Embracing Supreme Court Expansion Carries No Political Cost, Study Says
Expanding the Supreme Court, an increasingly popular reform among some progressive activists, is not politically costly for Democrats, according to an academic survey commissioned by a group that supports the idea.
The study documented reactions to the idea among 2,400 Democrats, Republicans and independents from the political swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Minnesota. It was conducted by political scientist Aaron Belkin from San Francisco State University and James Druckman of Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research. Druckman, a public opinion expert, designed the study, while the funding came from Take Back the Court, a progressive judicial reform group that Belkin runs.
The survey asked participants to react to two different Democrat-Republican matchups. The first was a “status quo” group pitting a standard Democratic candidate who wants to expand health care access, repeal President Donald Trump’s tax cuts, regulate guns and fight climate change against a Republican candidate who holds inverse positions but also wants to reshape the judiciary.
In a second matchup, survey participants evaluated a “court expansion” matchup between a hypothetical Republican candidate and a hypothetical Democratic candidate. In that scenario, the Democrat would propose expanding the court to make it “more representative of America, bring greater balance to the court, and prevent the domination of the Supreme Court by a single political party,” according to the study. The Republican candidate would call the idea “a threat to the independence of the judiciary and the rights of all Americans by radical liberals trying to change the rules so a few cities in New York and California can impose their will on the rest of us.”
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5e4a1652c5b64d860fccca4b
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