Senate Republicans on Thursday lambasted a brief in a Second Amendment case filed with the Supreme Court by four of their Democratic colleagues and urged the justices not to cower to what they say is an effort to intimidate the high court into tossing out the dispute.
All 53 Republicans said in a letter to Scott Harris, the clerk of the Supreme Court, that Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, and Dick Durbin of Illinois, “openly threatened this court with political retribution if it failed to dismiss” the case at issue and put the independence of the judiciary at risk.
The justices, the GOP senators wrote, “should rule in this case only as the law dictates, without regard to the identity of the parties or the politics of the moment. They must not be cowed by the threats of opportunistic politicians.”
The brief filed by Whitehouse and the group of Democratic senators urged the Supreme Court to dismiss a case challenging New York City rules that limited where licensed gun owners could transport their unloaded and locked handguns. The Supreme Court agreed in January to hear the dispute, making it the first involving the Second Amendment the justices would hear since 2010. But New York City officials asked the high court to drop the case after it eased the restrictions at issue.
In their court filing, the Democratic senators warned the court could face public backlash if it did not dismiss the case as moot.
“The Supreme Court is not well,” the Democrats said. “And the people know it. Perhaps the court can heal itself before the public demands it be ‘restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics.’ Particularly on the urgent issue of gun control, a nation desperately needs it to heal.”
The brief was lauded by some as a necessary warning to the Supreme Court’s conservative majority, which was cemented following the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh last year, but others said it was a blatant threat to the justices.
In addressing the brief from Senate Democrats, GOP senators said the implication of their filing was that the case should be dismissed or they would add seats to the high court to strip power from the court’s conservative majority — a proposal that has gained traction among some Democrats running for president and others in Congress.
“It’s one thing for politicians to peddle these ideas in tweets or on the stump,” the 53 Republicans wrote. “But the Democrats’ amicus brief demonstrates that their court-packing plans are more than mere pandering. They are a direct, immediate threat to the independence of the judiciary and the rights of all Americans.”
The GOP senators vowed that as long as they remain in Congress, the current composition of the high court, with nine members, would remain as it is.
The Republicans did not take a position on the Second Amendment dispute before the justices or whether the Supreme Court should dismiss the case. But they warned “Americans cannot trust that their constitutional rights are secure if they know that Democrats will try to browbeat this court into ruling against those rights.”
The Supreme Court has not yet said whether they will hear arguments in the challenge to New York City’s restrictions, though the justices are scheduled to discuss the case Oct. 1.
