Biden Launches Commission to Look at Supreme Court Reform (2 Viewers)

[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

 

[bdb13]

This all day long. Two changes to the filibuster: require senators to be present on the floor and actively engaging in the filibuster and change the votes needed for cloture from total senators to senators present. That leaves the filibuster in place while demanding active participation.

I like both of those, but also require that the senators doing the filibuster actually discuss the bill they are trying to stop. No more reading children‘s books on the Senate floor, who was that, Cruz?

Think I might be good with that. Seems like it could cut down on the chaos you'd have when control of the presidency and Congress turns over if you simply eliminated the filibuster.

I really don't understand packing the court. Republicans will eventually have control of the Senate, and presidency again. Does everyone arguing in favor on this believe Republicans won't pack the court themselves? The ACB confirmation was done in a Republican presidency with a Republican senate majority. I feel like the people who are in favor on this have convinced themselves of a stolen liberal SC majority.

I'd be alright adding up to two seats here, but no more. You're correct that even if Garland had been confirmed and everything else stayed the same, the Democrats still wouldn't have a majority now.. I think adding two seats and effectively making Roberts the swing vote again would be fair enough.

 

[Xeno]

I really don't understand packing the court. Republicans will eventually have control of the Senate, and presidency again. Does everyone arguing in favor on this believe Republicans won't pack the court themselves? The ACB confirmation was done in a Republican presidency with a Republican senate majority. I feel like the people who are in favor on this have convinced themselves of a stolen liberal SC majority.

Nothing in the constitution dictates how many SCOTUS justices there have to be. Pass legislation binding the number of justices to the number of federal circuits/appellate courts. Fill the four new seats with the youngest qualified judges you can find and dare the Republicans to try setting the number to something arbitrary so they can pack the court, because any other way of deciding how many justices there are would have no basis in precedent.

Think I might be good with that. Seems like it could cut down on the chaos you'd have when control of the presidency and Congress turns over if you simply eliminated the filibuster.

I'd be alright adding up to two seats here, but no more. You're correct that even if Garland had been confirmed and everything else stayed the same, the Democrats still wouldn't have a majority now.. I think adding two seats and effectively making Roberts to swing vote again would be fair enough.

Despite Roberts gutting the Voting Rights Act and making everything we're seeing now possible there have been many cases where he's gone against conservative dogma. A 4-4 split with Roberts being the swing vote would have a lot more legitimacy than what we have now.

Adding two seats is totally arbitrary. We have nine justices because it was decided we should have one for each federal circuit. There were nine at the time. There are twelve now. Thirteen is what's being floated because while we have twelve federal circuits we have thirteen appellate courts.

We have 150 years of precedent backing these numbers, but just like everything to do with the constitution we've let conservatives convince us over the last 75 years that it's a document written in stone that should never ever change.

 

[DaveXA]

This all day long. Two changes to the filibuster: require senators to be present on the floor and actively engaging in the filibuster and change the votes needed for cloture from total senators to senators present. That leaves the filibuster in place while demanding active participation.

That works for me.

 

[SaulGoodmanEsq]

The popular vote is currently irrelevant for our elections. Winning a presidential election doesn't guarantee the ability to appoint a SCOTUS.

Isn't this country just the worst? It's like our system of government was made up by a bunch of elitist farmers hundreds of years ago!

 

[RobF]

What stops the Republicans from adding 60 or 600 justices to the Supreme Court when they take over?

There isn’t an end point where we get to declare ourselves the winner.

Do you believe that the Republicans will never be in power again?

Arguably, the intention of the way justices are appointed is for the Court to be broadly balanced, if perhaps somewhat reflective of voters' political leanings over an extended period of time.

The goal of the game the Republicans are playing now isn't that, but it also isn't simply to have the Supreme Court lean their way politically while they're in power. It's to have the Supreme Court lean their way politically perpetually, whether they're in power or not.

The Republicans are currently achieving that by introducing a systemic bias towards their party by behaving unethically; e.g. stretching a principle beyond reason to block a nomination that should be appointed, while ignoring that same principle to rush the approval of a nomination who, by that principle, shouldn't be.

This relies on their opposition being unable or unwilling to counter that introduced systemic bias.

It is vital that does not happen. While, given the nature of the Court and its membership, it isn't easily swayed to the point of extreme partisanship (as desired by at least some significant part of the Republican party; it was evident that Trump had at least some expectation of the Supreme Court simply handing him the election despite his loss, and he was clearly unhappy that it didn't), if it's systemically pushed in that direction, it may eventually get there.

And that said, I would add that there is an end point where one party gets to effectively declare itself the winner, which is when a party succeeds in turning a nation into a one-party state.

The battle that's really being played is a battle of perception and framing. Fundamentally, the Republican goal is for their actions to be ideally seen as necessary and justifiable, or at least as inevitable and only to be accepted, by their supporters, while simultaneously framing Democratic efforts to counter them as not acceptable. That's where we are; the Republican party and its supporters are in a state where they will evidently accept the rules being cynically abused for their own ends, where at the same time, even the consideration of efforts as initiated by the Democratic party to address that abuse is being seen as 'the same thing' and not acceptable.

That's also what stops Republicans simply adding justices. It wouldn't achieve their goal; it would simply destabilise the entire process and force reform which they don't want.

But this is exactly what we get mad at Republicans for doing. Republicans do it with Democrats. They accuse Democrats of doing what they're already doing, so...Democrats do the same thing? Are you proposing that the Democrats just throw the rules out just because the Republicans are doing it? If neither side has any integrity left, then I'm simply not gonna have faith that our political system works, even a little bit. I'm not going to become the thing I despise. Sorry.

