Harris , Gillibrand and Warren endorse packing the Supreme Court

[OSR stands with Israel]

Disgraceful in every way,

Mitch McConnell says hi.

Republicans are held to different standards.

It was bad but packing the court would mean the court would basically cease to even exist as that means every president will pack it

Who cares....the GOP has been tearing up the norms of American politics since the 80s and they've received no rebuke from the voters. They just keep getting rewarded for it with an ever expanding majority.

I dont see any reason why we have to keep going on with this charade of bipartisanship in which one party does whatever it wants and the other party apparently isnt allowed to do anything otherwise "they'll ruin the whole system."

This isnt about bipartisanship , this is about not destroying the court forever as every president then will just pack the court . 

[Landslide Lyndon]

By the way, anyone wants to guess which progressive candidate is opposed not only to packing SCOTUS but even to abolishing filibuster, which is the most serious roadblock to enacting progressive legislation?

It's Booker, isn't it?

Try harder.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Chickens coming home to roost may make for a great talking point, but the fact of the matter is that we are going to keep descending into the abyss of hell until someone takes a step back and says hey we need to come together and find a better way. The alternative will inevitably be civil war otherwise.

[President Johnson]

Court packing isn't happening, even if the Democrats win a trifecta and get rid of the filibuster. Even in a 51-49 Democratic senate, which is very optimistic, there aren't nearly enough lawmakers to support legislation to pack the court. Probably not even 40 senators would vote for this. It's an empty promise, nothing more than a talking point to fire up the base. Has nothing to do with reality, let's not kid ourselves.

As long as Trump doesn't get another appointment, the court can be taken back for a liberal majority. If the next Democratic president is a two termer, he or she likely gets to replace at least Clarence Thomas plus the Clinton appointees. That's a 5-4 liberal majority then. If Trump gets to replace RBG, good night. As much as I like her (and Breyer), she should have retired in 2013 or 2014 and let Barack Obama nominate successor while the senate was under Democratic control.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Good. As this idea gains prominence, it should become a litmus test issue for the Democratic nominee. Any Democrat who is serious about governing must back some form of court packing/SCOTUS reform.

[junior chįmp]

Disgraceful in every way,

Mitch McConnell says hi.

Republicans are held to different standards.

It was bad but packing the court would mean the court would basically cease to even exist as that means every president will pack it

Who cares....the GOP has been tearing up the norms of American politics since the 80s and they've received no rebuke from the voters. They just keep getting rewarded for it with an ever expanding majority.

I dont see any reason why we have to keep going on with this charade of bipartisanship in which one party does whatever it wants and the other party apparently isnt allowed to do anything otherwise "they'll ruin the whole system."

This isnt about bipartisanship , this is about not destroying the court forever as every president then will just pack the court . 

The court is already destroyed. We have a partisan right wing court hell bent on overturning precedent. Either way....i dont care about the consequences of packing the court. The GOP should of been thinking of that when it decided to engage in the behavior its been engaging in for the last 4 decades. Despite the garbage media's insistence in "muh both sides" are to blame....its mostly all the Republicans fault.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

By the way, anyone wants to guess which progressive candidate is opposed not only to packing SCOTUS but even to abolishing filibuster, which is the most serious roadblock to enacting progressive legislation?

It's Booker, isn't it?

Try harder.

It's Bernie... WHY? We can't pass SP without it! *facepalm

[PaperKooper]

If packing the Supreme Court is good, let's start right now. 

[Heebie Jeebie]

Time for a quick history lesson!

In 1858, Lincoln’s famous debates with Stephen Douglas turned on the Republican attack on judicial supremacy. Douglas, like other conservatives, accused Lincoln’s party of seeking “to destroy public confidence in the highest judicial tribunal on earth.”  Yet Lincoln persisted in rejecting judicial supremacy — and also the basic idea underlying it, that law somehow exists before or beyond politics, and thus it was illegitimate to resist the proslavery Court through popular antislavery mobilization.  https://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln3/1:30?rgn=div1;view=fulltext  Across the late 1850s, Lincoln argued that “the American people,” not the Supreme Court, were the true arbiters of the Constitution, and that the only way to defeat the proslavery judiciary was through mass political struggle.  https://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln3/1:137?rgn=div1;view=fulltext  After Lincoln and Hamlin were elected in 1860, the new president’s inaugural address articulated this view in perhaps the strongest language he ever used:

the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government, upon vital questions, affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties, in personal actions, the people will have ceased, to be their own rulers, having, to that extent, practically resigned their government, into the hands of that eminent tribunal.

