Mike Lee issues challenge to Elizabeth Warren after she claims 'right-wing extremists' have 'hijacked' Supreme Court

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) challenged Democratic colleague Sen. Elizabeth Warren to a debate this week over her renewed demands to pack the Supreme Court.

What did Warren say?

Amid new allegations of ethical impropriety against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Warren claimed on Monday that "right-wing extremists" have "hijacked" the Supreme Court.

The only antidote for such a disease, according to Warren, is to pack the court with justices who would issue rulings that she agrees with. She couched her demands using language about "rebalance" and protecting "our democracy."

"I'll just be blunt: right-wing extremists have hijacked the Supreme Court of the United States. From shredding abortion rights to rigging the rules against workers and consumers, an out-of-touch majority is substituting their own views for the rule of law," Warren said.

"For the sake of our freedoms and the sake of our democracy, we must expand the Supreme Court to rebalance it, and we need to institute a binding code of ethics for the justices," she added.

How did Lee respond?

The Utah Republican offered to debate Warren about the merits of her demands.

"I'd love to debate you on this topic at a mutually agreeable time and venue," he told her on Tuesday.

Lee also directed Warren to his book, "Saving Nine," which makes a comprehensive argument against expanding the Supreme Court. Some of the most compelling evidence in Lee's book focuses on the words of Democrats and liberal-leaning justices who warned against packing the court.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for instance, was a prominent critic of Democrats'' ideas of "court reform."

"I have heard that there are some people on the Democratic side who would like to increase the number of judges. I think that was a bad idea when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to pack the court," Ginsburg told NPR in 2019.

"[I]f anything would make the court appear partisan then it would be that, one side saying, 'When we're in power we're going to enlarge the number of judges so we'll have more people who will vote the way we want them to,'" she added.

Warren did not respond to Lee's debate challenge.

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