The fight to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg megathread

[Del Tachi]

Because you can do it, you should?

Yes.  That’s literally the justification for every political decision ever.

[Del Tachi]

It's astonishing how Trump has gotten the opportunity to choose a third of the Supreme Court in just one term. Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and now Barrett will probably be on the Court for at least another thirty years, long after Trump himself is gone and in the ground. The last President to have this many seats to fill in one term was Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Eisenhower's picks were disappointments to Eisenhower.

One of Eisenhower's picks was Charles Whittaker.  He never liked the job and he had a nervous breakdown in 1962, leading to his resignation and being succeeded by Byron White.  So he doesn't really count.  Whittaker was considered a failure as a Justice and was an erratic "swing" vote despite having solid conservative credentials. 

Whittaker is somewhat interesting in that he was the first person to serve as a judge on a federal district court, a federal court of appeals and the Supreme Court.  Those sorts of credentials are now pretty much expected for potential nominees.

[Del Tachi]

-snip-

Oh please, if you're going to ascribe partisan blame for the politicization of the Supreme Court, at least go back to the very beginning.  The Warren Court (1953-69) was easily the most activist in American history, and it usurped the legislative process to establish new, sweeping affirmative rights and severely limit State control of local political matters.  It was the Warren Court that ruled prayer and the teaching of creationism unconstitutional in public schools, gave blanket protections to obscene speech, prohibited states from regulating access to contraception and of course, fortified civil rights and rights for the criminally-accused.  Say whatever you want to about these cases on their merits, but these issues remain controversial political questions today (much less 50 years ago!)  Liberals began politicizing the Court when they started using judicial review as a blunt instrument to cut citizens and legislatures out of the political process.   
 
Of course, as William F. Buckley, Jr. said best, the job of the conservative is "to stand athwart history and yell stop!"  There was new, conservative (neoconservative?) reaction to the Warren Court.  In1968, Richard Nixon explicitly campaigned and was elected on a promise to appoint strict constructionists.  After having two of his nominees rejected in 1969-70 by a liberal majority in the Senate (first time that had happened since 1894!), conservative William Rehnquist was confirmed by one of the narrowest margins in American history to date.  The Federalist Society was founded as an "alternative legal elite" in 1982.  It's no surprise that liberals sank the nomination of Robert Bork in 1987 - the same year the U.S. Senate allowed television cameras into its proceedings and Ted Kennedy delivered a fiery speech impugning Bork's character by calling him a segregationist and misogynist.  Clarence Thomas' 1991 confirmation is the most recent time a Senate controlled by an opposition party has approved a President's nominee.  Liberals made a fuss in each of these occasions because they feared losing the political power the Warren Court's jurisprudence had given them.   

[Del Tachi]

^^^ TBF  the court has been plenty politicized before especially with the Lochner area striking down many New Deal regulations, however FDR did get to appoint all 9 justices which was effectively a reset on the court in his favor(he did win 4 elections in landslides to his credit)

Which is really just great evidence that these things ebb and flow; liberal jurisprudence is en vogue for a while then there's a conservative reaction, and then a liberal reaction a few decades later...there will one day again be a liberal court, and it won't take court packing.

[Del Tachi]

-snip-

Oh please, if you're going to ascribe partisan blame for the politicization of the Supreme Court, at least go back to the very beginning.  The Warren Court (1953-69) was easily the most activist in American history, and it usurped the legislative process to establish new, sweeping affirmative rights and severely limit State control of local political matters.  It was the Warren Court that ruled prayer and the teaching of creationism unconstitutional in public schools, gave blanket protections to obscene speech, prohibited states from regulating access to contraception and of course, fortified civil rights and rights for the criminally-accused.  Say whatever you want to about these cases on their merits, but these issues remain controversial political questions today (much less 50 years ago!)  Liberals began politicizing the Court when they started using judicial review as a blunt instrument to cut citizens and legislatures out of the political process.   
 
Of course, as William F. Buckley, Jr. said best, the job of the conservative is "to stand athwart history and yell stop!"  There was new, conservative (neoconservative?) reaction to the Warren Court.  In1968, Richard Nixon explicitly campaigned and was elected on a promise to appoint strict constructionists.  After having two of his nominees rejected in 1969-70 by a liberal majority in the Senate (first time that had happened since 1894!), conservative William Rehnquist was confirmed by one of the narrowest margins in American history to date.  The Federalist Society was founded as an "alternative legal elite" in 1982.  It's no surprise that liberals sank the nomination of Robert Bork in 1987 - the same year the U.S. Senate allowed television cameras into its proceedings and Ted Kennedy delivered a fiery speech impugning Bork's character by calling him a segregationist and misogynist.  Clarence Thomas' 1991 confirmation is the most recent time a Senate controlled by an opposition party has approved a President's nominee.  Liberals made a fuss in each of these occasions because they feared losing the political power the Warren Court's jurisprudence had given them.   

Are you so partisan that you don’t realize how teaching creationism in PUBLIC schools blatantly violates separation of church and state?

See, you're playing around using understandings and definitions of these concepts that weren't really in use before the Warren Court handed down Epperson.  What "separation of Church and State" means is not immutably etched into the Constitution.  The Warren Court established sweeping, new understandings of this term and several others which 1) should have more naturally be made through the democratic process and 2) put us on the irreparable path to a hyper-politicized the Court.