Progressive House Democrats called on their colleagues to fight fire with fire on Monday night after the GOP-controlled Senate locked in Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s seat on the Supreme Court in a hurried confirmation process.
“Expand the court,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) tweeted.
The New York congresswoman urged her fellow Democrats to get tough on the issue instead of listening to the GOP’s claims that expanding the court is somehow illegal or otherwise illegitimate.
“Republicans do this because they don’t believe Dems have the stones to play hardball like they do. And for a long time they’ve been correct,” she tweeted. “But do not let them bully the public into thinking their bulldozing is normal but a response isn’t. There is a legal process for expansion.”
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), who formerly served as Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair, echoed Ocasio-Cortez’s call, as did Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).
“Remember that Republicans have lost 6 of the last 7 popular votes, but have appointed 6 of the last 9 justices,” Omar tweeted. “By expanding the court we fix this broken system and have the court better represent the values of the American people.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a member of “the Squad” with Ocasio-Cortez and Omar, asserted that Democrats “must expand the Court if we’re serious about the transformational change the people are crying out for.”
Tlaib also co-launched a petition to expand the court with Democratic House nominees Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Cori Bush (D-MO), who are both expected to sail through Election Day given that Bowman is running unopposed and Bush’s district leans heavily blue.
“Expand the Court,” Bowman tweeted. “Roe v Wade, LGBTQ+ rights and health care must be protected.”
