McConnell Slams Biden Over Creating Commission To Study Court Packing: The ‘Far-Left’ Controls Him

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) blasted Democrat President Joe Biden on Friday after the president announced that he was creating a commission to study packing the Supreme Court, a highly controversial partisan action that is opposed by the majority of Americans.

The New York Times reported that Biden made the decision to move forward with studying court packing because he was “under pressure from activists.” The commission will be led by two left-wing partisans who served in the Obama administration, and George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley warned that it was “not a good sign” that the commission was “notably stacked on one side.”

Court packing is so controversial that even socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) does not support it and leftist Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg have warned against it, saying that it will delegitimize the court. McConnell noted the remarks made by Ginsburg and Breyer in his statement.

McConnell said that the move by Biden was “a direct assault on our nation’s independent judiciary and yet another sign of the Far Left’s influence over the Biden Administration.”

“At the same time, more and more elected Democrats have made open disdain for judicial independence a key part of their political platforms,” McConnell said. “A sitting Senator has personally threatened certain justices should they rule against liberal interests. Multiple Senate Democrats signed a threatening brief suggesting the Court needed to either deliver liberal rulings or face being ‘restructured.’ The President spent most of his campaign playing coy on the issue, but has now admitted from the safety of a four-year term that he views the judiciary as ‘out of whack.’”

McConnell continued:

So anyone who was surprised by the creation of a commission on packing the Supreme Court simply hasn’t been paying attention. This faux-academic study of a nonexistent problem fits squarely within liberals’ years-long campaign to politicize the Court, intimidate its members, and subvert its independence. This is not some new, serious, or sober pivot away from Democrats’ political attacks on the Court. It’s just an attempt to clothe those ongoing attacks in fake legitimacy. It’s disappointing that anyone, liberal or conservative, would lend credence to this attack by participating in the commission.

Of course, this is just another example of the liberal preference for attacking norms and institutions, rather than working within them. When Democrats lose a floor vote, it’s time to change Senate rules. When they lose a presidential election, it’s time to abolish the Electoral College. And when activists’ cases fall flat against the rule of law, it’s time to ignore Justices Ginsburg and Breyer and pack the Supreme Court.

President Biden campaigned on a promise of lowering the temperature and uniting a divided nation. If he really meant it, he would stop giving oxygen to a dangerous, antiquated idea and stand up to the partisans hawking it.

Mike Davis, founder and president of the Article III Project (A3P), warned that Biden’s move was “alarming” and must “be met with the harshest of denunciations from both sides of the aisle” because packing the Supreme Court would lead to “irreversible damage.”

“Packing the Supreme Court would destroy centuries of hard work from Democrat- and Republican-appointed justices to insulate the high court from partisan politics,” Davis warned. “It also raises serious red flags as to what unconstitutional actions President Biden is planning that a more favorable Supreme Court might tolerate.”

Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI) called Biden’s move “nothing more than a political power grab,” while Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) warned that Democrats were willing to “destroy our institutions to seize power.” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) warned, “This is not a drill anymore … the Left is coming for everything!”

The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a member.

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases