Hypocrisy of criticizing court- packing consideration
Re: “Coloradans deserve a clear answer on court- packing,” Nov. 1 commentary
Kristi Burton Brown’s breathtakingly hypocritical opinion piece on courtpacking was a nice touch of surrealism on Sunday morning. After the Republican Senate majority leader refused to hold a hearing on Judge Merrick Garland for nearly a year, after holding over 100 Federal Judgeships open at the end of the Obama administration and ramming through two of the least qualified Supreme Court justices in history, including the most recent record of 35 days before an election, Brown is worried about court- packing?
I’ll refer you to a lawyer’s definition of chutzpah, a person who kills his parents and pleads for the court’s mercy on the ground of being an orphan.
She should be ashamed.
Glenn Hendricks, Pueblo
In her column in Sunday’s Post, Kristi Burton Brown asserts that Coloradans deserve an answer from Joe Biden on court- packing.
The Republicans have stalled and blocked court appointments for the last decade, including, and most significantly, the nomination of Merrick Garland by President Obama in 2016. This has resulted in hamstringing the judicial process and backlogs in the lower courts.
Then, with the election of Trump and the GOP Senate in 2016, these hurdles suddenly disappeared. We have had Supreme Court justices appointed and approved in this last term. The final travesty was the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett so late in the election cycle, and in direct opposition to the precedent which the GOP set with Garland
Even more concerning, though, is the rush fill all those vacant positions in the lower courts. With a majority in the Senate, the GOP ramrodded judicial appointments through. Some of the appointees were not even considered up to snuff by the American Bar Association. This raises all sorts of red flags for anyone concerned about a competent and independent judiciary. I don’t have problems with conservative judges, but I do have issues with incompetent ones.
Such a mockery of the appointment process makes an antidote necessary. If a commission was set up and it recommended adding positions to the Court, I would back such a move.
Bob Stephenson, Englewood