O’Rourke says adding SCOTUS justices is worth exploring

Newly announced presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke said changing the makeup of the Supreme Court is “an idea we should explore.”

He said at a campaign stop in Iowa that he thinks it could be a good idea to have each party choose five justices and then to let those justices choose five more justices. 

“What if there were five justices selected by Democrats, five justices selected by Republicans and those 10 then pick five more justices independent of those who picked the first 10,” O’Rourke said. “I think that’s an idea we should explore.” {mosads}

O’Rourke also floated the idea of putting term limits on the justices. 

“There’s another idea of adding term limits on those justices so that there’s a more regular rotation through there,” he said. “ We’re a country of 320 million people. There’s got to be the talent and the wisdom and the perspective and that court should be able to reflect the diversity that we are composed of.”

Democrat Beto O’Rourke campaigns in Iowa after announcing his intention to run for the 2020 presidential nomination. https://t.co/754lg2zpDq

— Circa (@Circa) March 14, 2019

O’Rourke is not the first candidate to weigh in on adding more justices to the court. Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg said previously on Crooked Media’s Pod Save America that adding justices is one way to prevent the court from becoming a “nakedly political institution.”

“This central objective that is to prevent the Supreme Court from continuing on this trajectory to become basically ruined by being a nakedly political institution,” he said. “This idea of adding justices is one way to do it,” he said.

“It may actually not be the most compelling way to do it,” he continued.  “I mean I’m interested in a policy where you would have five appointees of Republicans and five of Democrats on a 15 member court. And where you get the other five from is a consensus of the other 10 which has to be unanimous.”

O’Rouke on Thursday announced his presidential bid and hosted a series of question and answer sessions in the early-primary state of Iowa. He is one of many people competing for the Democratic nominee and his competition includes Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).