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Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is leading a group of Republican senators in introducing a constitutional amendment that would rebuff any attempt by a future president or Congress to pack the United States Supreme Court.

Cruz's proposed amendment simply states, "the Supreme Court of the United States shall be composed of nine justices." The amendment is co-sponsored by Sens. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., Mike Lee, R-Utah, Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Thom Tillis, R-N.C., John Kennedy, R-La., Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., and Mike Braun, R-Ind.

"The Democrats answer to a Supreme Court that is dedicated to upholding the rule of law and the Constitution is to pack it with liberals who will rule the way they want. The Supreme Court should be independent, not inflated by every new administration. Thats why Ive introduced a constitutional amendment to permanently keep the number of justices at nine," Cruz said in a statement.

If passed by Congress, his amendment would head to the states for ratification. Cruz originally introduced the amendment in 2021, in response to statements from Democrats suggesting that they might seek to add more justices to the Supreme Court to reduce the influence of the three conservative justices appointed by former President Donald Trump.

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ASKS SUPREME COURT TO OVERTURN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE GUN RULING

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Wednesday will introduce an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would set the number of Supreme Court justices at nine.

In October 2020, just before the presidential election, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said "everything is on the table" during an appearance on MSNBC when asked what Democrats could do about the court if they regained control of the Senate that year.

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Calls then intensified after the Court overturned Roe v. Wade in a landmark decision last year. "Right-wing extremists have hijacked the Supreme Court of the United States," progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., tweeted last year after a draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito was leaked. "We must #ExpandTheCourt to rebalance it and defend our basic rights, including the constitutional right to an abortion."

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TEXAS UNIVERSITY DEFENDS DEI, AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AS A MATTER OF NATIONAL SECURITY ADMID SCOTUS CASE

The U.S. Supreme Court has had nine justices since 1869.

"For years the left has been desperate to pack the court to promote their radical agenda. We must ensure that we stay true to the courts founding principles, maintain the precedent of nine justices, and keep the Democrats from their brazen attempts to rig our democracy," said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.

House Republicans introduced a companion amendment in January, waring that Democratic lawmakers will "weaponize" the high court if they gain control of Congress.

POOP AND PARODY TO BE ARGUED AT SUPREME COURT IN HIGH-STAKES INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DISPUTE

A constitutional amendment passed by Congress must be ratified by 38 of 50 states.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre confirmed back in June 2022 that President Biden does not support court-packing during an Air Force One press gaggle.

"That is something that the president does not agree with,,"Jean-Pierre told reporters during the gaggle. "That is not something that he wants to do."

Fox News' Haley Chi-Sing contributed to this report.

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Cruz to introduce constitutional amendment to prevent Democrats from packing Supreme Court - Yahoo News

TOPEKA The dustup in the Senate over a bill delivering voucher-like funding to Kansas private schools featured zinger one-liners, rival interpretations of an obscure parliamentary rule and allegations Republican leadership engaged in abuse of power.

Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, a Democrat from Lenexa, got the ball rolling Thursday with a motion to call a vote on Senate Bill 83, which was transformed by the House to include a mandate to raise teacher raises, increase funding of special education and establish the Sunflower Education Equity Act. The equity act would create state funded $5,000 savings accounts for low- and middle-income students attending homeschools and private schools.

The bill barely cleared the Kansas House 64-61, despite an 85-40 GOP majority in the chamber. Gov. Laura Kelly equated the bundled bill to a political form of blackmail, suggesting it could be vetoed with little threat of two-thirds majorities required of an override by the Senate and House.

Sykes pressed her case by pointing to Rule 3B, which she said provided leverage to compel a snap vote in the Senate on the education bill.

I do think we should vote, she said. I do think this bill was gutted and significantly altered from the way it came out of this chamber.

Senate President Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican, disagreed and urged his colleagues to steer the bill into a House-Senate conference committee. His substitute motion would place the bill in hands of six Senate and House negotiators. If compromise was reached by a bipartisan three-senator, three-representative negotiating committee, the deal could be voted on in both chambers without opportunity for amendment.

