U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Nino Edition

nothing i’ve seen since then belies it. it’s even weirdly admirable strictly from a technique/focus point of view

― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 22 September 2020 17:56 (twenty-five minutes ago) link

It's ruthless, and it won't end at the judiciary level.

Apparently even if House voted to impeach Barr, the Senate could delay the trial or do it simultaneously with a hearing on the Supreme Court nominee. Not sure what impact of a delay on the continuing resolution would do , or a government shutdown.

remember, Trump sees all Democrat power as illegitimate.

― frogbs, Tuesday, September 22, 2020 12:39 PM

Democratic, please. It makes me sad to see the contemptuous slur-version of the party's name gaining traction even among allies.

hear hear

sorry if this point has been made but I really don't see much comfort in the idea of packing the court, because when the republicans take office again they'll just re-pack the court again, and this could go on essentially forever given that roughly half of the country supports trump

well if we don't we'll have a 6-3 court for the foreseeable future, at least it buys us some time

The thing is people tend to LIKE things like free healthcare, rights, safety and shit like that. And once that stuff becomes codified into law it’s harder to get overturned (BC so many of these jags rule on precedent) so getting desired outcomes and having people get used to them means they’re less likely to get rolled back in the future. So yeah you stack the court to get as many good outcomes as you can and dare future administrations to try and get rid of them.

What concerns me is most is actually what seems like a lack of Democratic foresight on this issue -- why aren't we seeing bullshit foundations called "The Society for a More Representative Court" popping up making arguments about how the 9-justice court is no longer sufficient to a country of 300 million people or that it places way too much power in a single justice's hands, which is anti-democratic and contrary to the intentions of the founders. We should not be calling this "retribution" and using it as a (worthless) threat when we have no leverage, we should be creating a legitimizing groundwork for it.

So sure, future Hypotehtical R administrations go ahead and stack the court again. Have fun running on eliminating healthcare as the demographics shift away from you

katherine, I considered the possibility, but, at the risk of glibness, I don't care: these are the tools Democrats have, and I couldn't live with myself if I didn't encourage them to do it. I supported removing filibusters of every kind too.

It's possible the GOP will say, "Expand the court? OK. When we get the Senate and White House back, we'll expand it to forty members, nyaaah!" But we don't know. I do know an expanded court with a Democratic president and Senate will get the results we want.

If killing the filibuster additionally means a legit attempt at statehood for PR and DC, plus real electoral reform, we wouldn’t have to worry about an R senate for many, many years—esp. considering demographic trends. This is their last gasp.

Also yeah I’m totally in favor of having a 50 person SC.

The strongest argument for expanding the court IMO is that the death or retirement of a single justice doesn't radically swing the balance in any particular direction. Like why did so much have to rest on the head of one unwell octogenarian?

They are trying to wreck the place on their way out and need to be stopped by any means necessary.

xo otm it’s an absurd system

xp!

also hugs OL

And I mean...so goddamn much. The entire fabric of the country for the next several decades may wind up being completely different than it might have if RBG had survived until the Biden took office (god willing).

xp -- true (though from my understanding it can't possibly be done in time for the really big one, i.e., any potential supreme court cases about the election.)

not really convinced that an expanded court mitigates one justice retiring or dying, though. 100-99 is the same thing as 5-4 when it counts, the court is probably not getting less predictably partisan anytime soon, and you see the same kind of thing happen with, say, senators being absent or present

Wait, wouldn't a 49 member Supreme Court make more sense?

s/cases/decisions

yeah the way SC justices are doled out is insane and an easy system to game, all you have to do is convince your old folks to retire early and nominate young folks in their place

each president should get 2, end of story

also xp -- probably, the point is, you can still have a decision rest on one member no matter how many people you have

Sure, but governors can appoint senators and it happens w/out fuss b/c no legislative body confirmation is required.