It's not the same thing. Even if, jumping quite a way ahead, and assuming it does result in being a "thing that changes the composition of the court", you could consider it the same sort of thing in that very broad sense, it's still fundamentally different, both in means and purpose.

The Republicans are cynically breaking the rules to skew the Supreme Court towards them politically.

Biden has created a bipartisan commission to "provide an analysis of the principal arguments in the contemporary public debate for and against Supreme Court reform." Even if we jump ahead and assume it does recommend reforms, given the nature and composition of the commission, these aren't going to be to cynically break the rules to systemically skew the Supreme Court the other way. They're far more likely to be measures to reform the Supreme Court to prevent it being skewed in such a manner. Which is, clearly, a different thing.

 

[brandon]

I really don't understand packing the court. Republicans will eventually have control of the Senate, and presidency again. Does everyone arguing in favor on this believe Republicans won't pack the court themselves? The ACB confirmation was done in a Republican presidency with a Republican senate majority. I feel like the people who are in favor on this have convinced themselves of a stolen liberal SC majority.

You assume that the Republicans wouldn’t find reason to pack the court with additional justices the next time they’re in power even if Democrats never do.

Why have a 6-3 majority when you can have a 9-3 majority?

 

[Mr. Blue Sky]

 

[samiam5211]

This isn’t going to help the infrastructure Bill get through the Senate, and it isn’t going to expand the Supreme Court.

The house Democrats should let the Democratic president’s process play out instead of giving the right a boogeyman to scare public opinion away from the important legislation.

 

[DaveXA]

This isn’t going to help the infrastructure Bill get through the Senate, and it isn’t going to expand the Supreme Court.

The house Democrats should let the Democratic president’s process play out instead of giving the right a boogeyman to scare public opinion away from the important legislation.

They can't help themselves. It's 2022 election fodder is all it is.

 

[samiam5211]

They can't help themselves. It's 2022 election fodder is all it is.

For the extremists on both sides.

 

[DaveXA]

For the extremists on both sides.

For all of them, yes. Every last person running for office is going to have strong opinions on it.

 

[samiam5211]

So if they do decide to add, say 4 justices to give a total of 13, they should at least roll it out over time. Maybe add one every two years for the next 8.

At least that way, it can't be painted as a liberal takeover of the court. I'm sure the liberals would hate that idea, but if their reasons for expansion are legitimate, and not just an attempt to swing the balance of the court, they should support it.

 

[Mr. Blue Sky]

So if they do decide to add, say 4 justices to give a total of 13, they should at least roll it out over time. Maybe add one every two years for the next 8.

At least that way, it can't be painted as a liberal takeover of the court. I'm sure the liberals would hate that idea, but if their reasons for expansion are legitimate, and not just an attempt to swing the balance of the court, they should support it.

When are some of you going to understand that anything Biden and the Democrats attempt to do WILL BE PAINTED AS A ‘LIBERAL TAKEOVER’ ??? I swear, it’s like some of y’all haven’t been paying attention to Trump, McConnell and all the rest of the assorted deviants and miscreants on the right over the past 10 or 15 years... They tried to paint Obama as a freaking Liberal, Obama was so centrist he was practically Reagan.... Jesus Christ, wake the **** up.

 

[samiam5211]

When are some of you going to understand that anything Biden and the Democrats attempt to do WILL BE PAINTED AS A ‘LIBERAL TAKEOVER’ ??? I swear, it’s like some of y’all haven’t been paying attention to Trump, McConnell and all the rest of the assorted deviants and miscreants on the right over the past 10 or 15 years... They tried to paint Obama as a freaking Liberal, Obama was so centrist he was practically Reagan.... Jesus Christ, wake the **** up.

Yea, they will try.

I will never support doing something just because the other side will do it if we don't. Anything we do, they can do worse the next time they have power anyway, unless you believe that the Republicans will never have control of the congress again. Which is a naïve position.

 

[DaveXA]

When are some of you going to understand that anything Biden and the Democrats attempt to do WILL BE PAINTED AS A ‘LIBERAL TAKEOVER’ ??? I swear, it’s like some of y’all haven’t been paying attention to Trump, McConnell and all the rest of the assorted deviants and miscreants on the right over the past 10 or 15 years... They tried to paint Obama as a freaking Liberal, Obama was so centrist he was practically Reagan.... Jesus Christ, wake the **** up.

This is all just par for the course. It's typical red meat politick.

 

[Mr. Blue Sky]

This is all just par for the course. It's typical red meat politick.

What does this post even mean, Dave? You might as well have just said ‘It is what it is’...

 

[SaintForLife]

Currently 6 conservative justices & 3 liberal justices.

Democrats adding 4 more justices:

7 liberal justices & 6 conservative justices is a liberal takeover of the court. How convenient that they want to add enough justices that would make it a liberal majority.

 

[bdb13]

When are some of you going to understand that anything Biden and the Democrats attempt to do WILL BE PAINTED AS A ‘LIBERAL TAKEOVER’ ??? I swear, it’s like some of y’all haven’t been paying attention to Trump, McConnell and all the rest of the assorted deviants and miscreants on the right over the past 10 or 15 years... They tried to paint Obama as a freaking Liberal, Obama was so centrist he was practically Reagan.... Jesus Christ, wake the **** up.

Yes they paint it way, and then the people in the middle who decide elections (Biden won moderates 54% to 41%) decide if that's true or not ... and then they vote. Obama won a second term while winning over a high percentage of moderates.

The parties aren't the arbiters. I personally don't like a push to add four more seats and while it's not a make or break thing for me, I get that it could be for other moderates because the "liberal takeover" or whatever arguments at that point are more legitimate and have more teeth.