Earlier today I wrote about far-left proposals that seem in danger of fading away but here’s one that hasn’t. At a campaign stop in New Hampshire, Senatory Kamala Harris said she was open to the idea of packing the court by adding up to four new seats. From Bloomberg:
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said Wednesday she’s open to expanding the U.S. Supreme Court, accusing Republicans of creating a “crisis of confidence” in the nation’s highest court.
“I am interesting in having that conversation,” the California senator said in Nashua, New Hampshire, in response to a question about whether she favors adding as many as four seats to the court. “I’m open to this conversation about increasing the number of people on the United States Supreme Court.”
She said she’s also interested in applying term limits to the court and limiting the number of nominees for any particular president.
I find this combination of sentiments confusing. Sen. Harris thinks there’s a “crisis of confidence” and packing the court is going to make that better? I don’t think that’s how things would actually work. Adding seats to the court to sway the outcome of cases would reaffirm that the court is just another political branch of government and it would invite additional court-packing the next time a conservative takes office. After all, if 13 justices are good, 17 must be better.
It’s also a bit strange that the Democrats who’ve spent the past two years complaining about Trump destroying all of America’s “norms” seem awfully quiet about this proposal which would be a very significant violation of an important norm.
Of course, hearing Sen. Harris express interest in having a conversation isn’t exactly new for her:
This seems to be her polite way of putting off questions she doesn’t really want to answer. It’s a way to avoid taking a firm position on a controversial topic that might hurt her later if she’s seen as insufficiently woke. Perhaps the key point in this story is that Harris didn’t bring this up on her own. She was asked by someone who said the GOP “stole” Gorsuch’s seat on the Court whether she’d consider adding seats and she said she’d be willing to have that conversation.
This is the only video of her comments available at the moment. Audio quality isn’t great but there’s definitely a crowd response to the idea of term limits for Justices. Is she really behind this or just trying to avoid making a commitment?
2020 Watch-New: @KamalaHarris – in NH – says she's open to "increasing the number of people on the Supreme Court, about applying term limits to serve on the court… perhaps limiting the number of nominees anyone president can make" #NHPolitics #FITN #mapoli #CApolitics #SCOTUS pic.twitter.com/xUH3s1XGGf
— Paul Steinhauser (@steinhauserNH1) May 15, 2019
Update: She’s already on to another conversation, this time about Fox News.
2. In an interview with @PodSaveAmerica, Senator Harris told @jonfavs: "I think there’s a whole other conversation to be had about how Fox News does their work and the bias with which they do it." https://t.co/GbVP5QFy4y
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) May 15, 2019
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