Why Expanding the Supreme Court Should Be a Moral Mandate in 2021

Image created by the author (Brett Pelham)

Legend has it that Abe Lincoln often asked people a simple question: “If you called a tail a leg, how many legs would a horse have?” Most people answered “five” — to which Lincoln retorted: ”The answer is four. Just because you call a tail a leg doesn’t make it one.” Lincoln knew that politicians often cover up lies with misleading labels. G.W. Bush’s “Clear Skies Act” reduced government controls on air pollution. Likewise, “literacy tests” in the Jim Crow south did not bestow literacy. They belittled. Modern leaders continue to give things misleading labels — or to apply perfectly good labels when they do not apply. There is no better example of this than the current misuse of the phrase “packing the courts.”

Critics have recently skewered Joe Biden for dodging the question of whether he would “pack the courts” if Democrats take control of the Senate, the House, and the presidency on November 3rd. I wish Biden would just dissect and answer this important question — and reveal how deeply misleading it is. To a small degree he finally began to do so in his recent 60 Minutes interview. But he didn’t really clarify how the phrase “packing the courts” is being misused. Republican leaders have been avidly overpopulating state and federal courts with conservative judges for decades. Remember when 10 months before an election was too close…