Adam Schiff proposes SCOTUS reform, including expansion

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), on the night of the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision, dropped a Twitter thread proposing expanding, term-limiting, and otherwise “reforming” the Court.

The Adam Schiff plan

Adam Schiff dropped his plan on Twitter beginning at 9:34 p.m. EDT Thursday, June 29, 2023.

Schiff blamed the current composition of the Court on:

1. The refusal of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), then Majority Leader, to allow a vote on confirming Merrick Garland to the Court after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, and
2. President Donald Trump’s appointments of Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and especially Amy Coney Barrett. (Justice Barrett replaced Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died of natural causes after consistently refusing to retire.)

He then cited three decisions with which he disagrees the most:

• Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization,
• SFFA v. Harvard and SFFA v. UNC, and
• Sackett et ux v. EPA et al.

Adam Schiff also complained that Moore v. Harper “came within two votes” of establishing the “independent legislature theory.” The vote in that case was 6-3.

“SCOTUS is supposed to be an impartial and nonpartisan legal body,” he lamented. “Right now it’s quite the opposite.”

Then he made his proposal, which was remarkably short on detail and had no link to any detailed proposal document:

• Expanding the Supreme Court bench (he didn’t say by how many),
• Term limits for Justices and presumably lower court judges as well (he didn’t say how long), and
• A code of ethics for the Court.

He insisted that all other federal courts are subject to a code of ethics. Perhaps he means this.

Senate run

Reaction to his thread was almost uniformly negative. Many called for term limits for the House and Senate, an option Adam Schiff has never mentioned. One user suggested that the only real difference Trump made was to replace Ginsburg with Barrett. (The replacement of John Paul Stevens with Samuel A. Alito happened long before Trump took office.)

In his last tweet he perhaps revealed the real reason for mentioning Supreme Court reform now. He has announced his intention to seek the Democratic nomination to the Senate from California, according to NBC News. Schiff will run against Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who is seeking another term despite being almost as debilitated as Biden. She was absent from the Senate for a long time, even for the debt ceiling vote on June 2. Upon her return, she showed no awareness of having been absent from the Senate. Even before her absence, she once didn’t recognize Kamala Harris as the Vice-President. “What is she doing here?” she reportedly asked, seeing Harris wielding the Senate gavel.

Adam Schiff would likely differ little in his positions from Feinstein, including on the desire to disarm the civilian population.

He entered the race in January, after Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Speaker of the House, threw him off his committees. Recently the House censured him for asserting (and still maintaining) that Trump is, and has been, a Russian asset.