The left’s partisan push to pack the Supreme Court with liberal justices has fully migrated from the fringes into the mainstream of Democratic politics.
It wasn’t long ago that liberal icons, including the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, were against the idea of overhauling the court for political gain. But now, in the Biden era, more and more powerful Democrats are getting behind the cause, claiming the high court is broken and actively dismantling our democracy. Even Joe Biden—who once called court-packing a “bonehead idea”—gave in to the progressive wing of his party, appointing a committee to examine “reforms” to the court after being sworn in as president.
What changed? Mike Lee, a respected member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, reveals the answer to that question and warns of the dangerous norm-shattering precedent that would be set by politically motivated attempts to turn the Supreme Court into just another partisan weapon.
Inside the Book
“If your only perception of how the Supreme Court worked was formed by elements of the mainstream media and the entertainment industry, it might look something like this: You might imagine its public proceedings and internal deliberations to be full of partisan bickering and intense controversy. You might imagine the justices fighting with each other late into the night, leaning over the conference table to hurl insults (or at least politically and emotionally charged comments) at one another—with those justices appointed by Republican presidents on one side of the table (and each controversy), and those appointed by Democrats on the other. Mercifully, those impressions of the Court, while held by many, are wildly inaccurate.”
– Senator Mike Lee
About the Author
Mike Lee is a United States senator from Utah and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Lee’s interest in the Supreme Court began when he was only ten years old and his father, the late Rex Edwin Lee—then serving as President Ronald Reagan’s solicitor general—started bringing the future senator with him when he argued cases before the Court. After graduating from law school, Lee served as a law clerk to Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., first on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and then on the Supreme Court. Before entering politics, Lee served as an assistant U.S. attorney and later as general counsel to Utah Governor Jon M. Huntsman, Jr. During his years in private practice, he specialized in appellate and Supreme Court litigation.
