By Larry Keane
Vice President Kamala Harris has yet to define much of her policy agenda for voters to scrutinize. Much of that is being left to proxies. So far, she has indicated a continued march toward more unconstitutional gun control. She’s yet to actually deny that she would abandon her previous policy agenda of forced confiscation of Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs). The only “denial” that’s been made purports to come from an unnamed campaign staffer. This election, though, will be a referendum on the future of the U.S. Supreme Court.
U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) is telling voters that Vice President Harris would carry out the radical plan to upend the Supreme Court to end lifetime appointments and turn it into a rubber stamp for The White House. That move could threaten Second Amendment rights and neuter the Judicial Branch in the balance of power set forth by the Founding Fathers that created three co-equal branches that are each a check on the authority of the others.
Quietly, away from the cameras and glitz of the Democratic National Convention, Sen. Whitehouse, joined by U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), spoke to a panel about his plans upend the Supreme Court by passing a bill that would end lifetime appointments, according to The Dispatch. Sen. Whitehouse told attendees this plan is “virtually certain” if Democrats sweep elections in November to take The White House and majorities in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate.
Electioneering the Supreme Court
This idea of reforming the Supreme Court was President Joe Biden’s swan song. He published a fact sheet in his plan to upset the balance of power between the three government branches – Legislative, Executive and Judicial – because a radical extreme voter base of his party couldn’t accept the Supreme Court actually interprets the law as it is written. Instead, he kowtowed to the loudest voices on the Left to put forth a plan that would limit Supreme Court appointments to 18 years, which would immediately put Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito off the bench. That would open up two vacancies for the next president to nominate jurors who would rubber stamp their liberal agenda.
For the firearm industry and gun owners, this elevates the plan from “wishful thinking” by a president who was shoved aside by his own party to an election-year issue. Justices Thomas and Alito have consistently decided in favor of protecting Second Amendment rights and interpreting the Constitution for what it actually says. If this plan were to pass, that would immediately change the composition of the Supreme Court from a 6-3 conservative court to a 5-4 liberal court that is hostile to the Second Amendment.
That’s significant because there are several challenges to state bans on MSR and standard-capacity magazine where petitions to the Supreme Court have or soon will be filed. NSSF is challenging Illinois’ ban on the most popular rifles being sold in the U.S. and commonly owned standard sized magazines. We are also challenging Oregon’s magazine ban. That case is on appeal to the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. In our Illinois case, we obtained a preliminary injunction against the Illinois law, but the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed the order. Our petition to the U.S. Supreme Court was denied because a final decision had yet to be issued by the Seventh Circuit. Justice Alito voted to hear our case while Justice Thomas wrote, “This Court is rightly wary of taking cases in an interlocutory posture. But I hope we will consider the important issue presented by these petitions after the cases reach final judgment.”
Justice Thomas concluded Illinois’ bans are “highly suspect,” finding it “difficult to see how the Seventh Circuit could have concluded that the most widely owned semiautomatic rifles are not ‘Arms’ protected by the Second Amendment.” He added, “But, if the Seventh Circuit ultimately allows Illinois to ban America’s most common civilian rifle, we can—and should—review that decision once the cases reach a final judgment. The Court must not permit ‘the Seventh Circuit [to] relegat[e] the Second Amendment to a second-class right.’” NSSF’s case goes to trial next month. We are confident we will prevail. But the losing party will certainly appeal and, ultimately, a petition to the Supreme Court is all but assured.
Plan to Upend SCOTUS
Vice President Harris hasn’t made many policy announcements and surely has yet to distance herself from the Biden-Harris plan to upend the Supreme Court’s composition. She’s got allies in both Sen. Whitehouse and Rep. Raskin who both have supported gun control efforts when they’ve come for a vote. Sen. Whitehouse sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is tasked with vetting and confirming Supreme Court nominations before those nominations are voted on by all senators. He’s also Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action and Federal Rights. And he has a history of threatening Supreme Court justices with amicus briefs that even the Washington Post called “incendiary.”
Sen. Whitehouse introduced a bill last year, S. 3096 – the Supreme Court Biennial Appointments and Term Limits Act, that mirrors the Biden-Harris plan to upset the courts. It would limit Supreme Court terms to 18 years. The legislation calls for presidents to nominate a new justice to the Supreme Court every two years and appoint one of those nominated jurors with the advice and consent of the Senate. Only the nine most-recently appointed justices would sit for appellate cases.
That sounds like a tremendous change to convince the Senate – much less the House of Representatives – to accept. But Sen. Whitehouse told the DNC panel that he’s got a plan for that too. He would attached the proposal to “an omnibus package that would include a bill creating a national right to abortion and other top Democratic priorities,” The Dispatch reported.
“To get around the filibuster, we’re going to have to have a process that allows very substantial debate from the Senate minority,” Sen. Whitehouse said, according to the Dispatch. “We are not going to want to give the Republicans multiple stalls, multiple filibusters on this, so the bill that gets around the filibuster will be virtually certain to include permanent reproductive rights, permanent restored voting rights, getting rid of corrupting billionaire dark money, and Supreme Court reform. If you’ve got a bill like that moving, that’s going to have spectacular tailwinds behind it.”
There’s one obstacle that Sen. Whitehouse cannot ignore. That’s the voters. That’s why it is imperative to #GUNVOTETM. Don’t Risk Your RightsTM! Voters can send a message on November 5 that upending the Supreme Court and threatening Second Amendment rights is not up for debate.
Larry Keane is Senior Vice President of Government and Public Affairs and General Counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearms industry trade association.
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