Sheldon Whitehouse’s Court-Packing Plan Is Unconstitutional

The Senate’s leading conspiracy theorist, Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.), is once again targeting the independent judiciary and the rule of written law for destruction. On Wednesday, along with Cory Booker (D., N.J.) and Alex Padilla (D., Calif.), Whitehouse reintroduced the “Supreme Court Biennial Appointments and Term Limits Act.” The bill is structured to expand the Supreme Court to a maximum of 18 justices, with presidents appointing new justices in the first and third years of their terms without a vacancy on the Court. Moreover, in order to hasten the end of the current conservative majority, it would sideline the most senior current justices from ruling on most of the Court’s docket, effectively stripping them of the powers that every justice since 1790 has exercised.

The effort to seize power from sitting justices is an unconstitutional and unprecedented assault on 236 unbroken years of American constitutional tradition. This is radical and dangerous. It is orders of magnitude more destructive of the very heart of our American system than anything Donald Trump has ever done, and worse than anything he has ever attempted — including trying to overturn a presidential election. Whitehouse isn’t just trying to steal the results of one election or one case, but to permanently break the system as it has existed since George Washington’s day. He would bring a conclusive end to any argument that the rule of law in America is anything but a mask for power. Future Americans would come to treat the belief in the rule of law as an antique superstition.

About the Author

Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review Online and a fellow at National Review Institute.

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The Senate’s leading conspiracy theorist, Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.), is once again targeting the independent judiciary and the rule of written law for destruction. On Wednesday, along with Cory Booker (D., N.J.) and Alex Padilla (D., Calif.), Whitehouse reintroduced the “Supreme Court Biennial Appointments and Term Limits Act.” The bill is structured to expand the Supreme Court to a maximum of 18 justices, with presidents appointing new justices in the first and third years of their terms without a vacancy on the Court. Moreover, in order to hasten the end of the current conservative majority, it would sideline the most senior current justices from ruling on most of the Court’s docket, effectively stripping them of the powers that every justice since 1790 has exercised.

The effort to seize power from sitting justices is an unconstitutional and unprecedented assault on 236 unbroken years of American constitutional tradition. This is radical and dangerous. It is orders of magnitude more destructive of the very heart of our American system than anything Donald Trump has ever done, and worse than anything he has ever attempted — including trying to overturn a presidential election. Whitehouse isn’t just trying to steal the results of one election or one case, but to permanently break the system as it has existed since George Washington’s day. He would bring a conclusive end to any argument that the rule of law in America is anything but a mask for power. Future Americans would come to treat the belief in the rule of law as an antique superstition.