Newsweek has published an opinion piece arguing that Court Packing is unconstitutional. I wondered about this since at first glance the Constitution doesn't specify the size of the Supreme Court so how could it prohibit additional justices?
Reading the article the argument is basically that it's wrong to add justices to change the ideological makeup of the Court. Thus court packing is unconstitutional because it's being done for the wrong reason. This argument may seem absurd yet numerous courts have struck down Trump administration actions (e.g. immigration restrictions) in this way. The court argues that President Trump's reasons for some new action make it illegal even if the law appears to allow the action.
This argument also follows the reasoning of other court rulings. There is no mention of abortion or same sex marriage in the constitution yet the Supreme Court has found them to be protected by the Constitution. Using a similar argument to prohibit court packing shows the nature of one school of constitutional interpretation which can find any desired result in the Constitution given enough looking.
Is this interpretation correct? That's less clear. In a way the argument against court packing boils down to the Constitution protecting "tradition". The this sense it's the opposite of the ruling in favor of same sex marriage (which is not traditional). Yes arguing court packing is unconstitutional would be quite ironic. Rulings which extract some hidden meaning from the Constitution (e.g. abortion, same sex marriage, etc) tend to be favored by the political left while more literal readings and originalism are of the political right. Yet this argument, though in the nature of the "left wing" court arguments, would have the effect of favoring the right.
