On Sunday, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) took to the media to demand that the Supreme Court must have additional justices added to it in the wake of the court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.
Axios reports that Warren made her comments on ABC’s “This Week,” where she falsely declared that “this court has lost legitimacy,” and that “they have burned whatever legitimacy they still may have had after their gun decision, after their voting decision, after their union decision.”
Warren was referencing several other major decisions released prior to the Roe decision, which included expanding Second Amendment rights for Americans seeking concealed-carry permits, as well as a ruling in North Carolina allowing Republicans state lawmakers to defend a voter ID law that has been challenged by far-left activists. These and other rulings have led some to consider the current iteration of the court, with 6 of the 9 justices having been appointed by Republican presidents, to be the most conservative Supreme Court in modern history.
“They just took the last of it and set a torch to it with the Roe v. Wade opinion,” Warren continued. “I believe we need to get some confidence back in our court and that means we need more justices on the United States Supreme Court.”
On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that both Roe and the 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey were incorrect in their determination that there is a Constitutional right to having an abortion; the court overturned both rulings and declared that the matter of abortion will be returned to the individual states to be decided. Currently, there are at least 26 states that are expected to ban, or have already banned, abortions to some degree following the ruling.
The Left began its advocacy for court-packing in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s third Supreme Court confirmation, when Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed to the court in October of 2020 after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In April of 2021, several top Democrats, including Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), held a press conference in front of the Supreme Court announcing their proposal to increase the court from 9 to 13 justices. However, the movement failed to gain any traction, and Nadler is currently locked in a close primary battle with fellow incumbent Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) due to redistricting after New York lost a seat in the 2020 census.