Despite the final report of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court not endorsing court-packing, many on the Left see it as an opportunity to bring the issue to the forefront again. Two commissioners released an op-ed in the Washington Post following the release of the report titled, "The Supreme Court isn’t well. The only hope for a cure is more justices."

Yesterday, during the Senate impeachment trial's questions phase, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and Senator Elizabeth Warren submitted a question that attacked Chief Justice John Roberts who is presiding over the Senate impeachment trial as required by the Constitution:

Roberts read the question aloud: “At a time when large majorities of Americans have lost faith in government, does the fact that the chief justice is presiding over an impeachment trial in which Republican senators have thus far refused to allow witnesses or evidence contribute to the loss of legitimacy of the chief justice, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution?”

The tragic targeting of police officers by a shooter last night and the extreme partisanship of Polifact have brought back to the forefront controversial, politically charged lies told by Presidential candidates and Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris over the weekend. 

Last week Attorney General Bill Barr announced that the Department of Justice would resume enforcing the law regarding the federal death penalty.  As Fox News reported:

Few things inflame Democrats more than Supreme Court Justices with whom they disagree.  On the eve of the last days of the Supreme Court term, and on the eve of the first Democrat Presidential debates, we thought it worth revisiting an issue that is certain to be brought up again by Democrats in their effort to outflank each to the left: court packing.  The master of Senate procedure, attorney Marty Gold, has a great new article on the topic that delves into the history of the issue.

This is another installment of an ongoing series of posts summarizing 2020 Democratic presidential candidates' views on judges and the courts.  All posts in this series can be viewed here.

On Neil Gorsuch:     Voted No.[1]  

• “They stole a Supreme Court seat, and they’ve installed union-buster Neil Gorsuch on the bench. And now their investment is paying off.” [2]
• “Republicans and their billionaire buddies have pushed through judges like Justice Gorsuch to rig the system against workers. They can use a stolen Supreme Court seat to try to break the backs of unions and deliver punch after punch to working people—but we will fight back.” [3]

On Brett Kavanaugh:     Voted No. [4]

• “He is the ‘trifecta’ for Trump, someone who will be committed to overturning Roe v. Wade, someone who will be committed to rolling back health care for millions of Americans, and someone who, it looks pretty likely, will help Donald Trump if he gets into serious criminal trouble." [5]
• “Brett Kavanaugh's record as a judge and lawyer is clear: hostile to health care for millions, opposed to the CFPB & corporate accountability, thinks Presidents like Trump are above the law – and conservatives are confident that he would overturn Roe v. Wade. I'll be voting no.” [6]

Her opposition to Trump’s judicial nominees:     Voted against Trump judicial nominations 81% of the time.[7]    

• In a Senate floor speech, she stated “President Trump has been all in, nominating extreme and partisan judges to the federal judiciary at lightning speed.  Trump judges can easily fill a who’s who of radical, right-wing, pro-corporate lawyers….” [8]
• “Republicans know that every time they try to lock voters out of the democratic process, they will be challenged in the courts.  But they have a plan for that.  They have been working at breakneck speed to stack federal courts with a cadre of conservative federal judges whose record show they have no intention of protecting our democracy.” [9]