MORGANTOWN — A good deal of political chatter these days is devoted to the U.S. Supreme Court.
On the one hand, Senate Republicans are aiming to confirm conservative nominee Amy Coney Barrett over the largely futile objections of Senate Democrats. On the other, much talk is given to a possible Biden/Harris administration packing the court with left-leaning Justices to tip the current make-up and allow for more progressive legislating from the bench.
In light of the state Supreme Court Justice Evan Jenkins introduced on Thursday a new “And Justice For All” educational video called “Has SCOTUS Always Had 9 Justices?”
In a press briefing announcing the video, Jenkins answered the question: No. The 3 minute, 24 second video on YouTube offers more detail but Jenkins outlined it broadly.
Congress decides the number of seats, he said, and the number has been changed seven times since President George Washington signed the first Judiciary Act in 1789 that set the number at six.
From there, the number went as low as five and as high as 10.
There have been primarily two reasons, he said. One was necessity. In the nation’s early days the Supreme Court justices rode circuits and as the nation expanded westward more were needed to cover the additional territory.
The other was politics, as we see today and in recent nominations. Controlling the number, he said, also allows the president or Congress to dictate the composition of the court and the policy that flows de facto from its decisions.
The last change was in 1789, Jenkins said, when Ulysses S. Grant signed another Judiciary Act that raised the number from seven to nine.
During the New Deal era, Jenkins said, the Senate shot down an attempt by President Roosevelt to pack the court with six more justices – raising the count to 15 – after some of its rulings stifled some of his New Deal measures.
You can reach the video directly at this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW3A6YI5paY&feature=youtu.be.
For a link to all 17 And Justice For All videos, go to the court’s website,
http://www.courtswv.gov/supreme-court/index.html, and click little YouTube icon at the bottom of the page.
The educational And Justice For All series began in June, Jenkins said, and is produced in-house at no taxpayer expense.
Tweet David Beard@dbeardtdp Email dbeard@dominionpost.com
