Packing the Supreme Court is a horrible idea. But it’s not only a terrible idea because the precedent that FDR set is one that includes him (due to him being painted as a dictator) losing a large amount of congressional power, but also because of the precedent that it sets for the NEXT president.
People seem to forget that if a President is allowed to go over the ‘limit’ (I use this in quotes as there is no real limit), the next President will go over this same limit. All this leads to is more partisan judges being appointed, and we’re back to square one as there’s no ‘winning’ in this situation.
All this does is set a precedent that the court has no real meaning, and that the party in power is going to have control over the court as they will appoint tons of their justices. While this plan that I’ve established only works when the Presidents party has control of the Senate, it still is something that could happen on multiple occasions. Let us establish an example for a second, let's say that President Obama in the start of his term appointed 15 liberal justices to the court. Okay, all well and good because at the time of his presidency his party had control of the Senate -- which means, if we as a nation have completely stopped caring for checks and balances and allow the President to turn into a mini-dictator and control another body that is supposed to check him (which is the given in this situation), then the President will successfully get his 15 liberal justices on the court and will be loved by progressives.
But wait, Conservatives are angry, and they elect Donald J. Trump, he then appoints 30 Conservative justices to the court, ‘big league’ as he says, and with the Republican party's control of the Senate, they will be able to run the court as well.
People will always forget about the long term in the embrace of the short term gains, that is why court packing is a horrible idea that would ruin a crucial check on the other branches of government. All this idea does is turn the Supreme Court (and other courts) from a large check on other government powers, into a slave to the executive that has a large membership and turnover with new administrations.
Anyone that points to the fact that President Trump making too many picks and turning the court ‘too conservative’ as a reason for introducing court packing, is not only small minded, but they are one that is hypocrites, as Obama picked the SAME amount of justices within his first term (Kagan and Sotomayor were both appointed in the first term) with democratic majorities to support his pick.Packing the Court articles:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/democratic-presidential-candidates-face-calls-to-embrace-supreme-court-overhaul-11553518800https://townhall.com/columnists/pauljacob/2019/03/24/meet-the-democrats-who-want-to-pack-the-supreme-court-n2543606Does anyone agree/disagree? Thoughts?