Chris Coons Makes Claim that Two Supreme Court Seats Have Been “Stolen”

Sen. Chris Coons said Monday that there needs to be a "wide-open conversation" on the ideological balance of the federal courts after the Senate for four years has doggedly focused on confirming Trump nominees to the Supreme Court and to the benches of the country's lower courts.

Under the guidance of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who has embraced the mantra of "no vacancy left behind," Republicans have confirmed 220 Trump-appointed judges to those courts. That includes Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who will take the judicial oath administered by Chief Justice Roberts and officially assume her Supreme Court duties sometime Tuesday.

Coons, D-Del., who is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made the comments in a conversation with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow after Barrett was confirmed 52-48 on Monday night with no Democrats voting for her confirmation.

'We've got to have a wide-open conversation about how do we rebalance our courts," Coons said. "Yes, the two Supreme Court cases that have been stolen, where these processes that are just wildly hypocritical have been used to jam through partisan nominees. But we've got to look at our federal courts as a whole."

Coons added: "Because they've seen hundreds of conservative judges put on circuit courts and district courts all over the country over the last four years. In many cases, too young, too unqualified and too far right to be allowed to sit peaceably without our reexamining the process, the results and the consequences."

The Constitution gives federal judges lifetime tenure so it is unclear what Coons might mean on examining the "results" of what are constitutionally appointed judges, even if Democrats believe them to have been jammed through in poor form. But like the Supreme Court, the Constitution gives Congress discretion over the number of federal judges in lower courts, ostensibly to allow the federal judiciary to adapt as its workload and population distribution around the country changes.

So expanding the lower courts to include more judges -- and thus more Democrat appointees if Democrats manage to take the Senate and White House in next week's election-- is an option that would be available to Democrats.

These comments from Senator Coons are not surprising.

Just a week ago, Coons said he was open to packing the courts if Joe Biden is elected president.

The fact that he admits out loud that he's willing to do the very thing he is accussing Republicans of doing (which they are not), speaks to just how delusional Democrats have become.

Here's that story from the New York Post:

Asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” if his mind is open to expanding the number of judges into the court to counterbalance conservative Amy Coney Barrett if she gets confirmed, Delaware Sen. Chris Coons said “yes.”

He compared his position to his party’s presidential nominee, who has refused to be drawn on the issue — with Biden only saying he will announce it before the election.

“Like Joe Biden, I’m not a fan of expanding the court, but we have a few weeks here to see whether there are four Republicans who will step back from this precipice,” Coons told host Jake Tapper.

“It is the Republican majority that’s responsible for racing forward with this extreme, unqualified nominee — unqualified because of her extreme judicial philosophy,” he claimed of Barrett.