Responding to a question on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” about whether he supported adding seats to the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) in lieu of its ruling that gutted the Voting Rights Act, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) responded: “There’s a corrupt shadow hanging over,” the court.
Sen. Booker stopped short of saying he would support expanding the number of SCOTUS justices, but said he was leading efforts to reform it via term limits.
“It’s a corrupt court,” said Sen. Booker. “The highest court in our land has the lowest ethics laws. I lead one of the pieces of legislation with Sen. Whitehouse and others to give term limits to Supreme Court members that could go a long way in carrying this. It is a corrupt court, and in my opinion, it is a court that needs reform.”
On the Callais v. Louisiana ruling, which now makes it prohibitively difficult to create congressional districts where people of color can elect candidates of their choice, Sen. Booker said SCOTUS knowingly ruled in ways that depleted political representation for Black voters.
“Obviously this decision would result – and they knew this – in stripping political power and representation from African-Americans,” said Sen. Booker. “The Voting Rights Act was perhaps one of the most important acts in the history of our country, in securing our democratic ideals, that all are created equal – all are imbued with certain unalienable rights. And what they have done right now is sent us backwards in time, back to the 1870s and 80s, when the South and southern legislators – through terrorism, intimidation and worse – were able to stop African Americans from having representation in Congress.”
Despite that ruling potentially taking away future congressional seats from Democrats and voters of color, Sen. Booker was unwilling to stake a position on whether more seats should be added to the court. Instead, he said, Democrats should focus on taking control of Congress.
“There are ways we can reform this court, but as a precursor to that, it means changing Congress,” said Booker. “If we want change to what the Supreme Court is doing, we have to change Congress.”
