The fight to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg megathread

[lfromnj]

Grassley is old and its probably his last term but his grandson his speaker of the house in iowa.

[lfromnj]

https://law.marquette.edu/poll/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/MLSPSC02Toplines_RGB.html#q33:_lack_of_hearings_for_merrick_garland
Marquette poll.

Q33: lack of hearings for Merrick Garland
In February 2016, following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that the Senate... Was not holding a hearing on the nomination the right thing or the wrong thing to do?
Frequency   Percent   Valid Percent   Cumulative Percent
Right thing to do   388   25   25   25
Wrong thing to do   1118   73   73   99
SKIPPED ON WEB   17   1   1   100
Q34: hypothetical 2020 vacancy
If there is a vacancy on the Supreme Court during the 2020 presidential election year and President Trump nominates someone what should the Senate do?
Frequency   Percent   Valid Percent   Cumulative Percent
Hold hearings   1024   67   67   67
Not hold hearings   488   32   32   99
SKIPPED ON WEB   11   1   1   100

[lfromnj]

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=356452.0

I voted on this poll HI because I think it required you to vote to see but anyway most of you dems already supported court packing in January. Whatever, Im pretty sure the D base would have pushed for court packing from the beginning with or without a 3rd pick.

[lfromnj]

I side with Obama.

Obama's stance:

"When there is a vacancy on the SCOTUS, the President is to nominate someone, the Senate is to consider that nomination... There's no unwritten law that says that it can only be done on off-years. That's not in the Constitution text.".

Obviously we all would too if McConnell and the Republicans hadn't set a new precedent in 2016.

If Garland had taken Scalia's seat, none of us here would be making demands that Trump not fill the seat. We'd be stewing about how unlucky it was, but we at least try to govern with a sense of fairness.

Wait do you think Garland 100% had to get the seat or just his hearing and then if the senate denied him the seat. Would it be fine in the 2nd scenario ?
I agree Garland deserved a hearing but he did not deserve a seat just because Obama was president.

[lfromnj]

Her seat doesn't belong to her anymore. It belongs to the American people who voted for a Republican Senate in 2018 to confirm whatever nominee Trump puts forward.

Republicans set the precedent: no confirmations in an election year, full stop.

Democrats didn’t have control of the senate when Obama was in office

So if the President is a Republican, the Democrats control the senate, and there is a vacancy in the Supreme Court, are you saying that the Democrats should hold up the nomination indefinitely?

No, the right thing to do is give the judge a hearing for basic respect and then reject them if you believe they will not follow the constitution according to your rules.

[lfromnj]

Impeach a lame duck? Also, why not impeach him now?

The point is impeachment proceedings have to be taken up in the senate, so it could delay the confirmation vote.

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/MikeShepard4/status/1308155299736547330

It would be an insult for RBG to be replaced by Amy Coney Barrett.

Maybe she should have retired in 2014.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-ginsburg/u-s-justice-ginsburg-hits-back-at-liberals-who-want-her-to-retire-idUSKBN0G12V020140801

So you could have whined about how awful Obama's replacement would have been?

Interesting point. Has any Supreme Court Justice ever resigned for political convenience in terms of timing of their replacement?

I would have thought that most human beings would hold the job until death as their ego would be a self-serving feedback loop that they could not break.

If someone offered me a geophysicist job for life, I would take it until the grave unless i became incapable of doing the job.

Kennedy, Stevens, Souter, Blackmun, White, Stewart, etc.

In fact, the last 4 retirements (O' Connor, Souter, Steves, and Kennedy) have all been in the first 2 years of a term under a President that they felt closer to ideologically and a Senate of the same party.

And White was him remaining loyal to the Democrats although he was more on the conservative side of the court in many social issues and civil rights. However he was still a New Dealer.

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/ColumbiaBugle/status/1308219073927413761

[lfromnj]

It's true that Schumer would have blocked a bush appointment in 2008, It's true that if Romney won the presidential election in 2012, dems would have blocked a nominee from him in 2016, and it's true that dems would be appointing a judge right now if we had President Hillary Clinton and Ginsburg somehow didn't retire right away in 2017.

Any evidence whatsoever behind any of those claims?

 Seriously dude, both sides ism is the most intellectually lazy form of argument if you can't back it up with specifics.

https://www.politico.com/story/2007/07/schumer-to-fight-new-bush-high-court-picks-005146

I see little reason to believe Schumer would have had a sudden change of heart in 2016 or 2020 if power was his.

New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a powerful member of the Democratic leadership, said Friday the Senate should not confirm another U.S. Supreme Court nominee under President Bush “except in extraordinary circumstances.”

“We should reverse the presumption of confirmation,” Schumer told the American Constitution Society convention in Washington. “The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts, or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito.”

Wait both parties are hypocritical and keep switching their position except the GOP got lucky with the timing?

