Mary Trump, the estranged niece of President Donald Trump, has joined the ranks of left-wing political figures advocating for expanding the number of justices on the Supreme Court as retaliation if Republicans fill the vacancy left by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg back in September with Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the Seventh Circuit.
“The republicans stole a Supreme Court seat from President Obama in order to install Gorsuch. They are again corrupting the process in order to install Barrett. Expanding the court to right those wrongs wouldn’t be court-packing, it would be justice,” she said.
The republicans stole a Supreme Court seat from President Obama in order to install Gorsuch. They are again corrupting the process in order to install Barrett. Expanding the court to right those wrongs wouldn’t be court-packing, it would be justice.
— Mary L Trump (@MaryLTrump) October 11, 2020
Trump, who recently gained widespread attention for her tell-all book about the president’s family — “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man” — is the latest left-wing figure to advocate for court packing.
Court-packing has long been associated with President Franklin Roosevelt, who tried to expand the Supreme Court with one additional justice for every sitting justice over the age of 70 who refused to retire from the bench. The legislation, which was dubbed the “court-packing plan” at the time, did not succeed.
However, Mary Trump’s tweet is also indicative of a new talking point that has been floated by some Democrats in recent weeks: Republicans filling vacancies on the court, through a Constitutional process, is also a form of “court-packing.”
Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the chairman of the House Democratic caucus, tweeted as much on Sunday when he declared that people should stop asking Democrats about court-packing because Republicans are the ones doing it.
Stop asking Dems about packing the Court.
We aren’t doing it.
They are.
In order to take away our healthcare.
— Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) October 11, 2020
During a debate with Senator Steve Daines (R-MT), Montana Governor Steve Bullock, who is running for U.S. Senate, bizarrely claimed that court-packing could be a way to make the Supreme Court less political, rather than more so.
Daines promptly hit Bullock for the comment, calling it a “profound moment,” and an answer not even Democratic nominee Joe Biden was willing to provide to the public.
Bullock responded by accusing the GOP of court packing: “You just did pack the Court, Senator Daines. Four years ago, you said, ‘No, we should never confirm a justice when people are voting. Let the people decide,’ and now that’s the most important thing to you,” said Bullock, adding: “You are packing the court right now.”
The confirmation hearings for Barrett to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court — a process that does not fit the definition of court-packing — begin Monday, October 12.