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Pros And Cons Of Packing The Supreme Court

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Recommended: Structure of the federal court system

Samad Quraishi
Mr. Mesa
US/VA Government Honors
11 January 2023

Prompt: Is "court-packing" an appropriate response to criticisms directed at the United States Supreme Court?

Packing the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is a bad idea. SCOTUS has been the highest court of the land throughout our country's history. They have the power to determine whether a law is Constitutional or not, yet in recent years the court has become overwhelmingly conservative and politicized. The legislative and the executive branch play major roles in choosing who gets to be on SCOTUS, as the President has the power to nominate justices, and the Senate has the power to confirm them. In recent years, the politics of the Presidency and the Senate have begun to affect SCOTUS. Senate Leader McConnell …show more content…

Upon the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal justice, McConnell saw an opportunity to put in another conservative justice, even though it was closer to the election. This hypocrisy from the Republican party is a political move for them to gain more power across the government. The Constitution does not state the number of SCOTUS justices there can be. If the President wanted, he could nominate dozens of liberal justices and have most of the Senate confirm them so that their political party could be benefited. SCOTUS was never meant to be politicized, and if it continues to be, this will create massive swings on what the law is for our country. It is a separate branch of government that is meant to interpret the law. Throughout the course of American history, it has largely remained apolitical. The law is supposed to move slowly, and not change every four years. In 1937, Franklin Roosevelt had a bill which would have allowed him to appoint six additional justices to SCOTUS, which would increase the number of justices from nine to fifteen. This was made in order for his political party to have their liberal ideology represented on the high court, as the court's ideology was viewed as

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Was president Franklin Roosevelt’s Court Packing scheme a plan that consisted of a wish to help end America’s Great Depression or was it a hunger for dictatorial power? Franklin Roosevelt based his election campaign on a New Deal, a series of programs he claimed would help end the Great Depression. While Roosevelt won the election, many of his New Deal bills would not win the approval of the United States Supreme Court. Franklin Roosevelt believed the problem lied not in his bills but in the Supreme Court. He believed the four Conservatives Justices would convince Justice Owen Roberts, who was somewhat neutral, to vote against Roosevelt’s bills.

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The appointment of judges has become clearly political. It is not uncommon to hear of candidates making statements with regards to contested political issues as well as the use of partisan language. According to (Bannon, 10) “For neutral arbiters, this heightened political temperature risks exacerbating pressures to decide cases based on political loyalty or expediency, rather than on their understanding of the law.” The selection of judges through popular election therefore suffers serious flaws since the electorate tend to base their decisions on charm instead of serious determinants. The results can be that the person elected as a judge turns out to be one who falls short of the glory of this office in terms of experience, legal training and education.

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The bill would mainly serve to grant the President power to appoint an additional Justice to the U.S. Supreme court, up to a maximum of six, for every court member over the age seventy years and six

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The president through the FDR's Court-Packing Plan had to ensure that he had the judicial arm in check and also balance its powers so that some of these legislations could be implemented (Lovell n.p). The executive arm of the government was checking and balancing the powers of the judiciary at this point in this event. The judiciary and the legislature also tried to ensure that the executive arm does not increase its powers and authority to the extent that it can control the other arms of

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The quality of judges would without a doubt increase if they were appointed. However, I do not agree with the idea of judges being appointed. When looking at the partisan aspect you notice several possible issues with one issue being, is that individual the right person to do the job. Partisan election of judges allows for an individual that may not be as qualified for the job to be elected into the position. Nevertheless the partisan election of judges gives the voters what they want based on party affiliation along with qualifications.

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Taking a significant step away from the Framers’ vision of the judiciary and stepping closer toward a politicized Supreme Court that acts as a super-legislature and super-regulator; Massachusetts v EPA, in a 5-4 decision the Supreme Court stepping closer toward a politicized Supreme Court that acts as a super-legislature and super-regulator (p. 176, Rosenbloom, 2015, Vicara, 2017). In this decision, the Court substituted its judgment for that of the politically accountable branches of the federal government. In doing so, the Court undermined the legal rules of standing. The majority also supported its decision with a one-sided and unsophisticated account of the scientific evidence for the petitioners’ claims concerning climate change, needlessly

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The Judicial branch, just like the other branches, have to provide checks and balances on the other branches. The Judicial branch's check on the Legislative branch is to as stated previously, remove any laws from order if they are deemed unconstitutional. This means that the Supreme Court will review the law, check all aspects of it to the constitution, and from here a law can now go two ways. It can be deemed constitutional and be left alone, or it can be deemed unconstitutional and be overridden.

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