On Thursday, Senator Ron Wyden introduced a bill to expand the Supreme Court to 15 justices. Wyden’s bill would dramatically reshape the Court and diminish its capacity to serve as a check on the other two branches of government. This is the latest escalation in the Left’s continuing attempts to diminish the Supreme Court and turn it into a rubber stamp for their agenda.
Wyden’s proposed legislation would expand the Court from nine to fifteen justices. It would empower the President to add one new justice to the court in 2025, 2027, 2029, 2031, and 2033. Additionally, the bill would require a two-thirds majority of the Court to overturn an act of Congress and require the IRS to audit the Justice’s taxes each year.
The Constitution established the Supreme Court as an independent branch of government, coequal to the executive and legislative branches. This proposal undermines the independence of the Court and makes it less capable of overturing unconstitutional acts of Congress. By raising the threshold required for the Court to overturn a law, Wyden’s bill would ensure that this rarely happens. Additionally, this bill would send a message to current and future members of the Court that Congress would not tolerate rulings that obstruct the progressive agenda.
This bill is unlikely to gain traction in the current Congress but is yet another signal of the growing consensus within the Democratic Party that the current Supreme Court’s jurisprudence is intolerable to the Left. These repeated efforts to undermine the integrity of the Court should alarm anyone committed to preserving constitutional separation of powers.