Biden to create commission to look into expanding Supreme Court
US President Joe Biden will order the creation of a bipartisan commission to study potential reforms to the Supreme Court, including whether to expand the number of justices.
The commission would tackle the “merits and legality” of specific high court reform proposals, the White House said in a statement, along with the contentious idea of expanding the court.
“The Commission’s purpose is to provide an analysis of the principal arguments in the contemporary public debate for and against Supreme Court reform,” the statement said.
The commission will be made up of a bipartisan group of legal scholars, former federal judges and lawyers who have appeared before the court. It will hold public meetings and have 180 days to report its findings.
Expanding the number of justices in the Supreme Court is a key goal of progressive Democrats, and reform advocates have recently pushed for term limits for the justices.
The Supreme Court is the highest court in the American legal system and is made up of nine justices.
In his one term, former President Donald Trump appointed three justices to the court, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.