After weeks of dodging, Joe Biden this week offered some mild opinion about the Left’s plan to pack the Supreme Court with liberal “living Constitution” judges.
“I’m not a fan of court packing,” Biden said in an interview. “But I’m not — I don’t want to get off on that whole issue. I want to keep focused.”
This is hardly the strong and unequivocal statement required of a candidate who ambitiously claims he can bring the United States back to “normal” after four very tumultuous years under President Trump. It is hardly the statement of the nominee of a party claiming it wants to restore norms and civility.
Biden’s continued refusal to take court packing off the table should leave voters assuming that he will at least acquiesce to the plans of left-wing members of Congress to pack the court if he wins his election next month and the new Congress allows him to get away with it. And yes, maybe he won’t pack the court. But politicians usually cannot even be taken at their word. Why trust a politician who won’t even give as little as his word?
[Read more: National attacks of Biden over court-packing resonate with Georgia voters]
Previously, Biden had been rejecting calls to make anything about his position known. He and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, had completely dodged the question, even making up stories in order to avoid answering it. Biden justified his obfuscations by arguing, and yes, he really did make this argument, that the election was coming up and that his answer might actually affect people’s votes, so it would be a mistake to discuss it.
For all the Democrats’ pretended concern for norms and civility, it appears it is the Democrats, not President Trump, who are acting like their greatest enemies. Democratic officials such as Sen. Dick Durbin and left-wing media types are already trying to pave the way to court packing by redefining the very concept. They are attempting to call “court packing” the normal appointment of judges at all levels, including the appointment of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, to fill existing vacancies. That is not court packing. Court packing is the addition of justices to the Supreme Court so as to overwhelm its majority with new partisan appointees, all for the sake of short-term political gain.
Democratic partisans and members of Congress have been encouraging Biden to use this tactic, a norm-destroyer if ever there was one, in order to shift the court’s ideological balance. That he still reserves the right to pursue it should be the greatest concern of everyone watching the current fight over the Barrett nomination.
Biden appears to be running out the clock. He leads in the polls, and he thinks he can keep his intentions to himself until Election Day.
If Biden wins, and especially if he wins, it is essential that he first be made to renounce any sort of ambition to delegitimize the judiciary still further by packing the Supreme Court. If he cannot promise that much, then it would simply be irresponsible for anyone to vote for him.
