For the second day in a row, Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson has been fielding questions from senators during her confirmation hearings… but she won’t answer this one.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, R-Ill., asked Jackson about court packing: the idea of adding justices to the court.
Durbin asked Jackson, “If a senator were to ask you today about proposals about changing the current size of the Supreme Court, what would your response be?” He also noted that Justice Amy Coney Barrett declined to comment on this issue during her own confirmation hearing.
“I agree with Justice Barrett in her response to that question when she was asked before this committee,” Jackson responded.
“Again, my North Star is the consideration of the proper role of a judge in our constitutional scheme, and in my view judges should not be speaking to political issues — and certainly not a nominee for a position on the Supreme Court.”
Take a look —
"Senator, I agree with Justice Barrett…Again, my north star is the consideration of the proper role of a judge in our constitutional scheme. And in my view, judges should not be speaking in to political issues and certainly not a nominee for a position on the supreme court." pic.twitter.com/KkdsXRrsFx
— Andrew Bates (@AndrewJBates46) March 22, 2022
Justice Amy Coney Barrett said in her own hearings that she “couldn’t opine” on proposals for court packing. “That is a question left open to Congress,” Barret added.
Jackson put it more succinctly. “I am trying, in every case, to stay in my lane,” she said.
Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the panel, tried again when it was his turn for questioning, but he got no different answer.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., met with Jackson earlier this month, and he took issue with her refusal to answer a question about court packing during their meeting.
“I did emphasize to her I thought it was one thing she could simply address, and people would welcome hearing, and that’s the same thing that Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer said about court-packing, both of whom made it clear that was a bad idea and was attacked — an attack on the integrity of the — of the — of the court and its independence,” McConnell told Guy Benson of Fox News.
“I didn’t get an answer to that. But I’m sure she would be asked that again in her hearings before the Judiciary Committee.”
The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg spoke out against court packing in 2019.
“I think it was a bad idea when President Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the court,” she told NPR at the time. “Nine seems to be a good number. It’s been that way for a long time.”
The retiring Justice Stephen Breyer has also warned against court packing.
“What I’m trying to do is to make those whose instincts may favor important structural change or other similar institutional changes such as forms of court-packing to think long and hard before they embody those changes in law,” Breyer told Harvard Law School last year, according to Fox News.
Some liberals have been warming up to proposals for court packing. After all, they want to tip the balance of the court away from conservatives, who now have a 6-3 majority thanks in large part to Donald Trump, who as president picked three new justices.
Democrats have the potential votes in the 50-50 Senate to confirm Jackson, even if all Republicans line up opposed. The Senate will likely vote on Jackson sometime before Easter.
The Horn editorial team and The Associated Press contributed to this article.