Court Packing Is Radical. Dems Must Say Where They Stand.

Former Vice President Joe Biden recently confessed that, if elected president, he would form a commission to investigate whether to “pack” the Supreme Court. His flirtation with the far left on this issue is alarming. Court packing would be an egregious act. Biden and every Democratic Senate candidate should be forced to explain their position on it to voters. 
What is court packing? It occurs when Congress and the president pass a law that adds new seats to the Supreme Court, which the president and Senate can then fill with new justices. It is an odious practice that allows a political party to create a majority that shares its views of law and policy. In today’s context, it would involve Democrats adding four new seats to  turn a (so-called) 6–3 conservative court into a 7–6 liberal court. 
Some argue that if Democrats control the executive and legislative branches, they should pack the court to undo the Roberts court’s conservative precedents. Yet, contrary to such claims, the Roberts court actually has been moderate. As it shows, the court decided 52% of its decisions in the liberal direction during the 2019 term and 54% during the 2018 term. In fact, the Roberts court rarely has deviated from moderation.  Of the top 10 most “extreme” court terms since 1946, nine came under the liberal Warren court, while only one came under the Roberts court. Even if the court does become more conservative with Justice Barrett, it still is unlikely to be as extreme as the Warren court. Simply put, the data refute the claim that a rightward shift demands immediate court packing
More importantly, court packing will subordinate every citizen’s constitutional rights to the fickle mercy of politicians. Suppose an extreme Congress wants everyone to pay an abortion tax to cover taxpayer-funded partial-birth abortion. To overcome the court’s current First Amendment jurisprudence, legislators could simply pass a law that adds four more justices to the court. Voila! Problem solved.
If your politics approve of that outcome, consider the flip side: Suppose a conservative Congress and president believe the Constitution envisions a liberty of contract that precludes any state or federal laws addressing wage or working conditions in the marketplace. Court packing thus subjects everyone’s life, liberty, and property to the winds of politics.