Senator's Push For Supreme Court Overhaul Is Dead On Arrival

Senator Ron Wyden has introduced legislation that would completely overhaul the Supreme Court and make it easier for presidents of either Party to get appointees on the court and create a more fair balance. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Senator Ron Wyden has introduced legislation that would completely overhaul the Supreme Court and make it easier for presidents of either party to get appointees to the court and create a more fair and balanced court. Wow. Take off on this one.

Yeah. Ron Wyden, knowing by the way that it has no chance of passing.

It's dead on arrival. I mean,

But, for the most part, most of it is a good piece of legislation.

I agree.

And Wyden's been great, and he is often overlooked when we talk about who's good in the Senate and not. So he puts forth this legislation. He says, okay, here's what we're gonna do. We're building off our plan from a year and a half ago to have every president in their first year and third year appoint a new justice to the Supreme Court. But he takes it one step further and there's many other things and he says, we're gonna expand that court to 15 people and that, of course, is where you're gonna run into so many roadblocks, because every other part of this is actually really amazing.

It is. I love the ethics requirement. I love the reporting requirement. I love the transparency requirements. I love all that.

Letting the justices vote to have another justice recuse themselves.

But think about this. Okay. During the Warren Court, I don't think you were born during the Warren Court.

No.

Okay. I remember the Warren Court, and that's where the Warren Court, the most liberal court that's ever been in the United States, I felt was the best Supreme Court we've had in my lifetime. And what you had is they gave us civil rights. They made decisions on civil rights. They made decisions on searches and seizures that were great. They made decisions on free speech that were perfect. They made decisions on gender rights that were perfect. And all these were pro for everything I'm talking about. They supported these things. School busing, they gave us school busing. They gave us ways that we had to tamper down on how we go about the death penalty. This was a great court. Okay. Now what if the Republicans had said, oh, we don't like all that? What if the right-wingers had said, we don't think it's affirmative action, that the Supreme Court ought to be in on affirmative action? That's not good for us. We're good old boys down here in Mississippi. We don't like that. What if we had tampered with the Warren Court? What then? We would've had no change. These are substantial changes. These move society ahead in a major leap in everything here, whether it's criminal justice, civil rights, gender rights, free speech, name. It was a wonderful court. And what if these jerk legs, like we're hearing here, had said, ah, we gotta change this court. We gotta change the courts because they could have done it. They could have done it during the Reagan years.

Yeah.

They could have pulled this off in the Reagan years. But what if that had happened?

Well, exactly. And I think that's probably the best example here, is that if the Democrats come along and expand that court, whether you're putting two new justices on there or six, Republicans will eventually come back to power.

Of course.

I mean, they could come back to power in a few months. So they'll just say, okay, you put six on there, we're adding.

Four more.

Nine more. And then the Democrats will say, all right, next time we're gonna try it with 20 more. Until everybody in the country is a Supreme Court justice.

It is childlike thinking.

But the rest of his reforms are great and we need these.

I agree with you. But to put those, I mean, everything else looked good to me.

Right. And that's the problem is you start with the worst part that's gonna lead to the retaliation.

It's gonna destroy any possibility of this passing.

Yeah, exactly.

This is dead on arrival, Farron. Okay. And it shouldn't be. That's the problem. Thanks for joining me.

Thank you.