The idea of holding elections

The original idea of holding elections was that candidates would explain their ideas for what is best for the nation and voters would pick the candidate with the best ideas.

That has degenerated into digging up dirt on all candidates so that elections boil down to voters picking the lesser of two evils. Still, candidates usually come up with positions on just about any important issue. That isn’t always the case this year.

Since President Donald Trump has appointed two confirmed and one nominated candidate to the U.S. Supreme Court, some Democrats are floating the idea of expanding the court from nine justices to 15 or more if a Democrat wins the White House.

Trump is on the record of opposing this idea that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once floated as a way to get the high court to approve his “New Deal” legislative package.

In the 1930s, the Supreme Court ruled that parts of FDR’s “New Deal” legislation were unconstitutional.

Rather than propose legislation that followed the highest law of the land, Roosevelt decided the best way to get his way was to increase the number of justices on the court so that his new appointments would find his plans constitutional no matter what the Constitution said.

Congress did not agree to what became known as “packing the court.” Both sides agreed that the next time the White House changed hands between Democrats and Republican, more packing would take place. Then more would follow so that the court was not an impartial judge of what the constitution says.

Just like the administrative branch and the legislative branch of government, the judicial branch was designed to be a separate and equal part of the checks and balances of our government.

The packing the court after each election to gain political control of the Supreme Court would continue every four or eight years. This would cause exponential growth in members of the court. Congress didn’t want to see the Supreme Court end with 100 justices.

Since the idea of adding new justices to transform it from a conservative dominated court that follows the Constitution to a liberal-dominated court that twists the law so it agrees with the far-left agenda, it seems important enough that both presidential candidates should take a position on court packing.

Democrat Joe Biden refuses to publically take a position. Biden told a television reporter: “You’ll know my opinion on court packing when the election is over.”

Biden defends not giving the voters information they would likely want to know before they vote by saying: “You know, the moment I answer that question, the headline in every one of your papers will be about that, other than focusing on what’s happening now.”

There is an old saying “No answer is also an answer.” It just isn’t an apparent answer. Let’s look at the two possible answers to that question.

If Biden says he will not support packing the court, it is a non-story that goes away within a day. However, if he says he supports packing the court, his answer will dog him for all the days left in this campaign.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why he would not want to answer.

Obviously, his answer on packing the court would be unpopular — just like it was for FDR — and cost Biden votes.

There is more evidence Biden would support packing the court with far-left liberals.

New York Times reporter Alexander Burns said during an episode of the newspaper’s podcast that Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris — the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate — told him last year that she was “absolutely open” to packing the Supreme Court.

“Senator Harris told me in an interview, actually, that she was absolutely open to doing that,” Burns said.

A new poll released last week found that voters do not support court packing.

“Only 1 in 3 registered voters favor a Democratic proposal to expand the Supreme Court in order to install a liberal majority, according to a new poll,” The Washington Examiner reported. “A Washington Examiner/YouGov poll found that 47 percent oppose growing the Supreme Court beyond its current nine members, while only 34 percent back the idea, popularly known as ‘court-packing.’”

After that poll was released, Biden said: “I’m not a fan of court packing but I don’t want to get off on that whole issue. I want to keep focused. The president would love nothing better than to fight about whether or not I would, in fact, pack the court or not pack the court.”

Notice that Biden did not say he would or wound not pack the court. Just that he “isn’t a fan.” That’s not really an answer.