Planned Parenthood CEO Alexis McGill Johnson wants the number of justices in the Supreme Court to expand, a proposal some experts believe will compromise trust in the judiciary.
“We need to see expanded courts from the lower courts all the way up to the Supreme Court. We need to see term limits,” Johnson said in a May 14 interview with MSNBC. The reason why the abortion provider is calling for changes to the Supreme Court is owing to attacks on “our democratic rights and our democratic freedoms,” she said while specifically highlighting the “attack on abortion rights.”
In June last year, the Supreme court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the federal right to abortion, drawing widespread protests. At present, the Supreme Court has a 6–3 conservative majority.
The idea of expanding the court has been opposed by several experts, including liberal justices. During a 2021 speech at Harvard Law School, former Justice Stephen Breyer warned that court-packing would reduce trust in the American judiciary.
“If the public sees judges as politicians in robes, its confidence in the courts and in the rule of law itself can only diminish. Diminishing the court’s power, including its power to act as a check on other branches,” Breyer said.
In 2020, President Joe Biden said that he is “not a fan” of adding more seats to the Supreme Court. But in April 2021, the president signed an executive order forming a commission to study potential court reforms, including proposals to expand it.
In June 2021, 20 GOP governors wrote to Biden, asking that he oppose any efforts to expand the Supreme Court.
“Historically, cases before the Supreme Court have served as the last legal defense of state sovereignty, protecting states, and our citizens from federal overreach,” the letter stated.
“As Governors, we have a vested interest in ensuring that our nation’s highest court remains independent and free from political pressure or partisan power grabs.”
On May 14, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) outlined four reforms it wants to see in the Supreme Court.
In addition to expanding the number of justices and putting term limits in place, PPFA also wants to impose ethics and transparency requirements on the justices, add seats for additional judges on lower courts, and prevent single-judge divisions, as well as stop allowing interest groups to pick and choose where they can file lawsuits.
In her MSNBC interview, Johnson claimed that Supreme Court justices with their lifetime appointments are “very much out of step with where the majority of people are on a variety of issues.”
As such, the legitimacy of these justices is in question, she added, while stressing that “it’s really important to call for structural reforms.” Johnson insisted that the court has now been “fully captured in so many areas.”
“The fact that you have, again, this lone Texas judge, that can now bring cases, you can form shop there, bring cases to the Fifth Circuit, which is also conservative, and up to the Supreme Court now, which has a conservative super majority,” Johnson said, referring to a federal judge in Texas who ruled in favor of removing an abortion medication from the market.
In March, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) reintroduced an amendment to block the packing of the Supreme Court. The proposal was co-sponsored by 11 other Republicans.
“The Democrats’ answer to a Supreme Court that is dedicated to upholding the rule of law and the Constitution is to pack it with liberals who will rule the way they want,” Cruz said, according to a March 22 press release.
“The Supreme Court should be independent, not inflated by every new administration. That’s why I’ve introduced a constitutional amendment to permanently keep the number of justices at nine.”
The American public also largely agrees that the Supreme Court should only have nine justices.
A 2019 poll by Rasmussen Reports found that just 27 percent of likely voters favored raising the number, with 51 percent being opposed to such expansion.
A Marquette Law School survey from January also showed that the American public’s approval of the Supreme Court has slowly been rising since the abortion ruling.
In the survey, 47 percent expressed approval for the court, up from 38 percent in July 2022.