Trying The Old Roosevelt "Court-Stacking" Trick

The Los Angeles Times is floating an idea that was tried years ago and failed. Their idea is that, if Democrats win control of the government in 2020, they could expand the number of seats on the US Supreme Court and pack the new seats with liberals. Apparently, the Los Angeles Times does not own a history book or have anyone in the organization that went to history or civic class.

"President for Life" Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposed doing this in 1937 with the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937. That proposal was even rejected by Roosevelt's own Vice President, John Nance Garner. The bill was also held up by Senate Judiciary Committee by Democratic committee chair Henry F. Ashurst (from Roosevelt's own party) who was quoted as saying, ""No haste, no hurry, no waste, no worry—that is the motto of this committee." Even the people in his own party realized what a power grab it was and refused to go along with it.

Here is a better idea: Come up with some policies that actually result in winning elections. Since the Democrat Party lost about 1000 elected positions across the country during the Obama administration, you would think that they would, at the very least, be taking a look at why they lost all of those elections. One must remember that almost all of those losses occurred before President Trump ran for office. They were losing elections across the country even during the election the President Obama was re-elected. So, one must conclude that while President Obama was doing well personally in the vote, his party was getting their butts handed to them. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Donna Brazile, and Hillary Clinton seemed oblivious to everything that was happening to down-ballot Democrats across the nation. Tom Perez also seems to be, most of the time. If they continue to embrace the "California-New England" socialist portions of the party, they have little chance to win in the middle of the country or in the south. The current trend is that they are also losing the "rust belt" states.

This country has always been like a political pendulum. It usually cycles back and forth between leaning liberal and leaning conservative. That has been true throughout the country's history. However, just like a pendulum, the further you push in one direction, the further it swings the other way in response. Eisenhower followed Roosevelt. Kennedy followed Eisenhower. Nixon followed Johnson. Reagan followed Carter. President Obama pushed way far left. It is not surprising at all that a very conservative President followed him. If President Trump pushes hard right, the next President will likely be liberal. That is the way the country maintains its balance.

Moderates in both the Republican and Democrat parties are becoming a rarity. That is because it is hard to win in a primary as a moderate. Only the most active political voters tend to vote in primary elections. Those people tend to be the furthest edges, and most energized, of the party regulars. That is unfortunate because it seems that some moderation would do the country a lot of good now.