Media echos Democrats in challenging definition of 'court-packing' amid SCOTUS battle

close

Video

Joe Biden still won't give a straight answer on court-packing<br>

Sen. Ted Cruz tells 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' that Democrats won't stop Biden if he wants to add more justices<br>

For several weeks, the Biden-Harris ticket has not taken an official stance on whether or not to support court-packing after winning the election, but there has been a growing trend in the media to challenge the definition of the term itself. 

There have been threats from some Democratic lawmakers amid the confirmation battle of President Trump's Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett that if Democrats win the White House and flip the Senate, they will get rid of the filibuster and pack the courts, meaning they will expand the number of seats on the Supreme Court so that liberal judges would outnumber the six conservative judges following Barrett's potential confirmation. 

For years, Joe Biden opposed court-packing while his running mate Kamala Harris suggested that she was "open" to the idea of court-packing. However, while the Democratic ticket has been raising eyebrows for not taking any position just weeks before the election, several Democrats are attempting to turn the tables on Republicans by accusing them of "court-packing" by redefining the term as filling judicial vacancies.

JOURNALISTS BLAST BIDEN FOR AGAIN REFUSING TO ANSWER WHETHER HE SUPPORTS COURT-PACKING

While several prominent Democrats have been using the newer definition of "court-packing," members of the mainstream media are starting to do the same. 

"Republicans / conservatives have so deeply internalized the idea that they have some God-given right to pack the courts with their ideological partisans, they have convinced themselves, and frankly the media, that undoing their obsessive court packing is what’s 'radical,'" MSNBC host Joy Reid tweeted on Saturday. 

Washington Post deputy editorial page editor Ruth Marcus argued that "Republicans have no standing to complain about court-packing," insisting that the GOP "stole" two Supreme Court seats between stalled Obama-nominee Merrick Garland and now the vacancy of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. 

"Republicans have stocked the court with one and soon two justices whose seats they were not entitled to fill. This is slow-motion court-packing in plain sight," Marcus wrote on Friday. 

WASHINGTON POST'S MEGAN MCARDLE KNOCKS GENDER DEFENSE OF HARRIS: 'PENCE IS ACTUALLY A GOOD DEBATER,' SHE 'IS... NOT'

Former CBS anchor-turned frequent CNN guest Dan Rather hopped on the redefining court-packing bandwagon. 

"Can we at least recognize that 'Court Packing' at all levels of the judiciary has been the Republican playbook for decades? Asking for Merrick Garland," Rather tweeted on Saturday. 

The Associated Press updated its report about the Montana Senate debate between the GOP incumbent Steve Daines and the state's Democratic governor Steve Bullock when the two of them clashed on the subject of the Supreme Court. 

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

"Bullock said that if Coney Barrett was confirmed, he would be open to measures including adding justices to the bench, a practice critics have dubbed packing the courts," the AP wrote on Sunday.

Amid criticism, the AP tweaked its report, writing, "This story has been edited to make clear that it is Bullock’s opinion, rather than a fact, that adding justices to the Supreme Court would depoliticize the court."