by First Liberty Institute • 6 min read
President Biden says the next president will get to appoint two U.S. Supreme Court justices.
At a recent campaign event in Girard College, Biden told those attendance:
“Guess what? The next president, they’re going to be able to appoint a couple of justices. If, in fact, we’re able to change some of the justices when they retire and put in really progressive judges like we’ve always had, tell me that won’t change your life.”
With this, President Biden may have said the quiet part out loud. He may have just revealed what he and his party intend to do if things go their way at the ballot box this November.
Notice that he didn’t say “if” they retire, but rather “when.” You could say this is just semantics. But the President’s words matter. And here, the President’s word choice presumes that two seats will be available.
This raises some important questions. The biggest one: How can Biden say with this level of confidence that the next President will have two Supreme Court vacancies available to fill?
The oldest justice on the Supreme Court today is Clarence Thomas, who’s 75. The second oldest on the high court, Samuel Alito, is 74. Behind them is Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who’s 69.
Will any of them retire during the next presidential term? Sure, it’s possible. But it doesn’t seem very likely that any of them will.
That is, unless the party in power somehow forces them to step aside.
Or, maybe the Biden administration has already figured out a way to manufacture and create the Supreme Court vacancies it so desperately wants.
There’s a whole lot of evidence pointing in that direction.
The radical Left is trying to force Justice Sotomayor to retire ASAP. She’s been subject to a heavy retirement push from Left wing activists, as First Liberty recently reported. News stories have circulated about her alleged health concerns, including diabetes type 1 and a history of smoking, as a reason for her to resign.
Replacing Sotomayor, of course, wouldn’t change the balance of the Court. But it would give President Biden a chance to replace her with a younger liberal justice who would be on the bench for two, maybe three decades.
There’s also a clear effort by Democratic senators to oust the longest serving conservative justices.
Sponsored by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, there’s a bill pending in Congress that would impose 18-year terms and end life tenure for Supreme Court Justices. This means a new justice takes the bench every two years, replacing the most senior justice.
If passed, this would purge Justice Thomas and Alito, as well as Chief Justice John Roberts from the Court.
Some of the most radical groups in the country are also pouring in big money behind court purging and other extreme proposals. A coalition of progressive groups is spending $10 million to convince Americans that the Senate needs to “reform” the Supreme Court, whether through suspect and dangerous ideas like judicial term limits or even court packing.
We can also look back at what happened after the 2020 election. At the time, President Biden and his party gained control of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives.
It was during the first couple of years of the Biden administration when this radical wave of proposals to overhaul the Supreme Court first emerged.
With political power, the President and his party tried their hand at court-packing. They introduced a bill in Congress to add four seats to the nation’s highest court, enough to flip the majority.
Their first attempt at court-packing failed. But it doesn’t mean that this harmful proposal can’t or won’t come back.
The initial effort went nowhere because of the filibuster, a Senate rule that prevents the majority party from ramming through legislation without having to compromise with the minority party. It requires a 60-vote majority to end debate and bring a bill to a final up-or-down-vote.
However, over the last several years, many leading candidates and politicians have tossed around the idea of getting rid of the filibuster. Many of them want to change that threshold to a simple majority, which would open the floodgates to far-reaching legislation.
With the 2024 Election getting closer, we must ask: What will happen to the courts if President Biden remains in office and his party regain power over both chambers of Congress?
Maybe the “couple of justices” or vacancies Biden is referring to could come about because his administration intends—once again—to pack the Supreme Court.
Maybe those two Supreme Court vacancies could come from passing legislation that forces justices to retire.
Elections have consequences, the adage goes. And, in many ways, the Supreme Court is on the ballot.
The radical Left, politicians and some of the most radical groups in the country are engaged in a concerted, full-scale effort to stage a Supreme Court Coup. When it comes to wresting control of the nation’s highest court, they’ve made clear that “everything is on the table.”
And if they need to open up two spots on the Supreme Court, don’t be surprised if they try doing it by court-packing, court purging, or a host of other constitutionally suspect ideas. At the end of the day, all of this is simply about grabbing more power.
Americans need to know all that’s being done to upend our courts and the rule of law. They should realize that what happens in November could embolden politicians and the most extreme activist groups to double down on dangerous proposals that would destroy our system of justice.
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