MEAWW.COM / NEWS / HUMAN INTEREST

AOC and Ilhan Omar slammed for 'expand the court' tweet after Barrett confirmation: 'Biased political garbage'

Immediately after their tweets, the hashtags, '#expandthecourt' and '#packthecourt' started trending as people spoke up either for or against the process

Soon after Judge Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed as a Supreme Court justice on Monday, October 26, filling the seat left vacant by late justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Democratic representatives from New York and Minnesota respectively, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, took to Twitter to promote the idea of packing the court except they did not quite use those terms exactly. 

"Expand the court," wrote AOC, which basically meant packing the court without risking the use of the exact terms which had negative connotations attached to it. In a second tweet, she explained, "Republicans do this because they don’t believe Dems have the stones to play hardball like they do. And for a long time they’ve been correct. But do not let them bully the public into thinking their bulldozing is normal but a response isn’t. There is a legal process for expansion." 

Omar retweeted her fellow's rep's tweet and similarly captioned it, "Expand the court." In two follow-up posts, she added, "Remember that Republicans have lost 6 of the last 7 popular votes, but have appointed 6 of the last 9 justices. By expanding the court we fix this broken system and have the court better represent the values of the American people. The Senate GOP rammed through an extremist Supreme Court justice in a sham process as a final abuse of power before Election Day. We can't let them get away with their corruption and hypocrisy any longer. Let’s mobilize like hell these last 8 days to end their destructive reign."

Immediately after their tweets, the hashtags, "#expandthecourt" and "#packthecourt" started trending as people spoke up either for or against the process. 

Many people started criticizing the two for touting the nation of packing the court. "Points I Ponder While I Wander in the Leftist's Delusional BS Yonder Expand your BRAIN Expand your INTELLIGENCE Expand your KNOWLEDGE We know its hard 4U & your Delusional Accolytes 2 understand Constitution U should take free Constitution classes @Hillsdale College," one of them tweeted, while another said, "Expanding SCOTUS will immediately delegitimize the Court. Wait and see, the Court usually protects itself in times like this, and doesn’t want biased political garbage to be their legacy." A third said, "Yes, @realDonaldTrump, @senatemajldr and @LindseyGrahamSC should expand the court right now. Five more ACBs by Election Day."

Then there were people who agreed with AOC and Omar's notion of expanding the court. "Only way to preserve the institution at this point. SCOTUS right now has lost whatever claim it still had to represent the rule of law," a person said, while another commented, "CourtS. Plural. Expand all federal courts and fill the new vacancies with uber qualified candidates." A third suggested, "How about 2 term limits for all House and Senate seats and remove those lifetime of retirement and benefits for every one of you. There's an idea that could save the American tax payers almost a Billion dollars annually moving forward." 

“Packing the court” is a term that was originally coined by former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It refers to a law that allowed justices to be added to the Supreme Court called the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937.