Joe Biden worries that the “extreme” US supreme court, dominated by rightwing justices, cannot be relied upon to uphold the rule of law.
“I worry,” the president told ProPublica in interview published on Sunday. “Because I know that if the other team, the Maga Republicans, win, they don’t want to uphold the rule of law.”
“Maga” is shorthand for “Make America great again”, Donald Trump’s campaign slogan. Trump faces 91 criminal charges and assorted civil threats but nonetheless dominates Republican polling for the nomination to face Biden in a presidential rematch next year.
In four years in the White House, Trump nominated and saw installed three conservative justices, tilting the court 6-3 to the right. That court has delivered significant victories for conservatives, including the removal of the right to abortion and major rulings on gun control, affirmative action and other issues.
The new court term, which starts on Tuesday, could see further such rulings on matters including government environmental and financial regulation.
What? Where did you find executive branch authority to regulate the Supreme Court?
Even if they did, how would a president appoint justices without Congress?
I don’t know the details, from what I understand FDR was contemplating the same thing, so it does seem like the power to do this is an electoral branch power and not in the legislative branch.
But I honestly don’t know the details so I could be wrong, its just something I heard of before.
“so it does seem like the power to do this is electoral branch power and not in the legislative branch”
Quite poor evidence for your conclusion. FDR tried to pass legislation to expand the SCOTUS, and was interpreted as trying to manipulate the court by his own party, which is why it was blocked.
Court expansion has always been done by Congress, it’s interpreted as an extension of it’s power to create courts.
Fair enough. Just a friendly reminder…
It was an off-the-cuff comment and I mentioned in the comment I could be wrong and that I was not certain, so, /shrug.
It was blocked after the judges flipped and started approving his programs. It was expected to pass up until that point.
Congress can pass a law increasing the number of justices. The current law setting it at nine justices was passed in 1869. Congress is inept right now.