The Harris Court Packing Constitutional Crisis

the court? Means that John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, and Sam Alito probably all get it kicked off the court right away.

stuff happened. He's been pushed out. Kamala Harris has come in, but Biden already had announced he was going to propose this court packing scheme, and Biden has so, even though Biden's not running anymore, they've still rolled out this proposal and Harris has adopted it. Harris has said, all right, yep,

I'm carrying this torch. And this is the the awkward thing that's going to hinder Harris throughout the campaign is that she is still Joe Biden's vice president and they have to show some sort of united front, so she has to kind of keep carrying the torch for this lame brain stuff that Biden's doing. So Harris is Harris is all for this. So that's what Biden's proposing. He's

proposing eighteen year term limits for Supreme Court justices. Every two years a Supreme Court justice retires, which again, this would probably be retro applying to the older justices, so that would mean Clarence Thomas is out, John Roberts's out, Sam Alito is out. I want to make the case that this proposal by President Biden and Vice President Harris is about as bad as the careization of January sixth.

This so to understand this, let's go back to what is the chief actual core argument against Trump regarding January sixth. What was the chief ill Note that Trump was never actually charged with anything having to do with the riot that occurred on January sixth. He was not charged with inciting the riot because he said during a speech right beforehand, go and peacefully make your case. And the fact that he said that means that it can't be incitement. So

it's not incitement in a legal sense. But I think there let's take this from the liberal perspective, liberal characterization

of January sixth. Trump whipped these people up to resist the peaceful transition of power from one president to another, and Trump was trying to basically violate the Twelfth Amendment, which includes the process for the certification of the Electoral College results, by pressuring Mike Pence against doing the normal certification of votes on the basis of Trump's suspicions that

the results were fraudulent. Trump wanting to disrupt that ordinary, peaceful transition of power, many argue, disrupts the normal constitutional order and thus puts him out of bounds, puts him in almost like this own suiurus category of unacceptability. That Trump is uniquely unacceptable because what he tried to do after the election violated this very basic foundational mechanism that we have to have if this American Republic experiment is

going to work. That people who lose elections, even if they're in a position of power, have to be able to give that up. He tried to have his vice president manipulate the system in order to keep him in power even though he had lost. That's the interpretation of the events of January sixth. Now, I think the question gets more complicated if you say, well, what if some

of the election results really were fraudulent? What if there was some evidence but not conclusive evidence, what if you know, we can have those, We can go on and on and on with those discussions. But that's the interpretation of why Trump's conduct on January sixth was so bad. That basically, we have this very critically important norm that relies on

people doing the right thing. That if people don't do the right thing within this structure, basically the whole structure of American governance is going to fall apart.

do whatever they wanted. Roosevelt was getting stymied time and again by the Supreme Court, who was resistant to some of his New Deal policies and kept ruling them unconstitutional. So Roosevelt proposed this idea that once justices got over a certain age, I think the age was seventy, that they could stay on in a kind of senior status, but that the president would have the opportunity to appoint

additional justices. And there were six members of the Supreme Court at that time who were over the age of seventy, and it would have if the law had passed, Roosevelt would have been able to nominate six Supreme Court justices. Now, it would have been really hilarious if Joe Biden tried to impose an upper range age limit for Supreme Court justices now. But the critical thing is what changing the rules for Supreme Court membership in order to change the

ideological makeup of the court and thereby the outcomes. It's precisely what Roosevelt was doing. Biden's doing the same thing, He's proposing doing the same thing, and Harris in turn is supporting it, and all the Democrats, the whole Democrat Party, completely on board with this, which is a critical difference between that and January sixth. By the way, I don't think there's any agreement among Republicans about the events of

January sixth. I think there are some Trump people who one hundred percent believe Mike Pence should have stopped it, and I think there are a ton of people who think, no, Mike Pence wasn't doing anything wrong by not certifying those election results. Frankly, there's a bigger discussion about whether the vice president really has anything other than a ceremonial role with regards to that, and even if the vice president didn't certify those election results, blah blah blah blah blah

blah blah. Anyway, total unanimity on the Democrats side for creating term limits for the Court. Now, there are so many things wrong with this. One is the idea of you can't do this with normal legislation. Okay, you can create additional seats on the court. You can change the number of Supreme Court justices if you wanted by a simple law. The number of justices on the Supreme Court

is not defined in the Constitution itself. The Constitution doesn't say there will be nine justices on the Supreme Court. Congress has over the course of centuries changed the number of justices who serve on the Supreme Court, and we've been stuck at nine since I think since a little after the Civil War. I think it was around eighteen seventy that they said it at nine. But the terms of service of Supreme Court justices are set by the Constitution.

