The way Senate Republicans passed over Merrick Garland, whom President Barack Obama nominated for the Supreme Court in 2016, made former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder particularly upset. It led to his determination that “we should be talking even about expanding the number of people who serve on the Supreme Court if there is a Democratic president and a Congress that would do that.”
Holder made those comments in March 2019. Fervor among liberals to uproot various mechanisms of governance is nothing new. Republicans’ efforts to fill Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s vacant seat swiftly, lest they lose in November, have perhaps intensified liberal resolve to pack the court, get rid of the legislative filibuster, and kill the Electoral College. But these anticipated rule changes are nothing new.
“This is long overdue court reform, as far as I’m concerned, and I’ve been thinking about court reform and what we can do regarding the Supreme Court to make it so much more objective,” Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono told CNN’s John Berman on Wednesday. “And so, this is not something that a lot of us have not thought about.” This didn’t start last week.
Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey made his threat conditional. “Mitch McConnell set the precedent. No Supreme Court vacancies filled in an election year,” Markey tweeted hours after news broke of Ginsburg’s death. “If he violates it, when Democrats control the Senate in the next Congress, we must abolish the filibuster and expand the Supreme Court.”
Mitch McConnell set the precedent. No Supreme Court vacancies filled in an election year. If he violates it, when Democrats control the Senate in the next Congress, we must abolish the filibuster and expand the Supreme Court.
— Ed Markey (@EdMarkey) September 19, 2020
Yet, Democrats haven’t needed McConnell to fill Ginsburg’s vacancy in order to justify ending the filibuster. During his eulogy at John Lewis’s funeral in July, Obama endorsed the move as a way of helping Democrats get what they want. “If all of this takes eliminating the filibuster, another Jim Crow relic, in order to secure the God-given rights of every American, then that’s what we should do,” he said. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden have both entertained the same idea well before this week’s events.
And liberals have long been disaffected by the Electoral College, a constitutional fixture. Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren has said she wants to do away with it. Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen introduced a House resolution proposing a constitutional amendment to provide for direct election. In a Sept. 8 op-ed, Jesse Wegman, a member of the New York Times editorial board, wrote that the Electoral College will destroy America. On Monday, CNN’s Don Lemon, capitalizing on growing frustrations, expressed that he sees it as necessary that we “blow up the entire system” to get rid of the Electoral College.
As Republicans weigh any political risks associated with voting on a Trump court nominee and as voters try to discern how to think about the political fight that is shaping up, all would do well to remember that Democrats and other liberals were intent on making “systematic change” before last Friday. It’s incredibly naive to think that they need Trump’s court appointee to make it through in order to justify efforts to do away with what they don’t like.
