CAN WE COUNT ON THE COURTS?
Thoughts from Sia Tiambi Barnes
Whilst the world mourns the deaths today of Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh and Earl “DMX” Simmons — royalty in his own right — President Joe Biden set a somber tone for his campaign trail promise to “see what recommendations” may be made for an “out of whack” U.S. court system.
Biden signed an Executive Order establishing a Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court comprised of 36 constitutional scholars, retired members of the federal judiciary and other experts — a more robust perspective than nine to 15 member panel he was initially planning.
The Commission has 180 days from their first public meeting to develop a current account of the debate about the role of the Supreme Court and the process of appointing justices. Three of the current sitting justices were appointed by Trump, the most recent of which, Amy Coney Barrett, occurred days before the 2020 presidential election — against the wishes of Ruth Bader Ginsburg whose death left a vacancy in September.
Liberal activists have called for increasing the number of justices to maintain balance and for Justice Stephen Breyer, 82, to step down so that Democrats can appoint the first-ever Black woman to the Court.
Biden hasn’t responded explicitly to the requests. “It’s not about court packing,” he said in October 2020. “There’s a number of other things that our constitutional scholars have debated and I’ve looked to see what recommendations that commission might make.”
Breyer, the longest-sitting of the three Democratic nominees warned against hurried action during an online lecture for Harvard Law School yesterday. “Structural alteration motivated by the perception of political influence can only feed that latter perception, further eroding that trust,” he said.
