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April 26th, 2024

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Raised Court Packing Issue To Intimidate The Justices . . . And It Worked

Dick Morris

By Dick Morris

Published Dec. 17, 2020


Why did the Supreme Court, with six conservative justices, three appointed by President Trump, unanimously refuse even to hear Texas v. Pennsylvania, the case that determined the outcome of the 2020 election?

Because the Democrats, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris intimidated the Court with the prospect of packing it to destroy its power. The Democrats knew full well how totally they planned to inundate the election with voter fraud. They knew that the results would be so muddied and fraught with misconduct that it would end up in the Courts, particularly the Supreme Court

As the election campaign continued and President Trump appointed his third conservative Justice — Amy Coney Barrett — to fill the vacancy left by Justice Ginsberg's death, the Democrats increasingly pushed the idea of court packing in retaliation. Joe Biden himself came increasingly close to backing court packing. After first saying that he was "not a fan" of the idea, he indicated that he was, in fact, open to it.

Politico reported how Biden "stumbled over the issue "in late September when asked about court-packing in Wisconsin. He wasn't going to answer, he said, because "it will shift the focus" and "then the whole [forthcoming presidential] debate is going to be about what Biden said or didn't say, Biden said he would or wouldn't."

NPR detailed how Biden squirmed on the issue. "First, he wouldn't answer the question, then he said he would answer "when the election is over," then he said he would answer before the election. Joe Biden finally proposed the formation of a bipartisan commission after the election to "study" the issue.

Finally, Biden told Norah O'Donnell of CBS News: "If elected, what I will do is, I'll put together a national commission, a bipartisan commission of scholars, constitutional scholars, Democrats, Republicans, liberal, conservative. I will ask them to, over 180 days, come back to me with recommendations as to how to reform the court system because it's getting out of whack."

All this hemming and hawing would be understandable if the Republicans had tossed a hand grenade to Biden by raising an issue he wanted to avoid. But it wasn't the Republicans who brought up the issue in the first place.

The Boston Globe reported that "when asked about court-packing during the presidential primaries last year, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Kirsten Gillibrand all said they were open to the idea."

By election day, Biden had put a sword of Damocles over the Court, promising to make a recommendation on packing when his Commission finished its "study" 180 days hence.

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Biden had to hang the sword there. He and his Party knew precisely how extensively they would cheat in this election. They knew they would be forced into court to defend the results. And they knew that it would end up before the Supreme Court. It was exactly this realization that made them so angry that President Trump moved to fill the Ginsberg seat before the election.

But when they lost that fight and Barrett was confirmed, packing the Court was the obvious alternative.

The Constitution does not specify how many justices there are to be on the Court. After it began with only six justices at the start, it grew to its current compliment of nine in 1869 where it has remained ever since (despite FDR's unsuccessful efforts to pack it in 1937).

The threat to pack the Court must shake every one of the current justices to his or her core. If the court can be packed when any single party controls both houses and the presidency and happens to disagree with the Court's decisions, the body will become impotent, expanding every time someone disagrees with its rulings.

Every Supreme Court justice must, perforce, put the institution of the Court foremost in his mind. It has been generally agreed that, with its reputation in mind, the Court has striven for unanimity on key issues such as those raised in Brown v Board of Education. All observers of the Court have agreed that the 7-2 split decision in Bush v Gore was a low point for the prestige of the Court.

No wonder, with the outcome of the 202 election in the balance, the justices ran for cover and refused to consider the issue.

But when the Georgia Senate race unexpectedly was forced into a runoff by the very same fraud that delivered the state to Biden, the threat to pack the Court became even more acute. If the Democrats capture both seats and Senators Perdue and Loeffler are defeated, there can be no doubt that the Senate will, by simple majority, repeal the filibuster rule so any bill can pass with only fifty votes plus that of the vice-president.

With nothing to stop court packing and with the media unanimously belittling and denigrating challenges to the 2020 election — despite massive and convincing evidence of fraud — the Court just did not have the courage to fly in the face of the wind and throw out the election.

The Democratic intimidation worked perfectly.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Dick Morris, who served as adviser to former Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and former President Clinton, is the author of 16 books, including his latest, Screwed and Here Come the Black Helicopters.

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