[lfromnj]

This is an historic moment. If confirmed, Barrett will be the only SCOTUS judge without a degree from Harvard/Yale

Hey Trump is following a SCOTUS judges wish . Scalia's to be specific

[lfromnj]

In a shock to absolutely no one, Amy Coney Barrett is a hypocrite.

https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1308880483997151237

What did she say here? She is mostly commenting on the situation as far as I can tell. She said the president has the power to nominate and the senate has the power to act on it. That has happened in both situations, the difference is which way the senate chose to act.

[lfromnj]

Anyone think Roberts could say the heck with it and retire under Biden if the other conservatives start going around him with a bunch of sweeping 5/4 decisions the next 2 terms?

I said thats a possibility if court packing gets really aggressive. Roberts however would until he retires go with 6-3 decisions IMO. Having ACB being the swing vote would really piss D's off.

[lfromnj]

Anyone think Roberts could say the heck with it and retire under Biden if the other conservatives start going around him with a bunch of sweeping 5/4 decisions the next 2 terms?

I said thats a possibility if court packing gets really aggressive. Roberts however would until he retires go with 6-3 decisions IMO. Having ACB being the swing vote would really piss D's off.

I think the new swing vote will be Gorsuch or Kavanaugh depending on the casem not ACB?  Gorsuch is open to textualist decisions that move the law to the left (Bostock, McGirt, etc.), and while Kavanaugh almost always comes down on the conservative side, he likes to rule in the narrowest way possible.  The one place ACB's vote could be decisive is the constitutionality of COVID restrictions.  She joined some circuit court opinions this spring that were very deferential to the state public health authorities.

Sorry should not have said ACB as the swing vote but rather the 5th vote for any case. If that happens it would be more likely to ruin the court than Roberts being a loyalist atleast from Robert's point of view.

[lfromnj]

For those unfamiliar, MEK is a celibacy cult of Iranian exiles based in Albania known for their sophisticated information operations that make up probably 90+% of anti-Iranian regime posts on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/John_Hudson/status/1311071847107223557

Barrett wrote that she was one of five lawyers on a team that represented the National Council of Resistance of Iran and its U.S. representative office from 2000 to 2001 in their petition to review the State Department’s foreign-terrorist-organization designation.

The NCRI is affiliated with the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), a onetime militant group comprising Iranian exiles who oppose Iran’s clerical regime. The Obama administration removed the group from the U.S. government’s list of terrorist organizations in 2012. The MEK has faced accusations of cultlike practices, which the organization has disputed as smears.

...

The MEK formed as a militant group in opposition to Iran’s monarchy but was forced into exile after the 1979 revolution that toppled the shah. The State Department designated the MEK as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997, citing its involvement in the killing of Americans in Iran during the 1970s. The department, which also cited a 1992 incident in which five men with knives invaded the Iranian mission to the United Nations in New York, said the NCRI “functioned as part of the MEK” and “supported the MEK’s acts of terrorism.”

So she worked at a law firm and was given a task ?

[lfromnj]

I pitched this idea in a different thread but is it possible Dems if they get a big enough trifecta ca. amend the constitution that the Supreme Court membership can’t go pass the amount of numbered circuit courts as was originally tradition so after Puerto Rico and DC get state hoods we get 3 new judges for the Supreme Court to make up for Mitch’s garbage while also making a tit for tat on SC size harder?

To amend the Constitution you need 2/3rd of the House and Senate... and adoption of 2/3 of the states. So the Dems would need 66 seats in the senate (more if states are added) That isn't happening  this cycle even if the Democrats win all the competitive states and add two more states.  Also that wouldn't accomplish anything as the GOP could take power and expand the number of circut courts

Not only that but 3/4 of state legislatures. The only way to amend the constitution is through bipartisan compromise.

[lfromnj]

If Pence is acting president can he still tie break or does that go to Pelosi?

[lfromnj]

You would need >3 covid positive senators anyway., Any GOP defections would just abstain to vote match like Murkowski did with Kavanaugh.

[lfromnj]

Unanimous decision btw although one by a senior Reagan judge and the other also a  Reagan Judge. Never realized how many R appointed judges are on the 7th fwiw. Why not actually read through the full opinion and facts of the case which these 3 judges actually did?
https://tinyurl.com/y5bck47d

According to the Department, Smith was far from a model employee.  Early  in  his  training,  one  of  his  supervisors  re-ported that he challenged the instructions that he was given, which created a “serious issue” for his training and develop-ment. Another supervisor said that Smith regularly “fail[ed] to  remember  info”  and  “ha[d]  a  very  hard  time  following  basic   instructions.”   Particularly   troubling,   however,   was   Smith’s  record  of  unsafe  conduct.  Once,  while  driving  in  an  express  lane  with  Marcello  Valle,  one  of  his  supervisors,  Smith approached a place where the lanes divided. Valle told him  to  pick  a  lane;  instead,  Smith  stopped  short  in  traffic—only thirty feet from the concrete pillar dividing the lanes. On another  occasion,  Smith  drove  away  from  a  gas  pump  with  the nozzle still inserted in the truck

On  January  3,  2014,  the  Department  sent  Smith  a  “State-ment of Charges,” which sought to fire him on the ground of his  unsatisfactory  work  performance.  On  January  16,  Smith  had  a  run-in  with  Colbert,  who  had  recently  learned  that  Smith had charged him, along with other supervisors, of ra-cial  discrimination  and  retaliation.  According  to  Smith,  Col-bert, who was also black, was “very angry” and made several confrontational  remarks:  that  there  would  be  “eighty-one  of  us  against  one  of  you  when  we  go  to  trial”;  that  Smith  was  going to lose everything that he owned, including his house and car; and that he was a “stupid ass ni[].”

