DEMS/ELECTION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “It’s an emerging rallying cry on the left: Expand the Supreme Court and eliminate the Senate filibuster. Still seething over Republican obstruction during the Obama administration that peaked in 2016 with the blockade against the Supreme Court nominee Merrick B. Garland, liberal groups are encouraging Democrats running for president and the Senate to commit to enlarging the court and scuttling the Senate’s famous procedural weapon. The intensifying push for those fundamental changes could add an explosive element to the 2020 campaign as candidates are forced to take a stand on structural changes in how government works. Multiple Democratic candidates have already said they would at least consider both possibilities, and activists intend to keep the pressure on to turn those proposals into top-tier issues…Even if Democrats recaptured the White House and Senate while holding on to the House, Republicans — quite happy with the current makeup of the Supreme Court and hoping Mr. Trump can move it even further right — would almost certainly still have the votes to filibuster an expansion of the court. So Democratic activists who want to expand the court and push through other sweeping legislation say it would be time for the filibuster to go, too.”
–Carl Hulse, “Frustrated Democrats Intensify Demand for Big Institutional Changes,” The New York Times online, March 27, 2019