Biden Launches Commission to Look at Supreme Court Reform (1 Viewer)

[Mr. Blue Sky]

I say pack it, stack it, shellack it, tallywhack it... As Moscow Mitch McConnell has proven with his actions re the SCOTUS over the last few years, there are no rules.

Biden launches 'court-packing' commission

President Joe Biden established a presidential commission to examine expanding the Supreme Court, a demand liberals made of him during the presidential campaign.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[MT15]

This is a good point.

 

[SaintForLife]

This is a good point.

I'm not sure why we should listen to the neocon at the AEI who has tried to rebrand himself as a liberal authority. He was a vocal supporter or the War on Terror and now he wants a new domestic war on terror. You probably should take a closer look at your Twitter feed.

 

[Xeno]

I'm not sure why we should listen to the neocon at the AEI who has tried to rebrand himself as a liberal authority. He was a vocal supporter or the War on Terror and now he wants a new domestic war on terror. You probably should take a closer look at your Twitter feed.

Yeah, it's not like white supremacists have been responsible for more terror attacks in the US since 9/11 than any other group in the history of the nation.

Oh wait...

 

[SaintForLife]

Yeah, it's not like white supremacists have been responsible for more terror attacks in the US since 9/11 than any other group in the history of the nation.

Oh wait...

We already have existing terrorism laws that are sufficient.

Indeed, FBI policy instructs agents to open a parallel “domestic terrorism” investigation whenever a suspect in a hate crimes investigation “has a nexus to any type of white supremacist extremist group.”

...While a handful of federal statutes apply only to foreign terrorist organizations and acts of transnational terrorism, the government needs no new authority to properly respond to domestic terrorism. Congress has already provided powerful tools that give prosecutors multiple options.

For example, 18 U.S.C. § 2332A prohibits material support for acts of terrorism in both domestic and international cases. Contrary to McCord’s argument, it is a domestic terrorism statute. It further references 57 different federal criminal statutes that the code calls “federal crimes of terrorism.” Fifty-one of them apply to cases the federal government designates “domestic terrorism.” Suggesting that these 51 “federal crimes of terrorism” are not sufficient because they don’t explicitly use the word “domestic” in their titles hardly justifies passing a new law that would expand the government’s already-broad prosecutorial powers. It is hard to see how a 52nd domestic terrorism law would make the difference McCord suggests.

Why New Laws Aren’t Needed to Take Domestic Terrorism More Seriously

The government already has plenty of tools to address far-right violence, but not the right priorities.

www.brennancenter.org

 

[Taurus]

We already have existing terrorism laws that are sufficient.

Indeed, FBI policy instructs agents to open a parallel “domestic terrorism” investigation whenever a suspect in a hate crimes investigation “has a nexus to any type of white supremacist extremist group.”

...While a handful of federal statutes apply only to foreign terrorist organizations and acts of transnational terrorism, the government needs no new authority to properly respond to domestic terrorism. Congress has already provided powerful tools that give prosecutors multiple options.

For example, 18 U.S.C. § 2332A prohibits material support for acts of terrorism in both domestic and international cases. Contrary to McCord’s argument, it is a domestic terrorism statute. It further references 57 different federal criminal statutes that the code calls “federal crimes of terrorism.” Fifty-one of them apply to cases the federal government designates “domestic terrorism.” Suggesting that these 51 “federal crimes of terrorism” are not sufficient because they don’t explicitly use the word “domestic” in their titles hardly justifies passing a new law that would expand the government’s already-broad prosecutorial powers. It is hard to see how a 52nd domestic terrorism law would make the difference McCord suggests.

Why New Laws Aren’t Needed to Take Domestic Terrorism More Seriously

The government already has plenty of tools to address far-right violence, but not the right priorities.

www.brennancenter.org

Well, yeah. We just needed some people at the top to acknowledge that white people can be terrorists. White Americans, I mean. I suppose they've always considered the IRA to be terrorists.

 

[Xeno]

We already have existing terrorism laws that are sufficient.

Indeed, FBI policy instructs agents to open a parallel “domestic terrorism” investigation whenever a suspect in a hate crimes investigation “has a nexus to any type of white supremacist extremist group.”

...While a handful of federal statutes apply only to foreign terrorist organizations and acts of transnational terrorism, the government needs no new authority to properly respond to domestic terrorism. Congress has already provided powerful tools that give prosecutors multiple options.

For example, 18 U.S.C. § 2332A prohibits material support for acts of terrorism in both domestic and international cases. Contrary to McCord’s argument, it is a domestic terrorism statute. It further references 57 different federal criminal statutes that the code calls “federal crimes of terrorism.” Fifty-one of them apply to cases the federal government designates “domestic terrorism.” Suggesting that these 51 “federal crimes of terrorism” are not sufficient because they don’t explicitly use the word “domestic” in their titles hardly justifies passing a new law that would expand the government’s already-broad prosecutorial powers. It is hard to see how a 52nd domestic terrorism law would make the difference McCord suggests.

