President Joe Biden on Thursday said he thinks the current Supreme Court is “not normal” but called expanding the number of seats on it a “mistake.”
“It’s done more to unravel basic rights and basic decisions than any court in recent history. That’s what I meant by not normal,” Biden said during a live interview on “Deadline: White House,” explaining a comment he made earlier Thursday.
Still, the president stood firm against adding seats to the reactionary court that gutted affirmative action just hours earlier and overturned Roe v. Wade last year.
"I think it's a mistake," @POTUS says about the possibility of expanding the Supreme Court. "If we do start the process of expanding the court, we're going to politicize it maybe forever in a way that is not healthy." pic.twitter.com/azgteh1aVB
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) June 29, 2023
Nicolle pressed Biden on whether he’s worried the court might do too much harm given the majority is so young and so conservative. Biden agreed but he raised the concern about politicizing the court in a way that can’t be undone. Of course, that ship sailed long ago.
Yet, Biden suggested some members of the court, such as Chief Justice John Roberts, might have been chastened by having the institution’s legitimacy questioned.
It’s true that some rulings this term could have been worse, which, to be clear, is much different from applauding them. For example, a bipartisan majority led by Roberts (who also authored the 6-3 party-line opinion striking down affirmative action on Thursday), rejected the fringe “independent state legislature” theory earlier this week but notably left the door open for future election mischief.
How much mischief there is to be had on elections and any other issue will depend on the court’s composition.
.@POTUS: "This court has gone beyond that. I just find it so out of sorts with the basic value system of the American people… Across the board, the vast majority of the American people don't agree with a lot of the decisions this court is making." https://t.co/tXPkQZRSRL pic.twitter.com/GvGUkEdn7s Biden conceded during the interview he’s an optimist. He may also be a realist, recognizing this split Congress isn’t voting to expand the Supreme Court any time soon. With the court’s final rulings of the term coming Friday, including on the fate of Biden’s student loan plan, we’ll see how long the president’s optimism holds. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Blog newsletter for weekly updates on the top legal stories, including news from the Supreme Court, the Donald Trump investigations and more.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
Latest Post
Recommended