Im in support of this, said Sen. Renee Erickson, a Wichita Republican. A bill of this magnitude, the importance of this subject matter, we need more time to look at it through the conference process.

Sen. Jeff Longbine, R-Emporia, said he was perplexed by the conference-committee approach outlined by Masterson that apparently would bypass the Senates education committee. He suggested the Senate committee, with its subject-matter expertise, ought to evaluate details of the voucher-like initiative and consider other parts of the K-12 package.

If this bill is of such magnitude, why is the Senate Education Committee not taking a look at it? Longbine said.

At that point, Sen. Molly Baumgardner, the Louisburg Republican and chairwoman of the committee, revealed she requested from legislative staff comparative analysis of the Senates original Senate Bill 83, which offered low-income scholarships and tax credits to help students enroll in private schools, and the revamped Senate Bill 83 adopted by the House launching the voucher-like system.

For example, Baumgardner said, the Legislature didnt have a solid grasp on the actual cost to taxpayers of the Houses version of the bill.

We want to make sure we have as much data as possible, Baumgardner said. We make decisions based on real data, not just assumptions.

Finally, Masterson got his vote to drop the bill into a conference committee. His motion prevailed 21-12, potentially another sign of underwhelming support for the education legislation.

That opened the door for Sykes to renew her call for a Senate vote on merits of the House substitute of Senate Bill 83. Masterson said the only point of such a vote would be to kind of disrupt the process and slow things down, because a way would be found to move ahead with the legislation.

McPherson Republican Sen. Rick Wilborn, the Senates vice president, said Sykes was too late. The Senates request for a conference with the House on the bill was already on its way across the Capitol rotunda, he said.

However, Sykes responded that her motion was still in order because the House hadnt formally appointed its three members to the negotiating committee.

The motion to concur is out of order, Wilborn said.

This motion is in order, Sykes said.

We are going to convene the rules committee, Wilborn replied.

A lengthy huddle of senators on the rules committee led to a determination Sykes motion was out of bounds. Sykes said the situation illustrated reliance by Senate Republicans on interpreting rules for partisan advantage.

Theres a loophole and they didnt like it, Sykes said. So, theyre going to err on the side of what they want, which happens in this building all the time.

Her formal challenge of that rules committees decision prompted a vote of the full Senate. The Senate upheld the rules committee 22-14, meaning the Senate wouldnt proceed to an up-or-down vote on the bill.

Masterson objected to Sykes characterization of the way Republican senators handled disputes on procedural matters. In this case, he said, the rules committee sought advice of the Senate clerk and the Legislatures bill-writing office of the revisor.

Its offensive, the contention that was made, Masterson said. Thats why we have a parliamentarian to determine any rule thats in limbo. The majority party even went to the next extent and brought up the revisor of statutes, who concurred with the parliamentarian.

That rousted Sen. Dennis Pyle, the Hiawatha independent who ran for governor in 2022 and was stripped of committee assignments by Masterson.

He asked Wilborn to order the Senate parliamentarian to identify the text in Roberts Rules of Order relied upon to declare Sykes motion out of order. Wilborn didnt do so.

The parliamentarian is not the Senate, Pyle said. We have an opportunity to act on our own right now as a Senate body in the interest of what is right and true. Right and true. We should all stand against an abuse of power.

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Senate Republicans, Democrats plunge into weeds for rules scuffle ... - Kansas Reflector

The Tennessee Democratic Caucus demanded the Department of Children's Services release five young children taken from their parents, who are Black, after a traffic stop in Manchester, Tennessee, last month.

The children -- ages 7, 5, 3, 2 and a 4-month-old infant who was still nursing -- were removed from their parents Feb. 17 after a traffic stop initiated by the Tennessee Highway Patrol because of "dark tint and traveling in the left lane while not actively passing." The children have been in the custody of Children's Services since.

