Republican Lawmakers Request Documents from Co-chairs of Biden’s Supreme Court Commission
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Three Republican lawmakers sent letters on Friday to the co-chairs of President Biden’s Supreme Court commission requesting documents and communications related to the panel’s work.
Biden formed the 34-member commission in April 2021 to study potential reforms to the Supreme Court, including Court-packing. The group issued a nearly 300-page final report in December 2021 and took “no position” on the issue of Court-packing and offered arguments for and against judicial term limits and other matters related to the high Court but did not provide any recommendations.
Now, House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) and Senators Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) are calling on Robert Bauer and Cristina Rodríguez, the panel’s co-chairs, to turn over documents and communications they had with other commissions members, the White House, the Department of Justice, and several progressive judicial-advocacy groups, including Demand Justice, the American Constitution Society and the Unrig the Courts Coalition.
“While the Commission’s work has concluded, questions remain about the Commission’s work, deliberations, and true purpose,” the Republicans wrote in the letters, which were first reported by Politico.
The lawmakers gave Bauer and Rodríguez until March 10 to turn over the requested information. Bauer previously served as White House counsel for President Barack Obama and has been representing Biden in the investigation into the president’s handling of classified documents, while Rodríguez is a Yale Law School professor who served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel under the Obama administration.
Biden promised to form the bipartisan commission during the 2020 campaign as he repeatedly dodged questions regarding his stance on expanding the Supreme Court. At that time, progressives had thrust Court-packing to the forefront of political debate with calls to add more justices to the nine-judge Court after Republicans moved forward with Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearings just weeks before the 2020 election, creating a 6-3 conservative majority on the court.
