On October 8, when asked by reporters whether or not he would support court-packing, Joe Biden said, “They’ll know my opinion on court-packing when the election is over. Now, look, I know it’s a great question, and y’all, and I don’t blame you for asking it. But you know the moment I answer that question, the headline in every one of your papers will be about that.”
Where do we even begin in unpacking this statement?
For starters, Joe Biden and his running-mate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), flat-out refuse to answer a fundamental question that every American has a right to know, before the election takes place. They have been asked multiple times, and every single time they have been faced with this question, they have repudiated it or ignored it.
It is preposterous, and insulting to the American people that Biden and Harris believe that they can withhold their stance on this significant issue until after Election Day. Yet, this is exactly what they are doing.
Even more insulting, Biden was asked recently in Las Vegas, Nevada whether the American people “deserve to know” what his position on court-packing is, to which Biden responded, “No, they don’t deserve” to know.
Contrary to Biden’s absurd comments, the question of court-packing is important for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that a majority of Americans do not support adding justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has had only nine seats for more than 150 years.
According to a September 25, 2020, ABC News/Washington Post poll, only 32 percent of American adults support increasing the number of Supreme Court justices. On the other hand, a solid majority (54 percent) oppose court-packing.
There should be little doubt that the Biden-Harris ticket is well aware of the strong consensus among Americans against court-packing. That is likely why Biden said “you know the moment I answer that question, the headline in every one of your papers will be about that.”
It doesn’t take a genius to read between the lines of this coy response. What Biden is saying by not answering this simple question is that if he answers honestly that yes, he would pack the court, it would dominate news headlines and greatly harm his campaign.
So, what do Biden and Harris really believe about court-packing? Since they refuse to come clean with the American people about their position on court-packing, Americans must examine other clues to solve this totally unnecessary, incredibly important mystery.
First and foremost, Americans should consider that countless pundits and politicians in Democratic Party have already enthusiastically supported court-packing. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has said so many times, as has several other senators in his caucus.
In the U.S. House of Representatives, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has intimated that she might also secretly be in favor of the Democrats’ court-packing bandwagon, saying, “We have our options. We have arrows in our quiver that I’m not about to discuss right now.”
Many of her Democratic colleagues in the House have been much more forthright. For instance, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the leader of the party’s powerful far-left wing, told NBC News, “We should leave all options on the table, including the number of justices that are on the Supreme Court.”
The point is that the Democratic Party, from its top leadership on down, has come straight out and said that they would pack the Supreme Court. Given this, it seems unlikely that if elected, Biden and Harris would overrule them.
In fact, before joining the Biden ticket, Harris proclaimed, “We are on the verge of a crisis of confidence in the Supreme Court. We have to take this challenge head-on, and everything is on the table to do that.”
When asked by The New York Times if she was open to the idea of court-packing, Harris said she was “absolutely open to” adding justices to the nation’s highest court.
With just more than three weeks until Election Day, it seems almost impossible for Biden and Harris to keep refusing to answer whether or not they would support court-packing.
It also seems impossible to believe that the American people do not understand at this point that by constantly refusing to answer this significant question, Biden and Harris have, in effect, already answered.
If this were a game of Jeopardy, with the American people all playing, and the final answer was: “This presidential candidate and his running mate, if elected, would be the first administration in more than 150 years to undo the system of checks and balances by adding seats to the U.S. Supreme Court.” The answer, in the form of a question, of course, would be: Who are Joe Biden and Kamala Harris? Game over, Joe.
Chris Talgo ([email protected]) is the editorial director and a research fellow at The Heartland Institute, as well as a researcher and contributing editor at StoppingSocialism.com.
