Biden does not support expanding Supreme Court despite Roe repeal

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Saturday the president does not support expanding the Court with more justices the Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization, which was announced on Friday.

The ruling, which was split 6-3 strictly between conservative and liberal justices effectively overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision which said abortion was a federally protected fundamental right. The decision has since ignited protests across the country and at the Court, emerged as a major topic of discussion and dominated the coverage of nationwide news outlets.

Jean-Pierre’s revelation came when she was asked about the president’s reaction to the ruling by journalists on Air Force One while flying to Munich, Germany.

Reporters inquired about the ‘pack the Court’ potential as a way to dilute to recent 6-3 conservative majority.

“I was asked this question yesterday, and I’ve been asked it before…about expanding the Court. That is something that the President does not agree with,” Jean-Pierre said. “That is not something that he wants to do.”

The Left has long historically proposed the notion of expanding the Court with more liberal justices from time to time dating all the way back to the days preceding the Second World War. President Franklin D. Roosevelt pushed the concept with the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, but was met with strong resistance from the U.S. Senate and it never came to fruition.

Far left members of Congress have recently suggested the idea as a way to counterbalance the recent three conservative judicial appointments of former President Donald J. Trump.

Jean-Pierre added that the president was felt the Court’s decision was inconsistent with the principles enshrined in the Constitution, an argument which both sides have been clung to since the abortion debate began decades ago.

“It’s so out of step not only with this decision, but it’s also so out of step with the Constitution,” she argued.

In response to the decision, Biden ordered federal agencies to protect nationwide access to federally approved medication like contraception, and instructed the Justice Department to safeguard the right of women to travel out-of-state for abortion procedures where it remains legal.

“I believe Roe v. Wade was the correct decision as a matter of constitutional law, an application of the fundamental right to privacy and liberty in matters of family and personal autonomy,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House on Friday.

“It was a decision on a complex matter that drew a careful balance between a woman’s right to choose earlier in her pregnancy and the state’s ability to regulate later in her pregnancy. A decision with broad national consensus that most Americans of faiths and backgrounds found acceptable and that had been the law of the land for most of the lifetime of Americans today.

“And it was a constitutional principle upheld by justices appointed by Democrat and Republican Presidents alike.”

Biden illuminated the fact Roe v. Wade was authored in 1973 by a justice appointed by Republican President Richard Nixon and that it was upheld by other conservative justices appointed by Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Biden contrasted that with the fact that the Dobbs decision was made by three justices appointed by one single president—Donald J. Trump.

The former president took credit for the decision, saying it was made possible because he “delivered everything as promised” and also received praise from Republican Congressional members such as Mary Miller, who called the decision a “historic victory” for the right to life movement.

Vice-President Kamala Harris reacted to the decision by calling it a “healthcare crisis.”

“Millions of women in America will go to bed tonight without access to the healthcare and reproductive care that they had this morning; without access to the same healthcare or reproductive healthcare that their mothers and grandmothers had for 50 years,” she saidSaturday in a YMCA speaking engagement in Plainfield, Illinois.

She concluded her speech by vowing, “this is not over,” while suggesting the decision could once against be overturned by people electing leaders who will make different appointments to the Court.

 Dobbs is not the only recent decision Biden is upset about. On Saturday he told journalists that the Supreme Court “has made some terrible decisions.”

He said he was “deeply disappointed” with the Court’s June 23 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen that struck down a New York statute that limited the right to carry and conceal firearms in public, insisting that it “contradicts common sense and the Constitution, and should deeply trouble us all.”

Shortly after the Democratic president was elected he appointed a 36-member bipartisan commission to consider possible changes to the Court such as term limits, a mandatory code of ethics for justices and expansion of more seats on the Court.  

In its final Dec. 7, 2021 report however, the commission said that such changes to the Court could endanger our constitutional system.

Although the panel did not entirely oppose the concept of implementing 18-year term limits for justices, the notion of adding seats to the Court was met with "profound disagreement."

Other far left liberals are still pushing Court expansion, however.

Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and New York City Mayor Eric Adams others have advocated expansion of the court.

“We need to balance out this court before they do more harm than what they've done thus far,” Adams said at a Friday press conference.

To date, there is no evidence Biden has any significant interest in expanding the Court although many other prominent Democrats have argued in favor of the move.