Supreme Court justices serve during good behavior. Is the exact quote good behavior, which means there's no term limit. They serve for life, for life, or until they resign. So there's no term limit on Supreme Court justices. And that's in the Constitution itself. So you can't all of a sudden give them an eighteen year term limit just by a statute passed by the House. It passed by the House and passed by the Senate and signed by the President.

You can't do that. You would need a constitutional amendment. And let's recall, amending the Constitution is insanely difficult. It takes the two thirds majorities in both houses of Congress plus three quarters of all the state legislatures, which Democrats know they can't get. So I would say this is an enormous attack on the integrity of the courts, the independence of the courts. Why because it becomes purely, rawly something that's part of the political spoils and a raw

effort to reshape the judiciary, reshape the law. Because you are losing elections the terms with which Roosevelt's proposal was rejected in nineteen after the nineteen thirty six elections, when Roosevelt proposed his court packing scheme, the Democrats in his own fellow Democrats in Congress rejected it and said, basically, this is a totalitarian act to bring the judiciary, which is supposed to be independent, under the control of the

executive and legislative branches, and purely to turn the Supreme Court into the spoils of war. This is the spoils of politics. It takes away any sort of sense of the judiciary as an independent thing that's out on its own, that isn't accountable to the vagaries of politics. Lifetime appointment gives you a certain sense of invulnerability because you are invulnerable.

So that the notion. So, by the way, it renders ridiculous that the liberal notion, which apparently Lawrence Tribe and Joe Biden cooked this up, when they when Biden was trying to workshop this proposal, Lawrence Tribe, the retired law professor at Howard Law School, that, oh, well, they can serve for eighteen years of Supreme Court justices and then and then you know, they get to go down and.

start a constitutional crisis. And when we return, I will explain how I think it would start a constitutional crisis.

on the Court. Clarence Thomas has been on the court for like thirty years, John Robert, who long and then John Roberts and Sam Alito, both of whom joined the Supreme Court at least eighteen years ago. This year is sam Alito's eighteenth year. So presumably this isn't getting passed. If this bill passes, it's not going to be passed in this Congress. It would be passed assuming Harris wins

and assuming Democrats take control of the House. Okay, so the three people who would be impacted by this immediately are Thomas, Roberts, Alito. Let's say this law passes majority in the House, Democrats break the fill of uster, and the Senate pass it in the Senate, and President Kamala Harris, the very idea makes one's skin crawl, signs it into law. So by the terms of that laws out, Roberts is out, Alito is out, and Harris would get to nominate their

replacements right away. What if Roberts and Thomas and Alito, and I could one hundred percent see all three of them doing this, including Roberts. By the way, Like I know, Roberts is kind of squishy on a lot of things, But if there's one thing Roberts is, he's an institutionalist. And I think if there's been anything that has been causing Roberts to moderate his positions over the last several years,

I think the two things have been. One, that fact that he despises Donald Trump, or the very reasonable suspicion anyway that he despises Donald Trump. But two, I think Roberts has been terrified precisely of this. I think Roberts has been terrified of the idea that the Court's institutional standing in the eyes of political partisans is so badly impacted that they might try something radical to attack the

integrity of the Court itself, like court packing. So I think for Roberts, this is the absolute worst case scenario. What if Democrats pass this law and Roberts, Alito, and Thomas refuse to vacate their offices. What if all three of them say absolutely not you can't impose term limits on Supreme Court justices by a normal statute. This is our job that we hold according to Article three of

the Constitution, quote in good behavior. That means until we're either impeached and removed, or we die or we resign. Until then, we're here and we're not going anywhere. President Harris sends the FBI to arrest them for trespass. I could see Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito, certainly, and maybe even Roberts taking it that far and saying, you go

ahead and arrest us. We're not going anywhere. And I could see them filing a lawsuit to say this law passed by Congress violates the US Constitution and violates our rights. At our rights, US three Supreme Court justices, we have a right to lifetime tenure. This law is unconstitutional and violates our right. And then that's gonna get adjudicated through the court system. So what happens who Obviously that'll have to get adjudicated all the way to the US Supreme Court.

