Democrats’ effort to change the setup of Supreme Court is now set in motion. On Wednesday, a group of them launched an effort to add four justices to the Supreme Court — a number that in theory could flip the court to a 7-to-6 liberal majority — while President Biden last week launched a promised commission to review such proposals.
The fate of adding justices, also known as “court-packing,” seems sealed from the outset. Democrats are pushing it as a response to Republicans’ successful gamesmanship with recent Supreme Court nominees, but they have just 50 votes in the Senate and no real prospect of making it law. At this point, it’s more of a messaging bill than anything else — an attempt to impact the debate. And indeed, Biden’s move to set up a commission is largely seen as an effort to kick the can down the road on an idea which he doesn’t support but is big in parts of the liberal base.
But that doesn’t mean other changes short of court-packing couldn’t be considered. And there are some interesting ones floating around.
