Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said that if elected he is going to study ways to reform the US judicial system that would go “well beyond” expanding the Supreme Court.
For the purpose of overhauling the US judiciary, Biden is aiming to put together a bipartisan national commission “of scholars, constitutional scholars, Democrats, Republicans, liberal, conservative,” he told CBS’ Norah O’Donnell on Thursday.
“And I will ask them to, over 180 days, come back to me with recommendations as to how to reform the court system because it's getting out of whack.”
The former vice president was then pressed by O’Donnell on whether his commission would be open to ‘packing’ the US Supreme Court, by adding new empty seats and filling them with justices of Biden’s choosing. “There's a number of alternatives that are — go well beyond packing,” the presidential challenger said.
Biden, however, conceded that some Democrats’ demands to pack the court are a “live ball.”
The politician’s readiness to reshape the US Judiciary as a whole was seen as a far departure from his previous rhetoric. At the first presidential debate, he refused to answer whether he would ‘pack’ the Supreme Court.
Online users quickly accused Biden of “planning to assault the Constitution,” in order to advance his party’s agenda.
Some thought that a potential SCOTUS reform would be “great,” saying that “reducing the power of courts” was an even better alternative to court packing.
The issue of packing the Supreme Court is indeed a “live ball” in Democratic circles after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on September 18. Senate Republicans and President Donald Trump have been pushing to fill her vacancy with less than two months until the presidential election. Democrats view this as breach of ethics because in 2016, the Republican-majority Senate stonewalled then-President Barack Obama’s attempt to confirm Merrick Garland to the Court for most of the year before the election.
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