So who rules on it? Do those three have to recuse themselves? What if Kamala Harris has appointed new Supreme Court justices, do they get to take office space, do they get to serve Do they get to be on the court hearing that case? Do they get to be on the court hearing any cases? What if they don't recuse themselves? Guess what, that's the thing with Supreme Court justices. They kind of decide for themselves win. And if they

recuse themselves. What if President Harris's new Supreme Court justices refuse to recuse themselves, they probably will. There are gonna be a bunch of liberals. They're going to be holding this job on the premise that President Harris's conduct was constitutional,

that this law was constitutional. So you're gonna have six liberals deciding whether or not Chief Justice Roberts, I mean, you are setting the country up for a constitutional crisis where there's going to be a new majority on the Supreme Court that conservatives will rightly believe is unconstitutional, where you're going to have to take Clarence Thomas kicking and screaming out of his legitimately kicking and legitimately screaming because

he would be one hundred percent right from office. So let me just ask, if you're going to fundamental if you're going to create a constitutional crisis like this, How are you respecting norms? How are you any better than your worst interpretation of what Donald Trump did? You think

Donald Trump is wrecking? Look, if you want to take the approach that Donald Trump's actions on January sixth were a massive attack on the integrity of the executive branch, the peaceful transition of power in American politics, something that's very core to our republican system. Okay, I'll allow you to have that position, but you can't in the same breath say that you support this court packing system and

doing it via a statute. It would create a fundamental constitutional crisis where people would not be sure who's actually legitimately on the Supreme Court and who's not it and fundamentally turning the Supreme Court purely into the spoils of politics. It is such a disastrous norm destroying an idea to do it via a statute. Look, if you want to do this, you've got to do it via a constitutional amendment.

If you did it via constitutional amendment, I'm sure Thomas and Alito and Robert would think that it's a bad idea, but that's what the Constitution says now, and they would step aside. But they're not stepping aside for a statute. I can guarantee you that when we return, the naked political effort to reshift Fresno County elections and win those Fresne County elections happened. That is next on the John Girardi Show. DeLaura is where To has been mad about

Presne County elections. She's been mad about Presne County elections, She's been mad about Fresne County redistricting.

that has pretty conservative county government. Maybe Orange County is more so, but Fresno is certainly up there that it has pretty conservative county government. In spite of the fact that Fresno County broke for Joe Biden in twenty twenty and broke for Hillary Clinton in twenty sixteen. Fresno County is getting more and more liberal, but Fresno County government is not. The County Board of Supervisors is. Even though I don't think they run with partisan you know, labels

on them, everyone kind of knows the deal. Actually, I'm not sure about that, whether I need to look that up. Whether county supervisors run openly as Republican or Democrat, I don't think they do, but nonetheless everyone knows the score. There are three Republicans and two Democrats on the Fresno County Board of Supervisors. Lisa Smith Camp is very Republican

leaning as the district attorney for Fresno County. It's a conservative leaning county government and that has annoyed and even I mean the frankly, even the Democrats on the County Board of Supervisors are pretty moderate leaning. Brian Pataiko and Salcintero are hardly you know, Loraina Gonzalez esque, you know, left wing fire breathers. So there is a fight happening now.

The Attorney General's Office in California, under Rob Bonta, who is died in the wool liberal and obviously aware of Fresno County, is more conservative government and dislikes it, has filed a lawsuit against Fresno County. And this has to do with a twenty twenty two ballot initiative that was passed that changes a bit the cycle for when Fresno County elections happen, so.

Lisa Smith Camp basically was winding up. She was going to serve a six year term basically because the elections for sheriff and DA were in presidential cycles. Now we're shifting them to non presidential cycles. So twenty twenty two,

twenty twenty six, twenty thirty, et cetera. The Attorney General's Office is saying that's voter suppression because there's less turnout in off your elections, and so Fresno County is trying to suppress the vote, to manipulate people so they can't vote for DA and so that they can't vote for DA and they can't vote for sheriff and blah blah blah blah blah, to which Fresno County responds, well, what are you talking about. This isn't voter suppression. No One

is not allowed to vote. Lots of people voting off your elections. The governor's race happens in and off your election. Is that a violation of democracy? To have the governor's race happen during off year cycles. The governor gets elected. We just had a governor's election in twenty twenty two. Governor's election. It happens every four years. It's always on the off years. It's in you two, twenty twenty six, twenty thirty, et cetera. Is that violating principles of democracy?

Is that voter suppression? Why is it voter suppression for Fresno County to have their elections in an off year rather than during a presidential year? And they talked about look some of the issues that impact local government. They can wind up getting swallowed into more general discussions about what's happening in a presidential cycle. We think it's better to have these in an off year. Now, those are sort of the policy arguments back and forth where I

find the liberal policy arguments to be absurd. I think liberals sort of suspect and maybe they're absurd on both sides. I think liberals suspect that they would have a better shot at getting a more liberal leaning person elected as the DA and elected as the sheriff of Fresnoe County. If those elections were held in presidentidential years, why, Well, on the theory that you know, again, Fresno County voted for Joe Biden in twenty twenty, Joe Biden won Fresno County.

