by Kathy

A so called “legal expert” Jean Edward Smith has proposed that the number of justices on the Supreme Court be expanded because the current court makeup does not meet his ideological agenda. Democrats were all too happy to have the court majority for decades voting in favor of their liberal agenda and now that the court has shifted back to the right they are looking for ways to re-stack the deck.

The number of justices on the Supreme Court should be increased because the “current five-man [conservative] majority persists in thumbing its nose at popular values,” a legal expert has proposed, sparking debate and criticism.

“When a majority of Supreme Court justices adopt a manifestly ideological agenda, it plunges the court into the vortex of American politics,” Jean Edward Smith, a biographer and political science professor at Marshall University, wrote in the New York Times Thursday.

Smith said Congress has various means at its disposal to impose a degree of control over the courts, including impeachment of justices, limiting court jurisdiction, and altering the number of Supreme Court justices. (source)

We know what he means by “impose a degree of control over the courts”, change it back to a liberal activist court . Others agree:

Quin Hillyer, senior editor for The American Spectator, also criticized Smith’s suggestion.”For decades, the left has thought that the Supreme Court belonged to them almost as if by natural right,”

“The left is apoplectic at the idea that they don’t get to dictate what I would call mis-interpretation of the Constitution anymore.”

He also criticized Smith’s assertion that the size of the Supreme Court could be perpetually mutable, saying that “having the size of the court be stable is a good thing. Governmental structure should not be changed at a whim.

“What Congress has the power to do and what it ought to do are two different things. I always support the idea of Congress limiting the jurisdiction of the courts because, frankly, I believe the courts have their hands in too many things that they never were supposed to.

“That said, expanding the size of the court is another thing entirely … you’re not narrowing the court’s activism, you’re expanding the opportunities for the court to meddle,” he added. (source

I agree; this will only increase judicial activism not decrease it. However, this proposal cannot be enacted as long as the Republicans hold enough seats to thwart the effort by filibuster.