Over the weekend, an article by Daily Kos staffer Walter Einenkel — www.dailykos.com/… — reported that Democratic Delaware Senator declared that he was open to adding seat to the Supreme Court.
Einenkel’s comment on that declaration:
That’s big. When traditionalist Democrats like Coons are open to expanding the court, and publicly saying as much just weeks before election, that means the political will is clearly there to make that happen. It also means that Sen. Coons’ internal polling is showing that the will of the people is there as well. (Emphasis added.)
One more development that suggests that the idea of expanding the Court might be a political winner is a change in Biden’s own statement on the issue.
Only a couple of weeks ago, Biden indicated that he’d make his thoughts known after the election. Which looks like a clear sign that he was leary of having his position on court-expansion be a factor in how people vote.
But then, in the nationally-televised town hall event last Thursday evening, Biden seemed to say that he’ll be making his position known to voters — whose “right to know” he affirmed — after the Senate acts on the Barrett nomination and before the election.
What does that change in the timing of Biden’s speaking to that issue signify? Particularly in combination with what we’ve now heard from Biden’s friend, the moderate Democratic Senator from Biden’s home state of Delaware.
Conceivably, it could signify that Biden has enough confidence in his standing that he’s willing to spend a bit of political capital now so that his position on Court-expansion can be said to be wrapped up in the “mandate” the voters give him when he’s elected President.
But while that interpretation could make sense, I doubt that Biden would take any such chance. (And there are better options available to Biden if he wanted to escape from the evasiveness that was not playing too well but without committing himself to anything prior to the election — as I proposed in my piece “Biden Can Handle the Court-Packing Issue Better. Here’s How:”
The other, and likely more plausible explanation may be the one that Einenkel proposes: i.e. that Biden and company think that the idea of expanding the Court is a political winner.
In other words, perhaps these two statements — the one from Coons, and the one from Biden — indicates that the Democrats’ pollsters have looked into public opinion on the issue, as the Republicans have been barreling through a confirmation process a majority of Americans did not want, in order to ram through a Supreme Court Justice pretty certain to seek to help destroy two important laws-of-the-land that substantial majorities of Americans want left alone (the Affordable Care Act and Roe v. Wade) and discovered that the idea of expanding the Court, as a means to undo what the Republicans have achieved through their power grabs, is a political plus.
