Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s new openness to liberal priorities such as eliminating the legislative filibuster and packing the Supreme Court raise fresh questions about how durable his centrism and institutionalism will be once under pressure from his left flank on Capitol Hill.
Biden won the Democratic primaries by ignoring the online Left and steamrolling the progressive supporters of socialist Bernie Sanders. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Democratic congresswoman who has become a liberal sensation, played a smaller role in the convention that nominated him than longtime Republicans like John Kasich. The former vice president weathered riots that once appeared to be a threat to his campaign by traveling to Kenosha, Wisconsin, denouncing the violence, and distancing himself from defunding the police.
“I am the Democratic Party right now,” Biden insisted in his first debate with President Trump. “The platform of the Democratic Party is what, I, in fact, approved of.” His running mate, Kamala Harris, the California Democrat who was rated the most liberal senator in 2019, tried the same approach in her debate with Vice President Mike Pence. She repeatedly denied Biden would ban fracking or raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 a year, even though some believe the Biden-Sanders “unity plan” will force such changes and despite the policy preferences of some Democrats.
But Biden has suggested his position on nuking the Senate filibuster, which requires a supermajority to end debate and pass most legislation, would be contingent on how much Republicans used the procedural move to block his agenda, after opposing the idea as recently as February.
“It’s going to depend on how obstreperous they become,” Biden told reporters over the summer. “But I think you’re going to just have to take a look at it.”
While Biden and Harris have steadfastly refused to answer questions about expanding the Supreme Court to appoint more liberal justices to counteract conservative Trump nominees, the former vice president has suggested Republican behavior might influence his position there too. “I have not been a fan of court-packing,” Biden said in his town hall appearance last week, but it “depends on how much they rush” the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett.
Senate Republicans, the “they” in Biden’s sentence, have said they will move forward with a vote on Barrett’s confirmation to the Supreme Court Monday. This strongly suggests that if Democrats had the votes to pass court-packing legislation, Biden would sign it into law. A recent Washington Examiner/YouGov poll found little public support for the proposal.
Biden’s feint toward court-packing follows reversals of other longstanding positions that have fallen out of favor with the Left, such as his erstwhile support for the Hyde Amendment, which bans most taxpayer funding of abortion. Biden has come out in favor of its repeal.
This raises the question of what Biden will do on other issues where he has not taken the most liberal position, such as “Medicare for all” or the “Green New Deal,” but where many Democrats in Congress are far to the left. Congressional Democrats are likely to be outraged by Barrett’s confirmation, especially if it results in a reliable 6-3 conservative Supreme Court majority, as widely expected.
“Biden is not strong enough to be a centrist anymore,” said Republican strategist John Feehery. “If he becomes president, which I doubt, he won’t confront the progressives, he will capitulate to them.”
Trump has repeatedly argued that Biden, who will turn 78 soon after the election, will allow the Sanders supporters he beat in the primaries to do the heavy lifting in government.
“It belies the fact that they are a centrist” if a candidate supports court-packing, said Paul Summers, the former attorney general of Tennessee whose bipartisan group, Keep Nine, was founded before the presidential campaign or the Barrett nomination fight to oppose Supreme Court expansion. He pointed to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s unsuccessful attempt to pack the court in 1937 as a warning to Biden.
“FDR was as strong as he’d ever been,” Summers said. “It diluted his support from his party, and it increased his opposition from the opposite party, and it failed miserably. It hasn’t been tried since.”
Nevertheless, some Democrats think it would be a huge missed opportunity not to enact the liberal agenda if Biden is elected alongside a Democratic Senate. “Biden is right to not answer these questions and keep his options open,” said a Democratic strategist. “Just like Trump won’t say what he’ll do if Roe v. Wade is overturned.”
