[Vocabulary] The lawsuit comes after the Supreme Court, stacked 6-3 with conservative

[Saraj Zhou]

[FONT=&quot]The lawsuit comes after the Supreme Court, stacked 6-3 with conservative justices, last week refused to block the controversial abortion law from taking effect.[From CNBC]

What does "stack with" means in this sentence?

Thank you for your help in advance![/FONT]

 

[probus]

In this context stacked is pretty synonymous with packed.

 

[tedmc]

The lawsuit comes after the Supreme Court, stacked 6-3 with conservative justices, last week refused to block the controversial abortion law from taking effect.[From CNBC]

What does "stack with" mean in this sentence?

[STRIKE]Thank you for your help in advance![/STRIKE] Unnecessary. Click 'Thank' after you get a reply.

"Stacked 6-3 with conservative justices" means the court is dominated by conservative judges who outnumber the non-conservative ones by a majority (6 to 3). The former allowed the abortion law to take effect, a decision which is being contested.

 

[5jj]

In the sentence being discussed, stack carries these suggestions:

a: to arrange secretly for cheating
stack a deck of cards


b: to arrange or fix so as to make a particular result likely
the odds are stacked against us
will stack juries to suit themselves

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stack



The stacking of the Supreme Cour with conservative judges was not done in secret, but many people thought it was unfair.

 

[emsr2d2]

What does "stack with" [STRIKE]means[/STRIKE] mean in this sentence?

[STRIKE]Thank you for your help in advance![/STRIKE] Unnecessary. Thank us after we help you, by clicking the "Thank" button.

Please note my comments and corrections above. Also note that I have changed your thread title. Titles should be unique, relevant to the thread, and should include some/all of the words/phrases/sentences you are asking us about. Your actual question (in this case "What does "stack with" mean?") should appear only in the main body of the text.

 

[Tdol]

They have a big majority, and can afford to lose the odd vote.

 

[slevlife]

A couple of the answers here are accurate but incomplete, so I want to add more weight to 5jj's reply since it best explains the writer's choice of stacked vs other verbs they could have used. Stacked is not only telling us that the conservatives have a big majority and not only that that the court has been filled (a neutral verb) with conservatives by past Presidents, but it's also giving us a hint about how the author feels about the situation. They probably don't like it and/or think it's unfair.

One of the definitions of packed, an alternative that probus offered, is "to influence the composition of so as to bring about a desired result." That carries a lot of the same meaning as stacked (and "packing the court" is also an idiomatic phrase), but stacked goes further with the connotation that the court-packing was unfair (and in other contexts it could also have the meaning that the stacking was done in secret, as 5jj pointed out).