“Right now we’re fat and happy,” said Mike Davis, president of the Article III Project, a group that strategizes with Republican senators and the White House on judicial confirmations. “We have the first true conservative majority on the Supreme Court in 80 years. The president has done such an outstanding job on judicial appointments that we are out of federal circuit seats to fill. So Republicans could be complacent while Democrats are fired up.”
But Mr. Davis has not given up on the court as the path to igniting fervor on his side. He is pinning his hopes on court packing.
“Court packing is so much more of a culture fight,” Mr. Davis said, describing the Republican messaging on the issue, which encompasses a variety of proposals to reform the structure of the judiciary such as adding new justices to the Supreme Court and expanding the lower courts.
He ran through a list of rights that he thought an expanded court would jeopardize: religious expression, free speech, gun ownership. “Court packing is an extreme, clear and present danger,” he said.