I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I agree with Joe Biden. He was spot on in 1983 when he called packing the Supreme Court a “bonehead idea.” For those not familiar with this particular bonehead idea, let me explain. The definition of “court packing” is expanding the number of justices on a court in order to get rulings more in line with a particular political persuasion. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt pitched the idea when the Supreme Court began striking down his New Deal programs, but his own party refused to go along with it.
Now it looks like the same bonehead mistake is coming for President Joe Biden. Back on the campaign trail, he essentially said that he would let everyone know his position on court packing once they voted him into office. However, rather than coming clean as president, he is deferring to a commission of advisors who are supposed to tell him in a few months whether he should try to take up the bonehead idea.
Unfortunately for Biden, some Democrats are not waiting for the commission before announcing their opposition. Several senators have publicly made it known that the bonehead idea has no hope in the Senate. The Democratic Sen. Brian Shatz of Hawaii was even bold enough to say that court packing “is in the category of things that couldn’t muster 50 votes and probably couldn’t muster 40 votes.” If Shatz is right, President Biden needs to tread carefully or else the ghost of FDR might come to haunt him.
Another thing he would have to worry about is the strong grassroots opposition to the bonehead idea of court packing. A poll of 1,100 voters showed that 72 percent of independents and even 33 percent of Democrats would flatly refuse to go along with Biden’s court packing scheme. With numbers like that, the Narrative Machine would have to go into overdrive to make court packing a reality. Regardless, conservatives should stay alert. Liberals have pulled off stunts like this before. However, Biden needs to understand that his bonehead idea is still wrong for the American people.
For more information: Downloadable One Pager on Court Packing
