WASHINGTON — A progressive activist group will launch a new TV ad Sunday demanding President Joe Biden expand the Supreme Court, a sign that the Democratic Party’s left flank plans to continue applying pressure on the issue even amid the frenzy of a new administration taking power.
The ad, from the liberal group Demand Justice, urges Democrats to increase the number of seats on the nation’s highest court after the party won control of the White House and U.S. Senate in the 2020 elections, arguing that voters want them to “restore basic balance” to an institution that added three conservative justices during former President Donald Trump’s tenure.
Interest from liberals in expanding the Supreme Court peaked last year, when Trump and a GOP-controlled Senate confirmed Amy Coney Barrett as a new justice after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and over the vociferous objections of Democratic lawmakers just weeks before the election. Biden, under heavy pressure from the left, eventually agreed during his presidential campaign to form a commission to study the proposal.
