The Democratic bill is led by Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee. It is co-sponsored by Reps. Hank Johnson of Georgia and Mondaire Jones of New York. The Supreme Court can be expanded by an act of Congress, but the legislation is highly unlikely to become law in the near future given Democrats' slim majorities, which include scores of lawmakers who are not on board with the idea. President Joe Biden has said he is 'not a fan' of packing the court....
Last week, Biden announced the formation of a commission of liberals and conservatives to study the structure of the Supreme Court, including the number of justices and the length of their service.
"To study the structure" ≈ to quietly kill the idea. So Markey and Nadler are stepping on their President's subtle manipulation. Another way of putting that is they could see what Biden was doing, so now is precisely the time to get out in front of him.
ADDED: I'm strongly opposed to enlarging the Court. I'm just saying I can see Markey and Nadler's motivation.
FROM THE EMAIL: Rob writes:
Based on the flood of Republican emails in my inbox today, I wouldn’t discount fundraising as a significant motivation for the Markey/Nadler Court-packing bill. (I assume a mirror image of that deluge has hit every D or progressive inbox today.) As with abortion, both sides can raise prodigious amounts of money off the threat of Court-packing. The fact that decisive action is always “just another election cycle away” is a feature, not a bug.
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