PILOT SPIN
Spin Zone => Spin Zone => Topic started by: bflynn on October 12, 2020, 05:03:04 AM
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I read an interesting take on Court Packing the other day and why it might actually be unconstitutional.
Article 1, Section 8 provides power for Congress to make all laws which are proper and necessary to carry out the powers in the Constitution. Court packing is neither proper nor necessary and it provides for nothing new in the Court, which functions just fine as it is.
For me, I especially focus on the word necessary. There is no need for more justices, except to make the Court a political arm of the Democrat party. That leads me secondarily to such an action being improper.
I’m sure at least some of the justices are thinking about potential reasons to reject a court packing law. Obviously, packing the court would destroy public confidence in it and the law, not that Democrats really care about that. But we all know it is wrong and unfair - is this a reason why?
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Since when does unconstitutional stop the Democrats?
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Problem is the number has changed over the years.
I would say based on that congress does have the ability to change the number again.
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Since when does unconstitutional stop the Democrats?
Since when the Court tells them they cannot, which admittedly does not happen often.
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Problem is the number has changed over the years.
I would say based on that congress does have the ability to change the number again.
Yes, but do they have the ability to change it for arbitrary reasons or does it require a necessary and proper reason? They've shot themselves in the foot here by admitting so openly up front that their reason is to sway the court to be friendly to their side. That's can easily overturned if they choose to.
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Problem is the number has changed over the years.
I would say based on that congress does have the ability to change the number again.
"the number has changed over the years. " true. but just leaving it at that can be misleading. The number of justices changed a number of times during the first 100 years of our country. It is my understanding that the number has not changed since 1869... let's see, that's more than 150 years ago.
Apparently, FDR attempted to pack the court in 1937, but that attempt failed.
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Yes, but do they have the ability to change it for arbitrary reasons or does it require a necessary and proper reason? They've shot themselves in the foot here by admitting so openly up front that their reason is to sway the court to be friendly to their side. That's can easily overturned if they choose to.
Pretty much why they changed it every other time.
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/why-does-the-supreme-court-have-nine-justices
In 1801, President John Adams and a lame-duck Federalist Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1801, which reduced the Court to five Justices in an attempt to limit incoming President Thomas Jefferson’s appointments to the high bench. Jefferson and his Republicans soon repealed that act, putting the Court back to six Justices. And in 1807, Jefferson and Congress added a seventh Justice when it added a seventh federal court circuit
https://www.history.com/news/7-things-you-might-not-know-about-the-u-s-supreme-court
In 1866, Congress passed the Judicial Circuits Act, which shrank the number of justices back down to seven and prevented President Andrew Johnson from appointing anyone new to the court. Three years later, in 1869, Congress raised the number of justices to nine, where it has stood ever since.
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https://www.history.com/news/franklin-roosevelt-tried-packing-supreme-court