# Biden to form commission to look at expanding Supreme Court **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [April 9, 2021, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biden-to-form-commission-to-look-at-expanding-supreme-court/939690 "2021-04-09T16:56:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2021, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biden-to-form-commission-to-look-at-expanding-supreme-court/939690/21 "2021-04-10T01:41:35Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > How did threatening to pack the court win for FDR? Great. He bent the court to his will and went on to win two more presidential elections. ---
**Author:** ![LoneRhino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lonerhino/32/1311_2.png) [@LoneRhino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LoneRhino)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2021, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biden-to-form-commission-to-look-at-expanding-supreme-court/939690/22 "2021-04-10T02:04:53Z")
Are there many people that are going to get worked up about gun legislation that aren’t already voting for not Biden. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2021, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biden-to-form-commission-to-look-at-expanding-supreme-court/939690/23 "2021-04-10T02:17:47Z")
What are the details? Did the Republicans give up something to prevent his packing the court? ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2021, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biden-to-form-commission-to-look-at-expanding-supreme-court/939690/24 "2021-04-10T02:19:29Z")
The court knuckled under and stopped blocking FDR’s agenda. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2021, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biden-to-form-commission-to-look-at-expanding-supreme-court/939690/25 "2021-04-10T02:34:52Z")
> [@Lance\_Turbo](#): > > The court knuckled under and stopped blocking FDR’s agenda. Worse; they abandoned a strict federal view of the government (that it had no powers not explicitly delegated it) and ushered in the era of “expansive” readings, where even the most strained argument for federal jurisdiction was upheld. Thus the Interstate Commerce Clause got elevated to an almost limitless license for the federal government. And we got [Wickard v. Filburn - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn), which ruled that a farmer could not grow grain on his on land to feed his own animals in excess of federally set limits. Arguably the federal government needed and needs expanded jurisdiction in today’s United States, but gaming the rules was NOT the way to go about it. I sometimes am convinced that it wasn’t the threat of court packing that changed the justices’ minds, but blackmail files amassed by Hoover’s FBI at FDR’s direction. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2021, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biden-to-form-commission-to-look-at-expanding-supreme-court/939690/26 "2021-04-10T02:41:44Z")
The point is that FDR wasn’t proposing packing the court just to pack the court. Packing the court was a means to an end. He achieved that end and did so without paying a price at the ballot box. FDR’s court packing threat was fantastically successful from his point of view. ---
**Author:** ![DWMarch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwmarch/32/1010_2.png) [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2021, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biden-to-form-commission-to-look-at-expanding-supreme-court/939690/27 "2021-04-10T03:13:45Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > it would pave the way for future Republican retaliation The way is already paved. Republican retaliation isn’t a bug, it’s a feature and they will keep doing it no matter what because they are absolutely bereft of any real ideas. If a SC Justice dropped dead tomorrow and Biden _gave_ the nomination to the Republicans, they’d still retaliate against him for some other perceived sleight. It is all they know how to do. Bearing that in mind, might as well make them work for it. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2021, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biden-to-form-commission-to-look-at-expanding-supreme-court/939690/28 "2021-04-10T03:38:56Z")
So he takes two hot issues that he _could_ waste the rest of his term answering questions about (never mind the obligatory protests), and he throws them into a long term open-ended commission, allowing him to move on and do what Presidents are supposed to do. Pure genius. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2021, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biden-to-form-commission-to-look-at-expanding-supreme-court/939690/29 "2021-04-10T17:27:36Z")
For those who worship the founding fathers, I would remind folks that George Washington packed the Supreme Court. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2021, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biden-to-form-commission-to-look-at-expanding-supreme-court/939690/30 "2021-04-15T07:35:21Z")
> **[Democrats plan to unveil legislation to expand the US supreme court by four...](https://www.theguardian.com/law/2021/apr/14/us-supreme-court-expand-democrats-congress)** > > Proposal, aimed at breaking up a conservative majority on the court, is predicted to draw opposition from Republicans I think this is a poor idea: on one hand it has no chance of passage; on the other hand it will generate no votes in future elections for Democrats. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2021, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biden-to-form-commission-to-look-at-expanding-supreme-court/939690/31 "2021-04-15T10:44:48Z")
Figures… Joe talks of sending it to a commission to talk it out and see if it’s wise, someone in the Congress says, “wait, expanding the court is a power of Congress” and goes ahead and by proposing it makes the President have to come out and say outright he’s for or against it. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2021, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biden-to-form-commission-to-look-at-expanding-supreme-court/939690/32 "2021-04-15T17:48:16Z")
> **[Pelosi dismisses progressive ‘court packing’ legislation](https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/15/pelosi-dismiss-progressive-court-packing-bill-481895)** > > “I have no intention to bring it to the floor,” Pelosi said of the legislative push. That’s good. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2021, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biden-to-form-commission-to-look-at-expanding-supreme-court/939690/33 "2021-04-21T02:34:01Z")
What’s wrong with expanding 9 to 13 and letting both parties each nominate two justices? Neither side gains an advantage and if there’s a benefit to be gained from the four additional justices, it’s there. Hard for either party to object. ---
**Author:** ![TheGunIsMightierThanThePen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thegunismightierthanthepen/32/2981_2.png) [@TheGunIsMightierThanThePen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheGunIsMightierThanThePen)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2021, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biden-to-form-commission-to-look-at-expanding-supreme-court/939690/34 "2021-04-21T03:42:47Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Neither side gains an advantage and if there’s a benefit to be gained from the four additional justices, it’s there. > > Hard for either party to object. Not initially, but with four extra justices, there is a higher chance of any single one retiring/dying in a given year, which would give the President more opportunities to shape the composition of the SCOTUS. Imagine (Kavanaugh + Barrett) x 2. _Shudders_. And that’s the scenario both parties are afraid of. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2021, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biden-to-form-commission-to-look-at-expanding-supreme-court/939690/35 "2021-04-21T03:58:29Z")
That depends. There are about 70-80 million gun owners- more than voted for either candidate. Most of them are quite moderate. As long as you are not threatening to take _their_ guns away (a handgun for home defense, shotguns and deer rifles etc) no problem. Ban the sale of 'assault weapons"- sure. More background checks- sure. Good red flag laws- sure. But putting every single America gun company out of business, with cities suing them them right and left using taxpayer money? That might piss them off. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2021, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biden-to-form-commission-to-look-at-expanding-supreme-court/939690/36 "2021-04-21T04:01:46Z")
The GOP showed their colors when they all voted agains Bidens very reasonable covid relief package, that was rather similar to two others, passed with flying GOP support- but that Trump was in favor of. They will vote against everything Biden wants, no matter how much it hurts their own constituents. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2021, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biden-to-form-commission-to-look-at-expanding-supreme-court/939690/37 "2021-04-21T04:13:43Z")
Yes but the significance of any justice dying would be diluted. One justice’s death would mean only 1/13 the power of the Court at stake. Right now it’s 1/9, which is **immensely** weighty. ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2021, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biden-to-form-commission-to-look-at-expanding-supreme-court/939690/38 "2021-04-22T12:44:32Z")
This is the wrong way to look at it, though. If the court is evenly split between “conservative” and “liberal” justices, then that one open seat means _everything_. ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2021, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biden-to-form-commission-to-look-at-expanding-supreme-court/939690/39 "2021-04-22T13:16:49Z")
Nvm, misinterpreted what I was responding to. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biden-to-form-commission-to-look-at-expanding-supreme-court/939690.md?page=1)