Collins Pushes Back as Jackson Says He’s Open to Expanding Supreme Court

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) rejected expanding the Supreme Court during Thursday’s Senate debate after Democrat Troy Jackson said he was open to adding justices because the court “obviously is not working.”

Jackson backed term limits and stricter ethics rules while accusing members of the court of accepting gifts and travel from people with business before them:

I understand why we had Supreme Court that was supposed to be lifetime positions, but look, what we have now is something unbelievable. I mean, people that don’t have any ethics. People that are taking trips, people are taking you know gifts from people that are going to come before them. I mean, this is not I don’t think what our founding fathers expected whenever they set up you know this system. And so yeah, I think first and foremost we have to have real ethics reform that’s accountable that you can hold people do. I think that we should have term limits, and I’m not against putting more people on the court because this court obviously is not working. It’s working at the pass of the Donald Trump and the billionaire class. I mean, that’s who’s actually funding people like Thomas and Alito.

Collins responded that the court’s independence should take priority. She also rejected adding seats as a way to reshape the court. She said:

What we want is a Supreme Court that is insulated from politics. That was the whole idea of the judicial system, one of the three branches of government, parts of the checks and balances that the founders of this country envisioned. To try to pack the court by increasing the numbers goes completely against the vision of those who wrote the Constitution. I would also point out that I am the only Republican senator who voted for Justice Sotomayor, Justice Jackson, and Justice Kagan. Those three liberal women justices who were appointed by Democratic presidents, and that’s what I think the founders want. They don’t want the Supreme Court to be like Congress.

The Constitution leaves the number of Supreme Court seats unspecified. Congress established a six-member court in 1789, and its size changed several times before lawmakers set its membership at nine in 1869.