Justice Stephen Breyer warns Supreme Court expansion could erode public trust

Washington — Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer on Tuesday cautioned against adding seats to the nation's highest court, as some liberal activists are urging to weaken the power of its conservative majority, with Breyer warning that doing so could erode the public's trust in the institution.

In remarks delivered remotely to Harvard Law School, Breyer, one of the Supreme Court's three liberal justices, said his speech "seeks to make those whose initial instincts may favor important structural or other similar institutional changes, such as forms of court-packing, think long and hard before embodying those changes in law," according to The Associated Press and Washington Post, citing his prepared remarks. Breyer said the Supreme Court's authority rests on "a trust that the court is guided by legal principle, not politics" and warned that "structural alteration motivated by the perception of political influence can only feed that perception, further eroding that trust."