Wednesday during an appearance on Huntsville, AL radio’s WVNN, Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-AL) reacted to a threat made in a filing by Senate Democrats to “restructure” the U.S. Supreme Court in a brief regarding a New York gun law.
“The Supreme Court is not well. And the people know it,” the brief that was filed by Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). “Perhaps the Court can heal itself before the public demands it be ‘restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics.'”
Byrne, a candidate for U.S. Senate in Alabama, reminded listeners of WVNN’s “The Jeff Poor Show” of similar efforts tried by former President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s and predicted anything similar would be rejected by the public today.
“If you remember, this was something proposed by Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s at a time when he was very popular, and it really took a chunk out of his popularity when he proposed it,” Byrne said. “People felt like he was trying to manipulate what was otherwise recognized as a relatively non-political part of government. Now, things aren’t necessarily the same about that today. People are more concerned about politics and the court. But nonetheless, I think it was unpopular then. It will be unpopular now.”
“Look, they’re not getting what they want out of the courts,” he continued. “So, they’re going to start doing whatever they can to try to work against that. And part of that is to threaten the court, which is what I read into what they wrote to the court with their most recent filing. I don’t think that is going to work with this court. I think the court is pretty even-keeled court about stuff like that. But make no mistake about it, not just in the Supreme Court, but in the circuit courts of appeal and these federal district courts, the president is putting very young, very conservative judges, which means we’re going to have a generation of these judges rendering more conservative rulings and that’s what really bothers these far-left Democrats.”
The Alabama Republican predicted Congress would reject any attempt to change the court in the “near term to come.”
“It’s just kind of blah, blah, blah, blah from the hard left,” Byrne added. “They can say all that stuff, but frankly, I can’t see it going anywhere – certainly not this Congress. But I doubt any Congresses in the near term to come.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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