Discussion · House of Representatives
Jamie Raskin Democrat
“I oppose this amendment. Congress has always had the power to change the number of Supreme Court justices, often matching it to the number of federal court circuits. This amendment takes that power away from Congress just to protect the current court's conservative rulings.”
“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I will try to answer the interesting questions raised by my distinguished colleague, Mr. Jordan, in seriatim. First of all, anything that we do to try to improve the fortunes and the well-being of the American people, our colleagues call socialist. They call Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid socialist. That is just water off our back. The President talks about communists. The only communists on Earth today are his best friends and his role models, like Kim Jong-un, who he writes love letters to, and President Xi, who he has praised more than two dozen times in public. How about Vladimir Putin, who he follows around like a puppy dog? Vladimir Putin was head of the KGB. If there is a problem with communism, it is over on that side of the aisle. The gentleman legitimately asked the question: Why did the former chair of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Nadler, advocate for an increase of four seats on the Supreme Court--which we are not debating today? What we are debating is whether Congress should have the power to do anything, to increase or reduce the size. He asked about that. It is a legitimate question. I will tell you exactly why. The gentleman may be unfamiliar with the history here, but Congress has traditionally linked the number of Justices on the Court to the number of Federal circuits. We have 13 Federal circuits. His proposal was to go from 9 to 13. Even the gentleman’s beloved Ninth Circuit--which I think he is supposed to be representing in some sense--would be represented on the Supreme Court. We could have one Justice from each Federal circuit. That is what circuit riding was all about. You don’t need some conspiracy theory to explain it. He was very overt about why he wanted to go from 9 to 13, which we could discuss another day. Here the question is whether we should nullify, obviate, and destroy our own power to decide who should be on the Court. Still, the gentleman has not offered one single argument explaining why the number nine should be magic other than it cements into place all the decisions of this rightwing Roberts Court. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Scanlon), the distinguished ranking member of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government.”
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I will try to answer the interesting questions raised by my distinguished colleague, Mr. Jordan, in seriatim. First of all, anything that we do to try to improve the fortunes and the well-being of the American people, our colleagues call socialist. They call Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid socialist. That is just water off our back. The President talks about communists. The only communists on Earth today are his best friends and his role models, like Kim Jong-un, who he writes love letters to, and President Xi, who he has praised more than two dozen times in public. How about Vladimir Putin, who he follows around like a puppy dog? Vladimir Putin was head of the KGB. If there is a problem with communism, it is over on that side of the aisle. The gentleman legitimately asked the question: Why did the former chair of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Nadler, advocate for an increase of four seats on the Supreme Court--which we are not debating today? What we are debating is whether Congress should have the power to do anything, to increase or reduce the size. He asked about that. It is a legitimate question. I will tell you exactly why. The gentleman may be unfamiliar with the history here, but Congress has traditionally linked the number of Justices on the Court to the number of Federal circuits. We have 13 Federal circuits. His proposal was to go from 9 to 13. Even the gentleman’s beloved Ninth Circuit--which I think he is supposed to be representing in some sense--would be represented on the Supreme Court. We could have one Justice from each Federal circuit. That is what circuit riding was all about. You don’t need some conspiracy theory to explain it. He was very overt about why he wanted to go from 9 to 13, which we could discuss another day. Here the question is whether we should nullify, obviate, and destroy our own power to decide who should be on the Court. Still, the gentleman has not offered one single argument explaining why the number nine should be magic other than it cements into place all the decisions of this rightwing Roberts Court. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Scanlon), the distinguished ranking member of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government.