{"id":863142,"date":"2021-10-09T19:14:09","date_gmt":"2021-10-09T23:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=863142"},"modified":"2021-10-09T19:14:11","modified_gmt":"2021-10-09T23:14:11","slug":"as-panel-eyes-scotus-we-must-preserve-courts-independence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/as-panel-eyes-scotus-we-must-preserve-courts-independence\/","title":{"rendered":"As Panel Eyes SCOTUS, We Must Preserve Court\u2019s Independence"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fas-panel-eyes-scotus-we-must-preserve-courts-independence%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=863142&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/82B50A22-E7C3-4810-99F2-0595A56F5DEC-scaled-e1633731910659.jpeg?w=1200&amp;h=800&amp;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>As the Supreme Court begins its 2021-2022 term this week 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. President Biden created the commission, composed overwhelmingly of law professors, in April to consider the Left\u2019s demands for \u201creform,\u201d such as increasing the number of justices \u2014 better known as court packing. Demands from the Left to enlarge the court erupted last year when President Trump exercised his constitutional prerogative to fill a vacancy.<\/p>\n<p>The current number of justices, set by Congress, has been unchanged since 1869. The last time court packing was an issue was in 1937, when President Franklin Roosevelt \u2014 upset about the court\u2019s rulings against his administration\u2019s priorities \u2014 proposed adding up to six seats.<\/p>\n<p>When he was a senator, Joe Biden proclaimed court packing a \u201cbone-head idea. \u2026 It was a terrible, terrible mistake, and it put into question for an entire decade the independence of the most significant body \u2026 the Supreme Court of the United States of America.\u201d Packing the court in support of Biden\u2019s agenda is no less \u201cbone-headed\u201d than it was in the Roosevelt era.<\/p>\n<p>Proponents of court packing presume that adding seats, and thus allowing Biden to appoint four new justices at once, would shift the ideological balance to the left and reverse the way the court would rule on a given case. History shows, however, that a justice\u2019s vote on a particular case does not necessarily reflect the ideology of the president who appointed him or her. President Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren and William Brennan, two of the most activist justices in history. He later reportedly deemed their appointments his two worst mistakes as president. President Nixon appointed Harry Blackmun, the author of Roe v. Wade, which created a constitutional right to abortion. President George H.W. Bush\u2019s appointee David Souter became a reliable member of the court\u2019s liberal wing and cast the deciding vote to reaffirm Roe.<\/p>\n<p>But let\u2019s assume that the new justices President Biden nominates and the Senate confirms are reliably liberal, voting consistently with the three liberals now on the court. What happens when control of the executive and legislative branches changes from Democratic to Republican? Republicans would be hard-pressed not to expand the court again, adding justices to move rulings in a conservative direction. These seismic shifts would destroy Americans\u2019 faith in the ability of the judiciary to safeguard fundamental rights from intrusion by the political branches of government. The Supreme Court would become just another political branch.<\/p>\n<p>Court packing, and other left-wing \u201cfixes\u201d to the court such as the imposition of fixed terms for justices or guaranteeing each president one or two nominees regardless of 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\u2019s independence is critical to maintaining the role of the judiciary as a co-equal branch.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u2014 but especially because of the political leanings of duly appointed and confirmed judges \u2014 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?<\/p>\n<p>Americans look to the Supreme Court as the ultimate protector of the freedoms guaranteed to them under our Constitution. They rely on the court to rein in the excesses of the legislative and executive branches. As Justice Stephen Breyer put it, \u201cIf the public sees judges as \u2018politicians in robes,\u2019 its confidence in the courts, and in the rule of law itself, can only diminish, diminishing the court\u2019s power, including its power to act as a \u2018check\u2019 on the other branches.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, never one to mince words, echoed this sentiment, stating, \u201cIf anything would make the court look partisan, it would be that \u2014 one side saying, \u2018When we\u2019re in power, we\u2019re going to enlarge the number of judges, so we would have more people who would vote the way we want them to.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That is exactly what the schemes being given serious consideration in the president\u2019s SCOTUS committee will do: undermine Americans\u2019 confidence in the rule of law and make the court a partisan body. And from there, it is not a far leap to Venezuela or Argentina.<\/p>\n<p><i>The views expressed in this piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>Beverly McKittrick is the director of the Regulatory Action Center (RAC) at FreedomWorks. Most recently, she served in the Trump administration at the Department of Labor, Office of the Secretary.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the Supreme Court begins its 2021-2022 term this week with several high-profile cases on the docket, Americans should be mindful of the machinations of the Presidential Commission on the &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-863142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=863142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}