There we go the supervisor was also black, it doesn't fully defend the claim of racial discrimination but it does give significant evidence that well perhaps it wasn't racial discrimination but just that Smith was a sh*t employee?

Other supervisors did use profanity against especially when he did stupid sh*t as outlined above and although that could be considered fireable in a workplace it does not amount to racial discrimination and that is an issue for the City of Chicago to solve.

[lfromnj]

https://wgme.com/news/local/sen-collins-confirms-she-will-vote-against-judge-coney-barrett


Collins a no vote.

[lfromnj]

Unanimous decision btw although one by a senior Reagan judge and the other also a  Reagan Judge. Never realized how many R appointed judges are on the 7th fwiw. Why not actually read through the full opinion and facts of the case which these 3 judges actually did?
https://tinyurl.com/y5bck47d

According to the Department, Smith was far from a model employee.  Early  in  his  training,  one  of  his  supervisors  re-ported that he challenged the instructions that he was given, which created a “serious issue” for his training and develop-ment. Another supervisor said that Smith regularly “fail[ed] to  remember  info”  and  “ha[d]  a  very  hard  time  following  basic   instructions.”   Particularly   troubling,   however,   was   Smith’s  record  of  unsafe  conduct.  Once,  while  driving  in  an  express  lane  with  Marcello  Valle,  one  of  his  supervisors,  Smith approached a place where the lanes divided. Valle told him  to  pick  a  lane;  instead,  Smith  stopped  short  in  traffic—only thirty feet from the concrete pillar dividing the lanes. On another  occasion,  Smith  drove  away  from  a  gas  pump  with  the nozzle still inserted in the truck

On  January  3,  2014,  the  Department  sent  Smith  a  “State-ment of Charges,” which sought to fire him on the ground of his  unsatisfactory  work  performance.  On  January  16,  Smith  had  a  run-in  with  Colbert,  who  had  recently  learned  that  Smith had charged him, along with other supervisors, of ra-cial  discrimination  and  retaliation.  According  to  Smith,  Col-bert, who was also black, was “very angry” and made several confrontational  remarks:  that  there  would  be  “eighty-one  of  us  against  one  of  you  when  we  go  to  trial”;  that  Smith  was  going to lose everything that he owned, including his house and car; and that he was a “stupid ass ni[].”

There we go the supervisor was also black, it doesn't fully defend the claim of racial discrimination but it does give significant evidence that well perhaps it wasn't racial discrimination but just that Smith was a sh*t employee?

Other supervisors did use profanity against especially when he did stupid sh*t as outlined above and although that could be considered fireable in a workplace it does not amount to racial discrimination and that is an issue for the City of Chicago to solve.

That will not be reassuring to black workers who get called the n word by white supervisors, because she explicitly put it in her ruling that being called that epithet by your employer does not change your subjective experience in the workplace. Had she said this only applied when the supervisor was black, that would have been one thing, but she didn't. Her defenders are making up arguments that she didn't use to try and justify her reasoning.

Also, when did you become a Tiki Torcher? You used to be a reasonable libertarian.

The point was this case was specific, there wasn't any broad ruling here, it was just a narrow ruling based on specific instances that happened here. Overall the employee mostly just faced generic abuse for being a bad employee.

Click my signature for the second question.

[lfromnj]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NiPdd-bfNc

My sig.

Again if this case went to SCOTUS it would be about as precedent setting as the Colorado Bakery case.

[lfromnj]

If a justice comments on a hypothetical case that would become the issue, they need to stay focused on the real issues at hand. Only after confirmation should the justices tell the position.

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/SenatorRomney/status/1316850122089693184

Romney a Yes

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/JoshDorner/status/1318307358922149888

I think most people don't know what the ACA tax penalty is, they didn't know it in 2010.

It reads if you are on hardship and can't pay, you don't have to pay the penalty, and people on SSA are on Medicare and don't file taxes anyways.

ACB said she will svere out tax liability from the rest of the bill which she supportd.

Even if she dismantled ACA people have Medicaid under 20K to fall back on


As far as Roe, adoptions are getting more popular than abortions and we have contraceptives including condoms and Birth control pills. It's the 21st century

There would still be millions of people harmed by these rulings.

The ACA case supposedly has different legal principles than the first ruling that ACB criticized, but Roe V. Wade was a sound legal ruling and only if ACB personally opposes abortion (I.E if she legislates from the bench) could she overturn it.

Please show me where in the constitution there is a covering of abortion or even a general right to privacy?

[lfromnj]

The only question now is, will Biden add 2 or 4 seats?

6,no point adding 2 might as well shove all you can in.