Deonte Williams, the children's father, was arrested and charged with possessing 5 grams of marijuana, a misdemeanor in Tennessee. Bianca Clayborne was cited and released. Court records, Children's Services emails and Highway Patrols citations cited in a story about the family by the Tennessee Lookout published Wednesday raised a series of questions about why the child welfare agency pursued removal of the children after a misdemeanor arrest of one parent and another parent who was free to leave.

(READ MORE: Pulled over for tinted windows, a Georgia family fights to get their children back from Tennessee DCS)

Democrats on Thursday demanded the children be returned to their parents.

Sen. London Lamar, a Memphis Democrat, called the actions "ridiculous" and an "overuse of power."

"DCS, Coffee County, y'all need to do the right thing before the situation gets worse, and we have a nation of people coming to the rescue of this Black family," she said.

"Give them their children back. It's borderline discrimination, because if this was any other family, as their attorney said, we don't even think this would be the outcome," she said.

Sen. Raumesh Akbari, also a Memphis Democrat, said the goal should be to keep families together because babies and young children belong with their parents.

"It is outrageous that the state forcefully separated Bianca Clayborne, a breastfeeding mother, and Deonte Williams from their kids and have allowed this to continue for nearly a month," she said. "The state exercised extreme and flawed judgment in taking their children and it seems they've doubled down on this poor decision."

"No family is perfect, but an imperfection, like a simple marijuana charge, is no excuse for tearing a family apart. The state is supposed to support reunification. If they don't have a better reason, they must immediately return these five children to their parents."

A spokesperson for Children's Services could not be immediately reached for comment.

(READ MORE: Audit finds Tennessee children in state custody in jeopardy)

Also on Thursday, the Tennessee Highway Patrol denied a request by the Lookout for body- and dash-cam video of the traffic stop and interactions with the family.

The Lookout's request, submitted last week, was denied because videos are "part of an ongoing criminal investigation and prosecution, and the district attorney's office serving Coffee County has asserted its privilege to not release the documents at this time pursuant to Rule 16 of the Tennessee Rules of Criminal Procedure," a letter from an agency attorney said.

The Highway Patrol also said state law prevents the agency from releasing documents or information that directly or indirectly identifies a child or a family member receiving services from Children's Services.

Courtney Teasley, the family's attorney, on Thursday said "we echo the response of the Democratic Caucus."

(READ MORE: Tennessee Children's Services chief says agency is experiencing 'horrific' turnover rate)

An instant hair follicle test performed on the parents at their first court appearance, about a week after the children were taken into custody, was a key element in Children's Services' arguments for why the children should remain in the agency's custody. However, a Coffee County court administrator, speaking to the Lookout broadly about the county's instant hair follicle testing, said the tests are inadmissible in court. An expert told the Lookout rapid follicle tests are unreliable because they often yield false positives.

Lawyers for the family have challenged the test; an attorney for Children's Services has told them the test no longer exists, thought the custody case is still ongoing.

"This is even more reprehensible when the drug test used to justify keeping these children in foster care is known to be inadmissible by the county's own court administrator," Teasley said.

Read more at TennesseeLookout.com.

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Tennessee Democrats demand release of children removed from ... - Chattanooga Times Free Press

Florida Democrats selected former state Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried as their new party chair on Saturday, hoping to move past a disastrous midterm performance in the onetime presidential battleground state where high-profile Gov. Ron DeSantis has helped cement Republican control.

Fried, 45, outdistanced former state Sen. Annette Taddeo at a special meeting of party members in suburban Orlando, and will replace Manny Diaz. In his resignation announcement letter last month, he listed a number of problems facing the party, including a lack of resources and volunteers and poor messaging.

Both women had lost their own races last year Fried to Charlie Crist in the primary for governor and Taddeo to U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar in November.

Within the past few years, Republicans have erased the voter registration advantage in Florida that Democrats held for decades. In the midterm election, longtime Democratic strongholds such as Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties flipped to the GOP, and DeSantis won a landslide reelection victory as he eyes a 2024 presidential bid.

