Many Americans are asking Joe Biden and Kamala\nHarris to answer what they believe to be a simple question \u201cDo you support\nexpanding the Supreme Court?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although it may seem like there should be a\nstraightforward answer, Biden and Harris are facing a complicated situation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What\nexactly does it mean to expand the Supreme Court?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As most Americans know, there are nine\njustices on Supreme Court Justices. Most assume that the number of justices was\nset in the constitution and that we\u2019ve always had nine. The truth is, the\nconstitution allows Congress (through legislation) the ability to determine how\nmany justices are on the court, not Biden or Harris, and during the court\u2019s\nexistence, it has fluctuated in size from as few as five to as many as ten. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If Congress wanted to, they could expand the\ncourt to 50 justices. But as we\u2019ve seen, this is not a popular idea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n How expanding the court became a political issue?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n With Ruth Bader Ginsburg passing away just\nmonths before the election, many thought there should be a waiting period until\nafter the election to allow the American people to have a say in who they\nbelieve should nominate a new justice. The American people did not get this\nopportunity as President Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett (which is his\nconstitutional right) and Senate Republicans have stated that they will approve\nher nomination and that she will be on the Supreme Court before the election. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The same Republicans who are orchestrating\nthis historic event are the same who blocked President Obama\u2019s replacement of\nAntonin Scalia in 2016 because they believed the American people should have a\nvoice in the process — through the election. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even though Senate Republicans are breaking\nthe promises they made in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and even 2020 about waiting\nuntil after the election, there is a major consequence for this pick — The\nbalance of the court. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Balance\nof the court<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Before Ginsburg passed, conservatives had a\n5-4 majority with Chief Justice John Roberts siding most of the time with the\nconservative justices. When Amy Coney Barrett joins the court, many fear that\nthe court will be extremely unbalanced. With her on the court, there will be a\n6-3 conservative majority. Americans fear that Obamacare could be repealed, as\nwell as Roe v. Wade severely limited. There are many other things that a\nconservative Supreme Court majority will shape that many Americans do not agree\nwith. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If the Democrats win the presidency and win\nback the Senate, then we can assume a 6-3 conservative majority on the court\ndoes not represent the views in America. This is why Biden and Harris will not\nanswer anything until after the election. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Amy Coney Barrett is an extremely talented and\nqualified person to fill a vacancy in the Supreme Court, but the American\npeople should have a choice in the process. If Republicans win, then the\nnomination should go forward and we should accept the nominee and support the\ncurrent nine-justice system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the Republicans succeed in getting her on\nthe court and the Democrats win on Nov. 3rd, then there will be a movement from\nsome to expand the Supreme Court because a 6-3 conservative majority does not\nrepresent the views of America. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bradley DeMers\nis senior studying political science at FHSU. He is a former Student Government\nAssociation president and has worked for politicians in both main political\nparties.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Many Americans are asking Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to answer what they believe to be a simple question \u201cDo you support expanding the Supreme… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12323,55,6101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-life","category-opinion","category-talking-democracy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/US-NEWS-SCOTUS-BARRETT-29-ABA.jpg?fit=2918%2C1945&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56629,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56627\/revisions\/56629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/56628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}