Ted Cruz says the 'corrupt' Democrats are 'changing the rules to stay in power' by supporting court-packing and making D.C. the 51st state
Sen. Ted Cruz has claimed the Democrats' support for D.C. statehood and packing the Supreme Court with liberal justices is 'corrupt' and a bid to tighten their grip on power.
'What Senate Democrats and House Democrats are trying to do is fundamentally corrupt,' Cruz said on Thursday. 'Their first priority is to change the rules to stay in power.'
Cruz attacked the Democrats in a press conference alongside GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham and Marsha Blackburn.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has expressed support for making D.C. the 51st state, but it doesn't have enough support in the Senate to override a filibuster.
'So what the Senate Democrats are trying to do - they're trying to add new senators to the Senate, so they keep control forever,' Cruz said.
If D.C. became a state, two senators would be added to represent the residents, who would almost certainly elect two Democrats. D.C.'s non-voting delegate in the House would also transform into a full-fledged member of Congress.
Sen. Ted Cruz (left) called the Democrats 'fundamentally corrupt' for 'changing the rules to stay in power' pointing to a plan to add justices to the Supreme Court and make D.C. the 51st state. He held a presser alongside Sen. Lindsey Graham (right) Thursday
'They're trying to change voting in America, so Democrats never lose,' the Texas Republican went on. 'And they're trying to pack the Supreme Court with four left-wing radicals.'
In a tweet after his speech he pointed out that Venezuela's socialist former president Hugo Chavez packed his country's Supreme Court after he was elected.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler introduced legislation last week that would expand the Supreme Court from nine to 13 seats, corresponding to the number of federal circuit courts.
'This bill would restore balance to the nation's highest court after four years of norm-breaking actions by Republicans led to its current composition and greatly damaged the Court’s standing in the eyes of the American people,' a release on the legislation argued.
During former President Donald Trump's four years in office he was able to nominate three Supreme Court justices with the help of then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
McConnell held a seat open for nearly a year to assure Trump and Republicans were able fill the seat that had been occupied by the late Antonin Scalia.
President Barack Obama had nominated now-Attorney General Merrick Garland, but the federal judge never got a hearing.
At the end of Trump's term, Senate Republicans quickly voted in Justice Amy Coney Barrett to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
While a handful of Democrats signed onto the court-expanding legislation, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promptly said it wouldn't get a vote on the House floor.
President Joe Biden backs studying the issue - but is not a proponent of Nadler's bill.
'You didn't see Republicans when we had control of the Senate try to rig the game,' Cruz argued.
'If they want to stay in power, there's a real simple path for that: convince voters your ideas are right,' Cruz also said. 'But that's too complicated. Sometimes the voters disagree.'
Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones said it was Republicans who were rigging democracy to stay in power during his floor speech Thursday in support of D.C. statehood.
'The truth is there is no good faith argument for disenfranchising 700,000 people, most of whom are people of color,' the New York freshman said.
Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones said Thursday that it was Republicans who were rigging democracy to stay in power since they won't back making D.C. a state. Jones also said GOP arguments against D.C. statehood were 'racist trash' during a fiery floor speech
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler introduced legislation last week that would increase the number of Supreme Court seats from nine to 13, corresponding to the number of federal circuit courts
'These desperate objections are about fear. Fear that in D.C. their white supremacist politics will no longer play. Fear that soon enough white supremacist politics won't work anywhere in America,' he continued.
'Fear that if they don't rig our democracy they will not win,' Jones added.
However, the Democrat's claims that Republicans were racist got more attention.
'One Senate Republican, said that D.C. wouldn't be a "well rounded working class state." I had no ideas there were so many syllables in the word white,' Jones said.
'One of my House Republican colleagues said that D.C. shouldn't be a state because the District doesn't have a landfill,' he continued. 'My goodness, with all the racist trash my colleagues have brought to this debate I can see why they're worried about having a place to put it.'
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