Politico: Don't look now, but this progressive demand is DOA among Senate Dems
For now, anyway. Politico reports that court-packing has achieved mostly-dead status not just among Senate Republicans but among Senate Democrats. Even ahead of a presidential commission on reforming the Supreme Court, it has become clear that the idea is toxic in the approach to the midterms:
Supreme Court expansion was one of the left’s most galvanizing ideas during the 2020 Democratic primary. But the idea is going nowhere with sitting Democratic senators. …
But as Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) formally pushes for high court expansion, resurfacing the popular progressive cause in response to the GOP’s relentless drive to fill court seats during the Trump years, it’s clear that few of Markey’s colleagues agree with him.
While liberal measures on election reform, police bias and congressional ethics remain relatively popular with the 50-member Senate majority, expanding the Supreme Court is close to dead among the chamber’s Democrats.
“This is in the category of things that couldn’t muster 50 votes and probably couldn’t muster 40 votes,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). “We have a historic opportunity to make change here and we should focus on those issues where we can get a majority.”
Awwww. And we were so much looking forward to creating an American House of Lords! In twenty years, the court would consist of a roster similar to that of an average NFL team.
In truth, it didn’t take a bunch of polling for Senate Democrats to figure this out, but they got enough nonetheless. The proposal to add seats to the court doesn’t even get support from a majority of Democrat voters, and is opposed overall by almost 2:1 among those who have any opinion at all on it. If this is among “the left’s most galvanizing ideas,” that only proves how far out of touch the Left is to the electorate as a whole. Pushing this idea in advance of a midterm where they expect to lose seats in the House is insane, even if they’re inclined toward sympathy for the idea.
Still, don’t mistake “mostly dead” for the “go through its pockets and look for loose change” status either. The decision today by the Supreme Court to grant cert in the New York concealed-carry challenge will no doubt fire up progressives all over again to pursue court-packing. Progressives can count heads just as well as conservatives, and they know why the court is taking their first #2A case in over a decade — because Amy Coney Barrett replaced Ruth Bader Ginsburg. If the court strikes down the New York law, progressives will scream anew that the Republicans stole the court and that the only justice will be giving Joe Biden four more slots to fill on the top court.
If Democrats manage to ever get larger majorities in Congress, we’ll find out just how dead this truly is.
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