Democrats performed particularly poorly with Latinos in Florida compared with previous years. Miami-Dade, the states most populous county, is home to 1.5 million Latinos of voting age.

Fried, whose term as agriculture commissioner wrapped up last month, has pledged to rebuild the party from the ground up, with a focus on voter registration. As the only statewide elected Democrat, Fried was a fierce critic of DeSantis, often challenging him on policies related to the COVID-19 pandemic and later on a law critics called the Dont Say Gay bill, which bars instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade.

Taddeo, 55, was a state senator from 2017 to 2022. She had said she wanted a year-round effort to register voters without outsourcing that job to other groups and to mobilize young voters. She also says the party must conduct more outreach to Black and Hispanic communities.

Just over a decade ago, President Barack Obama won reelection to the White House after twice carrying the state of Florida. President Donald Trump won the state in the last two elections, carrying Florida by an even larger margin in 2020 than four years earlier.

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Florida Democrats Pick Nikki Fried as New Party Chair Saturday

Despite tracing its roots to Thomas Jeffersonwho advocated a less-powerful, more-decentralized federal governmentthe modern Democratic Party generally supports a strong federal government with powers to regulate business and industry in the public interest; federally financed social services and benefits for the poor, the unemployed, the aged, and other groups; and the protection of civil rights. Most Democrats also endorse a strong separation of church and state, and they generally oppose government regulation of the private, noneconomic lives of citizens. Regarding foreign policy, Democrats tend to prefer internationalism and multilateralismi.e., the execution of foreign policy through international institutions such as the United Nationsover isolationism and unilateralism. However, because the party is highly decentralized (as is the Republican Party), it encompasses a wide variety of opinion on certain issues. Although most Democrats favour affirmative action and gun control, for example, some moderate and conservative Democrats oppose those policies or give them only qualified support.

Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party formulate their platforms quadrennially at national conventions, which are held to nominate the parties presidential candidates. The conventions take place in the summer of each presidential election year; by tradition, the incumbent party holds its convention second. The Democratic National Convention is typically attended by some 4,000 delegates, most of whom are selected during the preceding winter and spring. So-called superdelegates, which include members of the Democratic National Committee (the partys formal governing body) as well as Democratic governors and members of Congress, also participate. However, following criticism of the superdelegates influence in the 2016 nomination process, their power was limited by rule changes in 2018. Notably, if the first ballot for the partys nominee is contested, superdelegates are unable to vote until the second round.

Until the 1970s, few nationwide rules governed the selection of delegates to the Democratic National Convention. After the 1968 convention, during which Humphrey was able to secure the Democratic nomination without having won a single primary election or caucus, the party imposed strict rules requiring that states select delegates through primaries or caucuses and that delegates vote on the first ballot for the candidate to whom they are pledged, thus eliminating the direct election of candidates by the conventions. More than 40 states now select delegates to the Democratic convention through primary elections. Virtually all Democratic primaries allocate delegates on a proportional basis, so that the proportion of delegates awarded to a candidate in a state is roughly the same as the proportion of the vote he receives in that state (provided that he receives at least 15 percent). In contrast, almost all Republican presidential primaries award all delegates to the candidate who receives the most votes. Thus, candidates running for the Democratic nomination tend to win at least some delegates in each primary, resulting generally in closer and longer nominating contests. Nevertheless, one candidate usually captures a majority of delegates before the summer nominating convention, leaving the convention simply to ratify the winner.

In addition to confirming the party nominee and adopting the party platform, the national convention formally chooses a national committee to organize the next convention and to govern the party until the next convention is held. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) consists of about 400 party leaders representing all U.S. states and territories. Its chairman is typically named by the partys presidential nominee and then formally elected by the committee. The DNC has little power, because it lacks direct authority over party members in Congress and even in the states. Democratic members of the House and the Senate organize themselves into party conferences that elect the party leaders of each chamber. In keeping with the decentralized nature of the party, each chamber also creates separate committees to raise and disburse funds for House and Senate election campaigns.

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Democratic Party - Policy and structure | Britannica