As Democrat President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court commission continues to explore strategies like court-packing to shift the political balance of the Supreme Court, liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer explained in a Fox News interview how adding justices to the Court would cause Americans to “lose trust” in the institution.
“President Biden has appointed a commission to come back to him in November and discuss — weigh in on possible reforms to the court,” Fox News’ Chris Wallace asked Breyer. “What do you think of the idea of increasing the number of justices on the court?”
“Well, if one party could do it, I guess another party could do it,” Breyer responded, adding, “On the surface, it seems to me you start changing all these things around, and people will lose trust in the court.”
In the same interview, Breyer also explained that why he had not stepped down amid calls for his retirement from Democrats who want to appoint his successor while they control the Senate. Breyer said he would not retire based on the political “balance” of the Court.
“I didn’t retire because I had decided on balance I wouldn’t retire,” Breyer said.
Late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg likewise warned against packing the Court in a 2019 2019 interview with NPR.
“I have heard that there are some people on the Democratic side who would like to increase the number of judges,” Ginsburg said. “I think that was a bad idea when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to pack the court.”
Ginsburg said she agrees with the current number of Justices, she observed, “Nine seems to be a good number, and it’s been that way for a long time.”
Ginsburg explained that politicians expanding the Supreme Court to shift its political balance would politicize the institution that is intended to be apolitical.
“If anything would make the court appear partisan it would be that,” she said. “One side saying when we’re in power we’re going to enlarge the number of judges so we’ll have more people who will vote the way we want them to. So I am not at all in favor of that solution to what I see as a temporary situation.”