Hillary Clinton won Fresnoe County in twenty sixteen. So I think the theory is, well, if you get all those presidential election voters to vote for sheriff and to vote for DA, then maybe we could get Democrats elected to those positions. And maybe Republicans are thinking the opposite. Holy cow, well twenty six you know, twenty sixteen and twenty twenty, Hillary Clinton won. If all those same people vote for sheriff and you know, vote for DA, maybe we'll get

liberals elected. So maybe let's have this in the off your cycles. I don't know, but that's the political arguments. The thing that I'm a little bit more focused on is the legal argument. Now Bonta is saying Fresno County can't do this. We set a state law that that clearly lays out that county governments have to have these elections during presidential years president county can't have passed a

county wide ordinance to accept themselves from that rule. And this is kind of a basic principle by the way of of state law in California, but it's basically state law everywhere else. County governments in most states, county government is rarely this free, floating entity of its own that has the ability to create law that is distinct and different from state law. County governments are all creatures of

state law. So they only have the ability a county board of supervisors or a city government, any local government. They only can play within the parameters set for them by state law. Okay, so they are creatures of state government. The state says, all right, here are the parameters. Within these parameters. County, You're allowed to pass laws governing yourselves in this way, in this way, in this way, but you cannot violate. You cannot. You don't get exceptions from

ordinary state law. Now the state is saying, we passed this law, counties have to abide by it. Fresno County is saying, no, that state law as applied to us is unconstitutional. I guess apparently, And this is a new thing for me, I did not realize this. There are two kinds of counties in California. You have charter counties, they're about fourteen of them, and you have normal counties, okay, And the charter counties had exceptions to this state law

regarding the timing of sheriff and DA elections. They had exceptions for charter counties. If charter counties had different stuff on the books for when their elections would be held, they could have it. Now the state is saying, no, that provision doesn't apply to you. Fresnoe County, you didn't have You changed this in twenty twenty two, and that state law came into effect in twenty twenty one. Fresno

County is saying, well, then that law is unconstitutional. If you're making exceptions for some you can't.

the John Girardi Show. A lot of times liberals will try to act like this is antisemitic, anti Semitic, conspiracy theorizing in spite of the fact that George Soros has openly written about this, that this is a thing he does and wants to do, and it's very obviously clear from just looking at political contributions that this is precisely what he does. George Soros wanted to radically reshape American criminal law, an American criminal law enforcement, and the way

he realized he could do that incredibly effectively. You know, it's one thing to try to reshape a state legislature entirely and get all these people elected to enact soft on crime policies. What Soros realized was district attorney races

are even in huge areas like Manhattan. You know, the Manhattan District Attorney's race would have a turnout of like eighty thousand voters, you know, for a place that had how many people live in Manhattan itself, well over a million, and that the amount of money spent on DA races, even in incredibly populated areas, was relatively small. These were elections where people don't really exactly know much about the specifics people would run for DA who had kind of

more technical expertise. It's always lawyers. Usually it's prosecutors. And Soros realized, well, if I flood those races with if I give a million dollars to a super pack that's going to endorse a super left wing prosecutor, I get that person installed, and that person can use prosecutorial discretion to fundamentally reshape criminal law, enforce Smith by basically just deciding not to prosecute whole swaths, whole categories of crimes.

And that's precisely what happened. A lot of das were elected around the country, some with Soros support, many with Soross support, who have adopted this sort of Chase Abudin approach.

George gascon Chase Abudin Alvin Bragg in Manhattan approach to criminal law enforcement, where they're basically focused on equity, equity of outcomes, that there are a bunch of crimes where African Americans are prosecuted disproportionately, and so we're just not going to prosecute those crimes very much, or we're gonna knock felonies down to misdemeanors or we're just not going

to charge misdemeanors, et cetera, et cetera. This is how you get the phenomenon in San Francisco where people walk into you know, cvs with their cell phone calculator out, they add up the price of all the things they've stolen, they make sure it's under the felony threshold, and then they just walk right out the door because they know they're not going to get prosecuted for misdemean or shoplifting as long as they're one cent under the misdemeanor to

fell any level. Well, I've long wondered. Fresno is a pretty big city in California, and Presno County is a pretty big county. At some point, is that kind of push for ultra left wing prosecutor, for an ultra left wing prosecutor, is that going to come to Presne County?

I realize Lisa Smithcamp is pretty popular. People don't even bother running against her, But is that coming someday that someone will all of a sudden be running against Lisa Smith Camp and they're going to have a war chest of you know, a couple million dollars.