Eric Holder Urges Dems to 'Use Power' of Senate Majority to Pack Supreme Court
'Our courts badly need reforms'
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Former Attorney General Eric Holder has urged Democrats to pack the Supreme Court and federal judiciary by using their U.S. Senate majority as leverage.
During a virtual conference on judicial reform hosted by the Brookings Institution, Holder said:
“It is painfully clear Democrats and progressives are uncomfortable with the acquisition and use of power, while Republicans and conservatives never have been."
“Our courts badly need reforms.”
“The Republicans have abused their power to give themselves an unfair advantage,” Holder later added.
“It is necessary and totally appropriate to add seats.”
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Holder has advocated court-packing for a while now.
During a discussion at Yale Law National Security Group in 2019 Holder said the next Democrat president should pack the court.
“In response to a question, Attorney General Holder said that given the unfairness, unprecedented obstruction, and disregard of historical precedent by [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans, when Democrats retake the majority they should consider expanding the Supreme Court to restore adherence to previously accepted norms for judicial nominations,” said a spokesperson for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, Patrick Rodenbush.
But Americans would rather see term limits on the Supreme Court instead of court-packing, according to a recent Rasmussen poll.
An academic study from political scientist Aaron Belkin of San Francisco State University and James Druckman of Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research in 2020 called for democrats to pack the Supreme Court.
The study was funded by Take Back the Court, a progressive group that championed court-packing to solve a conservative judiciary.
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The study asked participants to choose between two hypotheticals:
A “status quo” scenario and another scenario where a Democrat proposes court-packing to “bring greater balance to the court” while the Republican candidate says how it would be “a threat to the independence of the judiciary and the rights of all Americans by radical liberals trying to change the rules so a few cities in New York and California can impose their will on the rest of us.”
But scenario two had almost zero impact on people's choices, according to the study.
Court-packing was criticized by even the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Ginsburg denounced previous attempts to pack the Supreme Court, such as when it was attempted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s.
“Nine seems to be a good number,” the justice said.
“It’s been that way for a long time.
"I think it was a bad idea when President Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the Court.”
