Biden Forms Commission To Study Expanding Supreme Court

Washington, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 10th Apr, 2021 ) :President Joe Biden on Friday established an expert commission to study reforming the powerful US Supreme Court, including the explosive question of expanding its bench.

The move follows months of debate over whether Democrats should seek to expand the court beyond its current nine justices, after moves during Donald Trump's presidential term gave the bench a firm conservative majority.

The Supreme Court sits as the final arbiter on fundamental American legal matters, which can include minority and LGBTQ rights, racism, the death penalty and electoral controversies -- and its justices are appointed for life.

Making good on a campaign promise, Biden signed an executive order creating a bipartisan commission of three dozen experts, including legal and judicial scholars, former administration officials and former Federal judges, to weigh the highly-charged issue of reforming the body.

One of the panel's main duties is to produce "an analysis of the principal arguments in the contemporary public debate for and against Supreme Court reform, including an appraisal of the merits and legality of particular reform proposals," said the executive order published by the White House.

The order itself did not specifically address expanding the high court.

But in an earlier statement, the White House said the topics to be studied will include "the length of service and turnover of justices on the Court; the membership and size of the Court; and the Court's case selection, rules, and practices." The order directs the commission to complete its report within 180 days of its first public meeting.

Commissioners include Nancy Gertner, a US District Court judge from 1994 to 2011, and constitutional expert Laurence Tribe, a Harvard University professor and widely read scholar who also worked in Barack Obama's administration.

The commission's creation comes six months after the controversial confirmation of conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court following the September 2020 death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal icon.

Trump nominated Barrett days after Ginsburg's death, and weeks before the November election -- an election Trump lost to Biden.

The confirmation process triggered outrage from many Democrats, who pointed to the US Senate Republican leadership's refusal to hold hearings for Obama's Supreme Court pick in early 2016, much less a vote, on grounds that it was too close to that year's November presidential election.