Will Biden ‘Pack’ the Supreme Court?
The Supreme Court is composed of nine justices whose terms last for their entire lifetimes. During his presidency, President Trump elected three Supreme Court justices — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — all of which, unsurprisingly, are conservatives. However, as a result, there is now a large conservative majority on the Court of 6-3.
Consequently, President Biden is seeking to reform the Supreme Court to have a greater percentage of liberal justices than there are now. In fact, he recently issued an executive order "establishing a commission to study the status of the Supreme Court, with an eye toward making serious changes, including perhaps expanding the number of justices." Various Democrats such as Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg are proposing the idea of "packing" the Supreme Court, or increasing the number of justices. President Biden, however, is still not set on a solution yet. He will consider the various plans of action through the commission, which will consider and analyze steps like increasing the number of justices and creating term limits. By implementing one of solutions, it would help the Supreme Court to not be composed of a large majority of justices from one or the other political party, being equitable to both sides.
The fate of the Supreme Court will be decided in the coming months, but there likely will be some type of reform to prevent the Republican majority in the Supreme Court to remain as such.