Why New Laws Aren’t Needed to Take Domestic Terrorism More Seriously

The government already has plenty of tools to address far-right violence, but not the right priorities.

www.brennancenter.org

Except that not having laws specifically aimed at domestic terrorism precludes groups like the KKK being designated as terrorist organizations, opening the door for defendants from these organizations to skirt by on a technicality if their crimes are charged as terrorist activity. The law is funny like that. Specificity is absolutely necessary.

Also, investigative policy =/= prosecutorial authority.

 

[zztop]

Off topic, but one of the Brandons needs to change their handle to something different.

ETA: Yall both joined here on the same day?? What are these shenanigans??? Whomever joined the SR site last needs to change their handle.

I want to know what happened to Brandon 2-12

 

[cuddlemonkey]

I want to know what happened to Brandon 2-12

They disappeared on their own with no shutdown and no vaccine needed.

 

[Booker]

I want to know what happened to Brandon 2-12

It took a little while to perfect the cloning process...

 

[samiam5211]

Except that not having laws specifically aimed at domestic terrorism precludes groups like the KKK being designated as terrorist organizations, opening the door for defendants from these organizations to skirt by on a technicality if their crimes are charged as terrorist activity. The law is funny like that. Specificity is absolutely necessary.

Also, investigative policy =/= prosecutorial authority.

It’s really hard to have a law that does that without violating freedom of assembly.

Even if a group of KKK members committed an act of terrorism, the KKK members who had nothing to do with it and no knowledge of it cannot be penalized or deprived of their first amendment rights.

 

[SaulGoodmanEsq]

There's really no good (neutral) argument for expansion of the Court. I've seen some people say that more Justices would increase its ability to hear more cases but that's not really true. The same panel of Justices has to hear the same cases, it's not like the courts of appeal where more judges = more potential panels of three to hear appeals. Aligning it with the total number of circuits doesn't really offer anything, either.

The proposed legislation to expand the Court is beyond horrible and I have no idea what Markey and Nadler are thinking.

 

[DaveXA]

There's really no good (neutral) argument for expansion of the Court. I've seen some people say that more Justices would increase its ability to hear more cases but that's not really true. The same panel of Justices has to hear the same cases, it's not like the courts of appeal where more judges = more potential panels of three to hear appeals. Aligning it with the total number of circuits doesn't really offer anything, either.

The proposed legislation to expand the Court is beyond horrible and I have no idea what Markey and Nadler are thinking.

Other than naked politics, I don't see any legitimate reason for tinkering with the number of justices either. And ultimately, it's 2022 electioneering. Low hanging fruit and all that.

 

[SaulGoodmanEsq]

What I don't get is that it's far more damaging of an issue for Democrats to have floating around out there so why introduce it especially when you know it has no chance at passage? It's like Markey and Nadler got together and brainstormed ideas of how they could ensure Democrats have no chance of picking up Senate seats in Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.

 

[JRad]

What I don't get is that it's far more damaging of an issue for Democrats to have floating around out there so why introduce it especially when you know it has no chance at passage?

Am I crazy for floating the idea it’s being introduced specifically to be shot down?

 

[MT15]

The one proposal I saw included breaking the SC into panels. Say, three panels of 5 justices, who would each take on a slate of cases. That’s what I meant by making it more efficient to have more justices. Now, I will freely admit there’s a lot of nitty gritty detail to be worked out for that and I’m not in the weeds on this, like, at all, lol. And I do realize that the current proposal doesn’t include that part.

I did read, though, that the number of SC justices has, in the past, been tied to the number of federal circuits, and that we have fallen behind in this, in that there are now more federal circuits than SC justices. And since there are 12 circuits, there would need to be 13 SC justices to keep it an uneven number.

 

[Taurus]

The one proposal I saw included breaking the SC into panels. Say, three panels of 5 justices, who would each take on a slate of cases. That’s what I meant by making it more efficient to have more justices. Now, I will freely admit there’s a lot of nitty gritty detail to be worked out for that and I’m not in the weeds on this, like, at all, lol. And I do realize that the current proposal doesn’t include that part.

I did read, though, that the number of SC justices has, in the past, been tied to the number of federal circuits, and that we have fallen behind in this, in that there are now more federal circuits than SC justices. And since there are 12 circuits, there would need to be 13 SC justices to keep it an uneven number.

It's like with electors and congressmen, at some point we took a system that was tied to a proportional number (federal court circuits, population) and decided to fix it in place. Why'd we do it and what's keeping us from fixing it?