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A group of progressive Democrats in the US Congress are targeting former President Donald Trump’s legacy of appointing three conservative justices to the US Supreme Court by proposing to expand the high court from nine to 13 justices.
The legislative proposal, announced on Thursday, would allow new President Joe Biden to nominate four justices who would swing the court’s present 6-3 conservative majority towards the middle.
“The United States Supreme Court is broken. It is out of balance, and it needs to be fixed,” said Senator Ed Markey, a Democrat.
The American public views the court as a “partisan political institution, not as our impartial judicial branch of government”, Markey said at a news conference to introduce the “Judiciary Act of 2021” to expand the court.
The bill faces an uphill climb in Congress where the House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi refrained on Thursday from giving it her backing. Pelosi, the top House Democrat, holds sway over what bills get brought up for debate and votes.
President Joe Biden also has been cool to the idea of expanding the court. Last week Biden ordered the establishment of a bipartisan commission to study potential reforms to the Supreme Court including expanding the number justices and imposing term limits instead of lifetime appointments.
But the idea is popular among the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. The House version of the bill is co-sponsored by Representatives Hank Johnson and Mondaire Jones.
It gained new currency last year when President Trump and Republicans who controlled the US Senate hurriedly confirmed Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative, to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal.
