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The ‘Neutron Option’ Democrats Could Use to Retake the Supreme Court
political scientist has a radical proposal to pack the court and create a new majority of liberal justices.
David Faris has a way to cheer frustrated liberals up—and maybe scare the hell out of everyone else. The Chicago-based political science professor came out with a book this spring called It’s Time to Fight Dirty that imagines a variety of extreme hardball tactics Democrats can employ if they gain power in 2020 to ensure Republicans won’t be able to stop their agenda. For Faris, getting rid of the filibuster that allows a Senate minority to block most legislation (a.k.a. the “nuclear option”) is just the start: He’s talking about shit like breaking up California into seven states and doubling the size of the House of Representatives. But he told me that the section of the book he “had a sleepless night over” was a chapter about what he called the “neutron option for the Supreme Court.”
That would involve first proposing a constitutional amendment to end lifetime tenure on the court and pushing a proposal to let each president pick two justices per term, a compromise that Faris hopes would “end the court wars.” He suspects Republicans wouldn’t go for that, however, so he’d advise the next Democratic president to just “pack” the court as FDR tried to do in 1937 before Congress rose up against him and prevented it. That would involve passing a bill to expand the size of the court and allowing the president to appoint however many justices would be needed to create a new liberal majority, with the friendly Senate signing off on any appointee. (This would be legal, Faris points out, because there’s nothing in the Constitution stipulating the size of the court, which has in fact fluctuated in the past.)
Sounds crazy, right? Not to this member of the faculty at Harvard Law:
Ian Samuel
✔ @isamuel
If the Democratic Party wins the 2020 election, it will have won the most votes in 7 out of the 8 previous national elections. Adding six members to create a fifteen-member Court, which would still have 5 GOP-appointed members, is actually incredibly generous to the Republicans.
11:20 PM - Jun 28, 2018
Pack the Supreme Court! The latest rallying cry of #TheResistance
political scientist has a radical proposal to pack the court and create a new majority of liberal justices.
David Faris has a way to cheer frustrated liberals up—and maybe scare the hell out of everyone else. The Chicago-based political science professor came out with a book this spring called It’s Time to Fight Dirty that imagines a variety of extreme hardball tactics Democrats can employ if they gain power in 2020 to ensure Republicans won’t be able to stop their agenda. For Faris, getting rid of the filibuster that allows a Senate minority to block most legislation (a.k.a. the “nuclear option”) is just the start: He’s talking about shit like breaking up California into seven states and doubling the size of the House of Representatives. But he told me that the section of the book he “had a sleepless night over” was a chapter about what he called the “neutron option for the Supreme Court.”
That would involve first proposing a constitutional amendment to end lifetime tenure on the court and pushing a proposal to let each president pick two justices per term, a compromise that Faris hopes would “end the court wars.” He suspects Republicans wouldn’t go for that, however, so he’d advise the next Democratic president to just “pack” the court as FDR tried to do in 1937 before Congress rose up against him and prevented it. That would involve passing a bill to expand the size of the court and allowing the president to appoint however many justices would be needed to create a new liberal majority, with the friendly Senate signing off on any appointee. (This would be legal, Faris points out, because there’s nothing in the Constitution stipulating the size of the court, which has in fact fluctuated in the past.)
Sounds crazy, right? Not to this member of the faculty at Harvard Law:
Ian Samuel
✔ @isamuel
If the Democratic Party wins the 2020 election, it will have won the most votes in 7 out of the 8 previous national elections. Adding six members to create a fifteen-member Court, which would still have 5 GOP-appointed members, is actually incredibly generous to the Republicans.
11:20 PM - Jun 28, 2018
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Pack the Supreme Court! The latest rallying cry of #TheResistance
