by First Liberty Institute • 8 min read
A Hollywood magnate has pledged $30 million to fund a think tank that will push to overhaul the U.S. Supreme Court.
This week, reports surfaced that film producer Jim Kohlberg—also the chairman and co-founder of the private equity firm Kohlberg & Co.—will fund “research, public outreach and policy advocacy” on how to radically change the nation’s highest court. The money will go to the Brennan Center for Justice, one of America’s most Left leaning groups. They’ve been vocal supporters of court-packing, ending lifetime judgeships and other extreme proposals.
The multi-million dollar pledge came only days after President Biden announced he’ll be proposing major changes to the Supreme Court, which include ending life tenure for justices and imposing a “code of ethics.”
However, these changes don’t appear to satisfy the far Left and many media outlets, who seem to want a much more radical “transformation” of the nation’s highest court.
MSNBC published a piece saying the Biden administration’s plans “fall short of what would be the most effective way to transform the court’s workings.”
The news outlet claimed it’s in Democrats’ “best interest to campaign on the promise to increase the number of seats on the court…Doing so would shift the court from a 6-3 conservative supermajority to one that has seven liberals and six Republican-appointed justices.”
The radical Left and their media sympathizers aren’t hiding it anymore. They’re coming right out and saying what they really want: to pack the Court with liberal justices. This is just more evidence that this whole court reform scheme isn’t about “transparency,” “accountability” or “integrity.” It’s all about one side trying to rig the Court and judicial system in its favor. It simply boils down to this: power.
The same MSNBC op-ed said that “history is well on the side of court expansionists,” a rather superficial talking point that’s being repeated by countless other news outlets and court-packing zealots.
That argument twists history to make radical court-packing appear like just another common event in our political culture—which is far from the truth.
The size of the Supreme Court has only changed a few times in American history. There have only been seven changes to the Court’s size in more than 230 years since the Constitution was ratified. Plus, no changes in size have occurred in more than 150 years. According to an extensive historical study commissioned by First Liberty, only two previous changes in the Court’s size can arguably be categorized as outright court-packing attempts. And those rare partisan attempts to change the composition of the Supreme Court offer no justification for packing the Court today. Bottom line? Court-packing is not the norm.
As First Liberty has warned, court-packing would turn the Supreme Court and the judiciary into nothing more than a tool of whomever holds power. Judges would lose their ability to enforce the rule of law with impartiality, and one of the most important pillars protecting our civil liberties—including religious freedom—would be gone.
Court-packing is perhaps the most dangerous and threatening proposal of all. But don’t be deceived. Biden’s scheme to impose judicial term limits and an “ethics code” is also a menace to our Republic. National Review recently warned that “Biden’s proposal would be the most dramatic assault on our legal system since 1937,” when President Franklin Roosevelt tried his hand at packing the Supreme Court, but ultimately failed.
What’s the problem with ending life tenure and allowing Congress to impose a “code of ethics” on the Court? They’re unconstitutional ideas. They run against the spirit and letter of the Constitution. Both clearly violate the separation of powers.
Life tenure for Supreme Court justices has worked well for more than 230 years. Lifetime judgeships help protect judicial independence and ensure the law is administered in predictable and equal ways.
In Federalist No. 78—the prime defense of judicial tenure at the time of America’s Founding—Hamilton wrote that judicial independence “can certainly not be expected from judges who hold their offices by a temporary commission.” He described a judiciary that serves with life tenure under good behavior as “certainly one of the most valuable of the modern improvements in the practice of government.” According to Hamilton, we want judges serving with life tenure because this is “the best expedient which can be devised in any government, to secure a steady, upright, and impartial administration of the laws.”
Slapping term limits on Supreme Court justices would destroy these hallmark features built into our system of government. Far from benefiting America, judicial term limits are part of the political Left’s radical scheme to rig the Supreme Court in its favor. This is nothing more than an attempt to cancel justices. It’s simply court-packing by a different name.
Many experts express their doubts about Congress having constitutional authority to regulate the Court via an ethics code.
National Review explains that “any mechanism for a body outside the Court to punish or remove the justices except by impeachment would be incompatible with where the Constitution vests both the judicial power and the impeachment power.”
According to an analysis done by the Congressional Research Service, “Article III forbids Congress from reducing Supreme Court Justices’ salaries or removing them from office except via the extraordinary and blunt remedy of impeachment. Thus, Congress may have limited means to induce Justices to behave ethically.”
Much of the pressure to impose an ethics code is “animated by an assumption that the Supreme Court of the United States is no different from the Department of Agriculture or any federal agency that can be commanded by Congress to engage in rulemaking,” per one expert.
“The Supreme Court was created by the Constitution, not by Congress,” said Thomas Jipping of the Heritage Foundation in a recent interview with Catholic News Agency. “Because Congress did not create the Supreme Court, it has very little authority over regulating how the Supreme Court operates.”
Whether it’s court-packing or ending lifetime tenure for federal judges (court purging), or giving Congress “oversight” of the Court’s internal business, all of these proposals would be catastrophic. This radical Supreme Court Coup would be the gateway to tyranny in our country.
Americans Reject the Supreme Court Coup
Although some politicians and groups want to destroy our judicial system, most Americans do not want to turn our nation into a banana republic. They respect the courts and the judicial system. They want to uphold the rule of law.
500,000+ Americans have already signed the Declaration of Judicial Independence saying: NO to court packing, NO to suspect judicial reforms, NO to the Supreme Court Coup.
Help us spread the truth! Forward this email to your family, friends, neighbors and coworkers. More Americans need to know the threat this scheme poses. We need to work together to help save the priceless heritage of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Read More:
The Washington Post: $30 million gift will fund center to push for Supreme Court overhaul
MSNBC: Supreme Court Reforms Aren’t Enough. Democrats Must Add More Seats
American Family News: Attorney: ‘Reforms’ to Supreme Court could end best defense of constitutional republic
Newsweek: Biden’s Supreme Court Plan a ‘Banana Republic Tactic,’ Ex-Thomas Clerk Says
Fox News: Biden’s reported support for SCOTUS term limits poses ‘grave threat to democracy’: experts
The Federalist: In His Desperation, Biden Pledges Unconstitutional Attacks on Supreme Court
Forbes: Biden Reportedly Wants Supreme Court Term Limits: How It Would Work—And Why It’s Still Unlikely
Newsweek: Joe Biden Supreme Court Move Like ‘Black Friday Clearance’: Legal Analyst
Washington Examiner: Why Biden’s judiciary reform plans are dead on arrival
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