the Texas Republican and author of One Vote Away: How a Single Supreme Court Seat Can Change History, blasted Democratic threats to expand the Supreme Court and end the filibuster. Cruz said he would support either a legislative effort or a constitutional amendment solidifying the number of justices on the high court.
“I think that’s a good idea. The number of justices is not set in the Constitution. It’s set by Congress,” Cruz said, noting that the number of justices has varied over time. “We’ve had the number nine for 150 years. It is a number that works well, that provides stability and helps insulate the court from being overly politicized.”
…Democrats, including presidential nominee Joe Biden, have demanded Trump wait until there is a winner in the November election to nominate a justice to the court. Some have even suggested that if Republicans push through a nominee and the Democrats take control of Congress in November, they will vote to expand the Supreme Court or end the legislative filibuster.
Cruz said Democratic threats to take those actions are “deadly serious.”
“If the Democrats prevail on Election Day, and if we wake up in January with Biden, Schumer, and Pelosi controlling the federal government, I think the odds that Democrats end the filibuster are 100%. I think every Democrat will vote to end the filibuster,” Cruz said. “I think the odds are very high that one of the first acts of a Democratic majority would be to add two new states to the United States, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Their reason for that is crassly political, that, in their judgment, those two would elect four Democratic senators. And so, if we start January with 50 Democratic senators, their objective would be to end the year with 54 Democratic senators and further cement their hold on power.” —WashingtonExaminer
Do We Need To Enshrine Our 9 Member SCOTUS Into Law?
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