Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who exerted an all out effort to overturn former President Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election, accused Democrats seeking to expand the Supreme Court on Thursday of waging an attack on democracy.
“This is an attack on our democracy,” Hawley said of the court expansion effort in a statement on Twitter Thursday. “Democrats want to remake the country in their own image. And they plan to use brute political force to rig the system — pack the Court, pack the Senate, and take over federal elections.”
This is an attack on our democracy. Democrats want to remake the country in their own image. And they plan to use brute political force to rig the system – pack the Court, pack the Senate, and take over federal elections https://t.co/L4weZDWp1t
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) April 15, 2021
The bill, which would expand the number of seats on the Supreme Court from nine to 13, was introduced by Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) and House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) on Thursday.
“It’s a terrible idea,” Hawley told the Senate press pool. “It is a deliberate attempt to fundamentally change a core institution of American government and effectively to overturn the results of past elections.”
Hawley’s argument linking the bill with an affront on democracy, comes after the Missouri lawmaker helped wage what culminated in a deadly attack on democracy when he set out to object to Electoral College votes from states during a final certification of President Joe Biden’s White House win on Jan. 6.
Hawley’s outrage over the “political brute force” of the bill follows successive conservative victories on the court, when Senate Republicans pushed to fill three vacant seats on the high court with Trump nominees, including one who was confirmed just days before the 2020 election.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told reporters on Thursday that she supported a White House decision to launch a commission to study the structure of the Supreme Court, which has fluctuated in size but has remained at nine seats since 1869.
“I support the President’s commission to study such a proposal,” Pelosi said. “I don’t know that that’s a good idea or a bad idea. I think it’s an idea that should be considered.”
Responding to a reporter question on the issue, she added: “I have no plans to bring it to the floor.”
