Lauren Boebert Calls ‘Packing’ the Supreme Court ‘Political Terrorism’

Yesterday, we reported that Democrats in the House plan to introduce the Judiciary Act of 2021, which they introduced today, that would expand the number of Supreme Court justices from 9 to 13.

In a statement, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee Jerry Nadler (D-NY) said that the bill would “restore balance to the nation’s highest court after four years of norm-breaking actions by Republicans led to its current composition,”

U.S. House Rep Lauren Boebert (R-CO) took aim at the bill today in a pair of tweets.

In the first tweet, posted to her campaign account, Boebert said, “Packing the Supreme Court is an act of political terrorism.”

Packing the Supreme Court is an act of political terrorism.

— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) April 15, 2021

In the second tweet, posted to her government account, Boebert added, “When FDR tried to pack the Supreme Court, Democrats said his plan ‘should be rejected so decisively that such a proposal would never again be presented to the representatives of a free people.'”

Boebert then wondered, “Do any Democrats have the courage to say the same to @JoeBiden and @SpeakerPelosi?”

When FDR tried to pack the Supreme Court, Democrats said his plan “should be rejected so decisively that such a proposal would never again be presented to the representatives of a free people.”

Do any Democrats have the courage to say the same to @JoeBiden and @SpeakerPelosi?

— Rep. Lauren Boebert (@RepBoebert) April 15, 2021

The History Channel’s website provides a good summary of what happened the last time Democrats tried to expand the Supreme Court.

From the History Channel:

With lifetime appointments, it’s not unusual for Supreme Court justices to serve well past the average U.S. retirement age of 63. (Ruth Bader Ginsberg died at age 87 while still serving on the court and Antonin Scalia died at age 79 while still a Supreme Court justice.)

But in the late 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted to put restrictions on the court when it came to age. Largely seen as a political ploy to change the court for favorable rulings on New Deal legislation, the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, commonly referred to as the “court-packing plan,” was Roosevelt’s attempt to appoint up to six additional justices to the Supreme Court for every justice older than 70 years, 6 months, who had served 10 years or more.

Dr. David B. Woolner, senior fellow and resident historian of the Roosevelt Institute and author of The Last 100 Days: FDR at War and at Peace, says it’s important to note the timing of this bill, which took place during the Great Depression. “We were in the midst of the worst economic crisis in our history,” he says. “Roosevelt’s response to this economic crisis was to engage in a series of programs designed to manage a capitalist system in such a way as to make it work for the average American. And because he wasn’t particularly ideological, he was willing to try all kinds of things.”

Over the course of the Depression, Roosevelt was pushing through legislation and, beginning in May 1935, the Supreme Court began to strike down a number of the New Deal laws. “Over the next 13 months, the court struck down more pieces of legislation than at any other time in U.S. history,” Woolner says.

Roosevelt’s first New Deal program—in particular, its centerpiece, the National Recovery Administration, along with parts of the Agricultural Adjustment Act—had been struck down by unanimous and near-unanimous votes. This frustrated Roosevelt and got him thinking about adding justices to the court, says Peter Charles Hoffer, history professor at the University of Georgia and author of The Supreme Court: An Essential History. When he won the election of 1936 in a landslide, Roosevelt decided to float the plan.

It met instant opposition.

While it was never voted on in Congress, the Supreme Court justices went public in their opposition to it. And a majority of the public never supported the bill, either, says Barbara A. Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.

“Congress and the people viewed FDR’s ill-considered proposal as an undemocratic power grab,” she says. “The chief justice (Charles Evans Hughes) testified before Congress that the Court was up to date in its work, countering Roosevelt’s stated purpose that the old justices needed help with their caseload.”

“It was never realistic that this plan would pass,” Perry says. “Roosevelt badly miscalculated reverence for the Court and its independence from an overreaching president.”