BALTIMORE — U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin thinks it’s time to expand the U.S. Supreme Court.
A constitutional law scholar and Montgomery County Democrat who is considering joining the race for U.S. Senate in Maryland, Raskin said Tuesday he believes the court has lost its legitimacy through a series of conservative appointments, decisions and scandals — and that the only way to fix it is by adding more members to its ranks.
“We need to make some dramatic changes,” Raskin said outside the Chevy Chase Library alongside reproductive rights advocates just days before the one-year anniversary of the court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Raskin co-sponsored a bill last month that would increase the number of justices on the nation’s highest court from nine to 13, an idea that gained momentum among progressives when the court’s conservative majority increased under former President Donald Trump.
Supporters of that bill, called the Judiciary Act of 2023, argue Congress has increased the size of the court several times in the nation’s history — the last time being in 1869 — and should do so again. They cite declining public confidence in the court stemming from decisions like Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health last year and ethics controversies like recent reports that conservative Justice Clarence Thomas accepted tens of thousands of dollars worth of gifts from a Republican donor.
The plan faces long odds, Raskin acknowledged.
Republicans in control of the U.S. House are highly unlikely to consider it, he said. But he and other proponents also face an important skeptic in their own party — President Joe Biden.
Since his campaign in 2020, Biden has said he does not agree with expanding or “packing” the court to add liberal justices.
Raskin himself wasn’t originally on board with his colleagues. He did not sponsor the same legislation in the last session and said he’s been one of the last to get on board this session. He’s also the only one of the 65 House or Senate sponsors from Maryland.
Referring to the entire history of the court as a historically “conservative and indeed reactionary institution” — from its long denial of the rights of Black Americans to what he called a brief alignment of the court with the majority of public opinion around the time of the Civil Rights Movement — Raskin said there’s now been a “retreat” to that reactionary type of court.
He called the Supreme Court, which includes three of his constituents in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. — Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Neil Gorsuch — corrupt.
He cited Senate Republicans’ denial of a hearing for now-Attorney General Merrick Garland (another Raskin constituent) at the end of former President Barack Obama’s administration and then their rush to confirm conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett at the end of former President Donald Trump’s administration to argue the court has been the “product of a real gerrymandering.”
Decisions that have come as a result, like Dobbs, have only added to a “fundamental cloud of illegitimacy that hangs over this court,” he said.
Raskin has said his desire to make a difference in areas of judicial reform and the Supreme Court are part of his calculus for determining whether to enter Maryland’s race to replace U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, a Democrat who said he won’t run again in 2024.
Raskin, with a national profile grown out of managing Trump’s impeachment in the House after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, would be a top contender if he chooses to run.
He said previously he hopes to decide by July 4, and he told The Baltimore Sun on Tuesday he had no update on his plans.
Other Democrats already have declared their candidacies, including U.S. Rep. David Trone, Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, Montgomery County Councilman Will Jawando and activist Jerome Segal.
Raskin’s appearance Tuesday was part of a “Just Majority” national bus tour advocating for judicial reform on behalf of a variety of advocacy organizations.
State Sen. Ariana Kelly, a Montgomery County Democrat, and others said they supported changes to the court after seeing the effects of their decision on women’s reproductive rights.
A leading proponent of abortion rights legislation in Annapolis, Kelly helped spearhead new state laws that have expanded abortion access in the state and set up a ballot initiative to allow voters to add reproductive rights to the state constitution.
Planned Parenthood of Maryland President and CEO Karen Nelson said her organization has seen patients from more than 26 states travel to Maryland for reproductive care in the wake of the decision. Court reform is vital to restoring reproductive rights, she said.
“Anti-abortion politicians and their allies are using this court to take away the power to control our own bodies and our futures and our livelihoods,” Nelson said.
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