Packing the court

The Sunday, Dec. 12, opinion article, “Increasing number of justices…” (Nancy Gerthner and Laurence H. Tribe) is another example of liberal projectionism: attributing to conservatives what liberals are doing or have done.

Laurence Tribe primarily contributed to the piece, but his status as an emeritus in constitutional law is suspect when he repeatedly refers to the U.S. as a democracy. We are a republic; the two systems are not identical. And his assertion that the current Supreme Court’s “ideological” make-up is from partisan politics proves his projectionism. How so?

Does he not remember the Warren and Burger courts — with their 1940’s roots — which turned this country on its head with rank over-reaching liberalism while claiming a constitutionality of which the founders never dreamed? Tribe decries trampling of decades of precedence. What does he think those previous courts did?

This is hypocrisy. Tribe favors packing SCOTUS with appointees who must be politically liberal to “repair the court.” Otherwise, decades of social engineering “progress,” which Congress had neither the right nor power to do, will be wasted. Tribe claims conservative justices have been neutral to oppression and false in fairness, supposedly revealing partisan manipulation. Yet partisan manipulation is how those previous liberal courts worked — compare the enumerated powers of Article I, Section 8 with those courts’ ruling on decades of legislation.

FDR tried political packing in 1937. In U.S. v. Darby (1941), the 10th Amendment was ruled redundant and thus powerless, though the 10th is our safeguard against federal legislative tyranny.

Let’s restore constitutional government and reject packing the Court.

Rod Foss

Spokane