FreedomWorks Foundation Submits Formal Comments to Biden’s Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court
As pointed out in the excerpts below, the Supreme Court was intended by the Founders to be the branch of government that stands apart from political whims of the times. The Court’s one and only allegiance should be to the Constitution, not a political party. The leftist schemes receiving serious consideration in the President’s committee, namely court packing, would do nothing but undermine Americans’ confidence in the rule of law and subject the Court to the impulses of corrupt lawmakers.
As the Supreme Court begins its 2021-2022 term today with several high-profile cases on the docket, Americans should be mindful of the machinations of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States. We here at FreedomWorks urge the executive branch to refrain from meddling with the independent operations of the Court.
Court packing, and other left-wing “fixes” to the Supreme Court such as the imposition of fixed terms for justices or guaranteeing each President one or two nominees regardless of Court vacancies, would blast to oblivion the very foundation of our unique system of government: separation of powers, checks and balances, and three co-equal branches. The American judicial system’s independence is critical to maintaining the role of the judiciary as a co-equal branch.
And that independence is a shining example for the world. As noted above, there are many momentous decisions where Supreme Court justices have ruled against the political interests of the President who appointed them. Threatening that independence for any reason–but especially because of the political leanings of duly appointed and confirmed judges–smacks of the actions of petty dictators in less-developed countries. Do leftists really want our country to follow the examples of Venezuela and Argentina?
The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, never one to mince words, echoed this sentiment, stating “If anything would make the court look partisan, it would be that–one side saying, ‘when we’re in power, we’re going to enlarge the number of judges, so we would have more people who would vote the way we want them to.’”
