Authored by Jonathan Turley via jonathanturley.org,
Various Democrats have been openly discussing their plans after retaking power to change the system so they never lose power again. Democratic strategist James Carville has been one of the most vocal and returned to the subject this week in laying out how they will make D.C. and Puerto Rico states and pack the Supreme Court with a liberal majority.
On his podcast with Al Hunt, Carville explained, “If the Democrats win the presidency and both houses of Congress, I think on day one, they should make Puerto Rico [and] D.C. a state, and they should expand the Supreme Court to 13. F— it. Eat our dust.”
Notably, this week, New Jersey just elected a radical new member, Analilia Mejia, who ran on packing the Court and other radical agenda items. While some of us have written about the expansion of the Court, these politicians and pundits are pushing for the packing, not just gradual expanding, of the Court.
However, Carville (curiously on a national podcast) seriously suggested that Democrats should keep the plan quiet: “Don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it. Just do it.”
Call it the Nike School of Constitutional Law.
The need of the left to pack the Supreme Court is obvious. Many of the proposals coming from the left are clearly unconstitutional. You will need a partisan majority to make the political changes that these figures hope will give the Democrats a lock on power for years to come.
Years ago, Harvard professor Michael Klarman laid out a radical agenda to change the system to guarantee Republicans “will never win another election.” However, he warned that “the Supreme Court could strike down everything I just described.” Therefore, the court must be packed in advance to allow these changes to occur.
Likewise, Carville previously explained how this process of how the pack-to-power plan would work:
“I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen. A Democrat is going to be elected in 2028. You know that. I know that. The Democratic president is going to announce a special transition advisory committee on the reform of the Supreme Court. They’re going to recommend that the number of Supreme Court justices go from nine to 13. That’s going to happen, people.”
The push for court packing and war chests on the left remains unchanged despite conservatives on the Court ruling against the Administration on major cases. Carville and others cannot claim that the conservative justices are robotically voting with the Administration, but it does not matter. They want a Court that will consistently uphold the changes being planned by Democratic strategists.
The fact that these changes would come after the 250th anniversary of the most successful democratic system in history is a crushing irony. However, it is notable that the Democrats want Congress and the courts to push through these changes, not the public. The public remains opposed to court packing and making D.C. a state. That is why Carville wants candidates to keep quiet on the plan and run, like Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger, as faux moderates. Then, as in Virginia, they can move to fundamentally change districts and rules to guarantee their hold on power.
It is a mentality summed up by NEA President Becky Pringle:
The question is whether rage politics can convince a people to destroy the very democratic system that has brought centuries of stability and prosperity.