A new bill introduced by Democrat Senator Ron Wyden would add six more justices to the Supreme Court and introduce a raft of measures designed to make the Court work in the Democrats’ favour.
As well as increasing the Supreme Court’s size, the bill would make it harder for justices to overturn laws, require them to undergo audits and remove roadblocks to nominations.
The size of the court would be increased from nine to 15 over a period of 12 years.
The bill would also require a two-thirds ruling by the Supreme Court and the circuit court of appeals in order to overturn a law, and make it impossible for Senators to delay votes on new appointments. Mitch McConnell was able to delay Barack Obama’s appointment of Merrick Garland in 2016, allowing Trump to replace him with Neil Gorsuch.
As The Washington Post reports, the bill would introduce stringent auditing measures for justices:
“Supreme Court justices must report income, dividends, property sales and gifts, among other things, but the bill would bolster financial checks, disclosures and other transparency measures. It would require the IRS to initiate an audit of the justices’ tax returns each year, release the results and make the tax filings public. Nominees to the court would have to disclose three years of tax returns.”
Justices would be able to force other justices to recuse themselves from cases, with a two-thirds majority.
The bill’s author, Senator Ron Wyden, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, said he doesn’t believe the bill will pass in full, but he hopes to get parts of the bill into law.
Reaction to news of the bill was fierce on the right.
Hellbound and Down 