The Democrats Discover the Supreme Court
Pete Buttigieg’s announcement of a Supreme Court–packing plan is surprising in ways both small and large.
The surprise comes less from the specifics of the proposal than from its circumstances. Buttigieg has been conspicuously cautious about policy initiatives, so his decision to center a sweeping revamp of the high court represents an unusually bold maneuver for the South Bend, Indiana, mayor’s presidential campaign. Moreover, the rollout exemplifies how the Supreme Court, once a somewhat tangential concern for many Democrats, has moved to the center of the agenda in the Trump era.
The details of Buttigieg’s plan are interesting in an academic sense, though unlikely to really set the parameters that those last five would be chosen from federal courts by the 10 partisan justices:
