Expanding the Supreme Court is a "terrible idea" that only serves to increase the high court's politicization, Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Wednesday, but he does agree adding term limits might be a good way to go.
"The highest court is supposed to be a neutral, objective, nonpartisan institution, as the chief justices said there are no Republican justices or Democratic justices," Dershowitz told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" about the growing calls from Democratic presidential candidates to add more justices. "That's really a wish rather than a reality."
Both parties are at fault for the current standoff, he added.
"Republicans are at fault for not letting Merrick Garland's nomination come to the floor," said Dershowitz. "The Democrats are at fault for the way they treated President [Donald] Trump's nominees."
Term limits could help with the court's politicization problems, said Dershowitz.
"The framers [of the Constitution] didn't intend for justices to sit on the Supreme Court for 40 or 50 years," said Dershowitz. "Life expectancy was in the 40s and 50s and people were appointed when they were 50. Now they're serving for lifetimes."
Dershowitz added he's concerned about the repercussions of tampering with the Supreme Court, as it raises political risks.
"There are some who say there should be five Republican justices, five Democratic justices and five Independent justices picked by the 10 partisan justices," said Dershowitz. "Every idea seems worse than previous ideas and worse than the status quo. We may, in the end, have to struggle to maintain the current law because fixing it may produce more problems than the problems that currently exist."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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