Remember the calls to pack the Supreme Court? After the confirmation of Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, giving Trump three of nine justices on the Court and what appeared to be an insurmountable conservative majority of at least five, and more likely six, votes, the cries from the left to expand the Supreme Court to add enough justices to take back the majority were loud, shrill and died in Biden’s judicial commission.

But Congress did have the constitutional authority to do so. Similarly, the Constitution only requires that there be a Supreme Court and a Chief Justice. The existence of “inferior Courts” is left to Congress’ discretion.

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.

Article III, Section 1, of the Constitution appears to be on House Speaker Mike Johnson’s radar.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Tuesday drew attention to Congress’s power over the federal judiciary as Republicans plot how to legislatively channel their outrage over district judges who have blocked Trump administration actions.

“We do have authority over the federal courts,” Johnson said in a press conference Tuesday. “We can eliminate an entire district court. We do have power over funding over the courts and all these other things. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and Congress is going to act.”

Is Congress going to act? The notion of eliminating the district courts because its judges keep ruling against Trump seems both absurd and, indeed, desperate. Much like the articles of impeachment of Judge James Boasberg and others, there is little to no chance of success, as it would require Senate votes the Republicans don’t have. It’s how they beat back both of Trump’s impeachment trials, and it’s how the Democrats would prevent this wild idea from ever happening.

But for the time being, Congress isn’t going to act, as Johnson claimed from his other face after floating the idea.

Johnson clarified that he was not calling to eliminate courts, but rather meant to illustrate Congress’s broad scope of authority.

In other words, it was just a threat. “Nice courts you have there. It would be a shame if anything happened to them.” The tit-for-tat approach should come as no surprise given the cries for court packing. But his point is that if district court judges, or “local judges” as Trump calls them, keep enjoining Musk’s every move just because they violate law, the Constitution and basic logic, the Republicans need some way to keep these “radical left lunatics” in line.

The Speaker’s comments come as President Trump has called to impeach at least one district judge, James Boasberg, who issued a nationwide injunction to block his administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants. Several House Republicans have introduced articles of impeachment against Boasberg and other district judges who have blocked Trump administration actions through nationwide injunctions.

No president has ever called for the impeachment of a judge because the judge ruled against him, but no president has done what Trump has done or behaved as Trump behaved. But since impeachment is a non-starter, and neither Trump nor his minions are willing to accept the premise that the judiciary is a co-equal branch of government, they need to come up with some way to crush these nasty judges or they will be left with no prospect other than to just tell them to enforce their own orders.

Johnson said that change would be “a dramatic improvement” of the federal court system, calling the historical increase in district judges issuing nationwide injunctions “out of the norm.”

“It is a dangerous trend and it violates justice under law, that critical principle. It violates our system itself. It violates separation of powers when a judge thinks that they can enjoin something that a president is doing, that the American people voted for. That is not what the founders intended,” Johnson said. “So, there’s a natural tension between the branches of the government, and we’re working through that.”

If you look closely, you can see that the spin being used is is to shift the blame for violating the separation of powers from Trump for ruling by Executive Order, dismissing law and the Constitution when it stands in his way, to the judiciary for refusing to play along.

It’s true that universal injunctions are “out of the norm” for district court judges, who traditionally limit their rulings to the named parties in the action.  Then again, it’s also true that it’s “out of the norm” for a president to try to reinvent the Constitution by Executive Order, whether it’s to end birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment or to engage in extraordinary rendition without either due process or a war to justify invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.

And the idea of eliminating offending inferior courts is but one of the imaginative proposals winding their way through the House.

Meanwhile, Republicans are plotting other ways to respond to the judges amid the calls for impeachment. The House is set to vote next week on the No Rogue Rulings Act, a bill led by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) that would limit the power of the nation’s nearly 700 district judges to impose nationwide injunctions.

Under the “leadership” of constitutional scholar Jim Jordan, the marked bill was sent from the Judiciary Committee to the House floor for a vote. Of course, if it passed, it would prevent judges from issuing universal injunctions against the improper acts of a Democratic president as well as Trump. But it has no chance of ever becoming law, and so it’s just another performance by the Republicans to pretend the United States still has a Congress.

Desperate times do, indeed, call for desperate measures, and this is a time that is nothing if not desperate. Then again, if Congress accomplishes nothing and is thrilled at the prospect of being nothing more than a rubber stamp for Trump, do we really need a speaker? Well, yes, but only because the Constitution says so.