The strongest argument for expanding the court IMO is that the death or retirement of a single justice doesn't radically swing the balance in any particular direction.

well now that it's going to be a 6-3 court that problem is obsolete

If you are packing the court, why would you make it slightly partisan? Make it 15-6 or gtfo. It's going to get challenged regardless, so might as well go large.

we got used to the 5-4 split, but it was a product of a regular flipping of the presidency between parties, and is finally being broken due to bad luck/selfishness

We also, thanks to the mythos propping up the Warren Court (which only became the liberal touchstone we remember in 1962 when Goldberg joined), tend to forget the Court has been a nightmare of revanchist counter-revolution for most of its existence.

exactly. It's designed that way and the fact that it ever wasn't was a historical anomaly.

a historical anomaly but one worth re-creating if possible, ASAP.

even if it weren't for McConnell's sinister godawful smug grinning bullshit actions, there would be something truly blood-boiling about Trump getting more justices in one term than Obama got in two. and, obviously, it's hard not to contemplate the alternate universe where 2016 went just slightly differently, and Clinton had gotten three picks. (haha obviously i know Mitch and Cruz and company would have just spent the past four years refusing to vote on them.) i mean this is just more evidence for "all of our rights and fates should probably not hinge on these nine people" but in the day-to-day living under that system it just eats away at you to contemplate it. we were in hindsight THIS close to a 6-3 court of Democratic appointees.

at this point all i can hope for, ghoulishly, is a Trump loss followed swiftly by the retirement/death of Thomas and, in some actuarial alignment, the comparatively spry Alito. also let's be real, the moment a passably liberal appointment can be assured, Stephen Breyer needs to to hang up his robe also. also fuck anthony kennedy forever for condemning the world to possible decades of Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh. in conclusion i'm so angry.

Stephen Breyer needs to to hang up his robe also

^^fucking this. like, immediately.

at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if Thomas bows out in Trump’s watch

(I don’t think it will happen, just that it would have zero shock value for me)

I assumed Thomas would resign this year as a fuck you to dems, but maybe not

xp -- I don't remember the Warren Court, the first very clear memory I have of a decision is Citizens United

(more pertinently, I don't remember a point in my lifetime where half the country -- realistically speaking, way more than half, and not just this country -- was not fundamentally selfish and cruel and compassionless, a mindset that naturally extends to court decisions)

sorry if this point has been made but I really don't see much comfort in the idea of packing the court, because when the republicans take office again they'll just re-pack the court again, and this could go on essentially forever given that roughly half of the country supports trump

― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Tuesday, September 22, 2020 1:51 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

IMO, part of the idea behind expanding the court would be to entrench power while we can and make it less likely for Republicans to gain power again unless they moderate. Trump is *not* supported by a majority of the country, but rulings by the Roberts court on things like campaign financing, voting rights, and gerrymandering have made it easier for Republicans to win elections.

otm

I think speculation about Thomas retiring strategically underestimates how much of a bona fide weirdo he is

my understanding of voting rights/gerrymandering is that a lot of the restrictions either flout SC rulings or rely on the fact that SC rulings will be handed down too late to count (more of an issue in a redistricting year)

the local/state restrictions that is

I can easily imagine Justice Thomas thinking "my millions of enemies would love nothing more than to see me off the court and I will never give them that satisfaction as long as I have breath in my body", then smiling at the thought.

Re Amy Coney Barrett -- I've always found it weirdly dissonant when a highly successful woman in a position of power appears to be in favor of female subservience. Is it a conservative elitist "those rules are really for the masses, not us" thing?

only the white kind of woman

lol she would have been a classmate of my ex-brother-in-law’s at Rhodes College, which is pretty small. I’d check and see if there’s any intel there but honestly that’s a hornets nest I’d rather not kick over. I suspect both he and my sister are secret (shy!) Trump voters this time around.

this is basically the federalist society https://t.co/HerGyZRSbU

— Republic City YIMBY ↙️↙️↙️😷 (@opinion_left) September 22, 2020

"The small-c conservatism that shaped Ginsburg’s public persona and decision-making could not be further out of step with the moment. Hope still exists, but it does not lie with the justices....Hope is in the streets." perfect from @onesarahjones https://t.co/jurwV6YqgN

— paris geller stan account (@tmavuram) September 24, 2020

once again - are SCOTUS justices SUPPOSED to be feminist activist heroes in their actual role? part of being a justice involves issuing rulings you don't necessarily agree with due to precedence/interpretation of law.

Is it?

I no longer think so. If the GOP nominates outright partisans, so should we.

Jurisrashness

If a belief in "originalism" affirms white male power before 1865, then we should make clear what "we" believe in.

Biden thinks a Dem partisan rules 'shoot him in the leg'