Markey, Warren, Nadler Launch Assault on Supreme Court
17th May 2023
Imagine if, after the Supreme Court’s racial integration decision Brown v. Board of Education, the segregationist advocacy groups and Southern senators had showed up outside the Supreme Court to announce legislation to change the number of justices. Or if, after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bush v. Gore, the Democrats had tried to change the outcome by adding justices to the court in hope of achieving a different result.
There’d be justifiable outrage at interference with judicial independence, and with outcome-based disappointment driving process-based changes. And there’d be understandable skepticism about whether such court-packing would lead to a never-ending cycle of each new Congressional majority changing the rules to add justices who agreed with them to the high court, eviscerating the judiciary’s constitutional role as a check and balance to the other branches of government.
On Tuesday, Senators Markey and Warren of Massachusetts and Tina Smith of Minnesota, along with representatives Jerrold Nadler, Hank Johnson, Cori Bush, and Adam Schiff, Democrats all, introduced the Judiciary Act of 2023, which would add four justices to create a 13-member Supreme Court.