Mentioning recent court decisions that enabled prayer in school athletics and tossed a New York gun control law, as well as the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe’s federally established right to abortion, the lawmakers announced the court’s current makeup demonstrates the need for new justices.
Georgia Rep. Hank Johnson, a Democrat and the primary sponsor of the 2021 Judiciary Act, explained to The Hill that the court, as it stands now, is “a Supreme Court at crisis with itself and with our democracy,” where “basic freedoms are under assault” from the 6-3 conservative majority.
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“It’s making decisions that usurp the power of the legislative and executive branches,” Johnson announced of the only branch of government that isn’t affected by the popular vote.
The measure stands little chance of passing because of a mix of Democrat skepticism and Republican opposition, yet it channels the anger of progressive Democrats over the impact of conservative Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
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Nominated by former President Donald Trump, the three justices have dramatically changed the court’s direction, with twice as many conservative justices as liberal ones.
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According to The Hill, the Judiciary Act was presented last year and has stalled in Congress.
Many Democrats are concerned the suggested court expansion would make it easier for Republicans to propel more of their nominees into the spots.
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“The nightmare scenario of GOP court-packing is already upon us,” Rep. Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y., announced. “That’s how they got this far-right 6-3 majority in the first place.”
At Monday’s press conference, lawmakers blamed the rise of a partisan court on Trump and the conservative legal movement.
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The lawmakers further pointed to the length of the life-long terms the sitting justices are serving as problematic.
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Referring to 72-year-old conservative Justice Samuel Alito, Johnson stated, “You can see the gleam in his eye as he thinks about what he wants to do to decimate the rights of people and put us back in the Dark Ages.”
All in their 50s, the Georgia Democrat acknowledged that Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett are “going to be there for a while.”
Reps. Andy Levin (D-Mich.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) were likewise at the conference, along with Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who sponsored the bill in the Senate, and a handful of progressive activists.
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