Once in power, Lincoln and congressional Republicans “reorganized” the federal judiciary and “packed” the Court, adding an additional justice in 1863. More fundamentally, though, they simply ignored the proslavery precedents established in the 1850s.  Drawing direct “lessons from history” is a fool’s errand, but at least this should remind us that judicial power — however grandly it may be imagined by friends and foes alike — is critically dependent on political currents.

All this comes from a series of tweets from historian Matt Karp.  https://twitter.com/karpmj/status/1054749247717994496

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

Packing the courts regardless who does it is dumb. We already have a hyper partisan court and just packing it will continue it's drift to being the 3rd political arm. For the last 70 years this court has become such a partisan issue it's not even funny anymore.

[Hammy]

Packing the courts regardless who does it is dumb. We already have a hyper partisan court and just packing it will continue it's drift to being the 3rd political arm. For the last 70 years this court has become such a partisan issue it's not even funny anymore.

Not only that, it would open up the likelihood that every president would just add justices, and we'd see just about every court case reversed and restored practically every time the presidency changes.

[Heebie Jeebie]

Packing the courts regardless who does it is dumb. We already have a hyper partisan court and just packing it will continue it's drift to being the 3rd political arm. For the last 70 years this court has become such a partisan issue it's not even funny anymore.

Not only that, it would open up the likelihood that every president would just add justices, and we'd see just about every court case reversed and restored practically every time the presidency changes.

That would be better than the current state of affairs.

[Galeel]

What is to stop the Republicans from packing the courts after the Democrats lose an election, if the Democrats do it? Why even have a supreme court at that point?

[Beet]

The courts shouldn't be packed. They should be reformed with the help of anyone-- Republican, Democrat, or independent still willing to put country before party. They should be returned to nonpartisan bodies where activists in both parties are unsure how to feel about any particular judge & are not invested in their continuation or retirement.

If that can't be done, they should be packed.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

> Cites a threat of eventual Civil War from court packing
> Is responded to with an example from the Civil War

Someone didn't get the point.

[lfromnj]

Anyway the odds of actual court packing are almost nill.

I doubt Manchin/Sinema will agree to a court pack.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I would also note that Lincoln believed in reasonable restraint of the popular majority and I would also point out that he opposed the concept of Popular Sovereignty as espoused by Douglas and Lewis Cass, which in an of itself was both arbitrary and also undermined the the legitimacy of the court.

I would also point out that both in the examples of Indian Removal, where the Supreme Court was ignored by the President and in Dred Scott where the executive branch meddled in the judiciary branch and the result was a ruling that ignored both history and precedent, were examples of the Supreme Court being corrupted by both politics and the bias of a given era.

And Lincoln did not ignore those precedents, hence why he pushed for the adoption of the 13th Amendment, because he knew a court could overturn the Emancipation Proclamation after the war.

 

[Heebie Jeebie]

What is to stop the Republicans from packing the courts after the Democrats lose an election, if the Democrats do it? Why even have a supreme court at that point?

The Supreme Court should have the authority to decide particular cases, but not to settle larger political disputes over the meaning of the Constitution.  The roots of "judicial review,” as it's called, are not legal or constitutional but themselves political.  If we believe in democracy, the Court should be empowered to make decisions, but not make the law.

[Lechasseur]

Well that will spell the end of the Supreme Court as an independant judicial body. Guess what happens if the Democrats pack the courts? The GOP will pack the courts in their favour next time they hold the White House.

[Galeel]

What is to stop the Republicans from packing the courts after the Democrats lose an election, if the Democrats do it? Why even have a supreme court at that point?

The Supreme Court should have the authority to decide particular cases, but not to settle larger political disputes over the meaning of the Constitution.  The roots of "judicial review,” as it's called, are not legal or constitutional but themselves political.  If we believe in democracy, the Court should be empowered to make decisions, but not make the law.

I agree. The supreme court is far too powerful. I don't see how that is relevant to court packing, though.

[Heebie Jeebie]

What is to stop the Republicans from packing the courts after the Democrats lose an election, if the Democrats do it? Why even have a supreme court at that point?

The Supreme Court should have the authority to decide particular cases, but not to settle larger political disputes over the meaning of the Constitution.  The roots of "judicial review,” as it's called, are not legal or constitutional but themselves political.  If we believe in democracy, the Court should be empowered to make decisions, but not make the law.

I agree. The supreme court is far too powerful. I don't see how that is relevant to court packing, though.

Because if court packing is normalized, it adds democracy to our system and will actually serve to restrain judicial overreach.  If the composition of the Court might change every time a party gains control of both the presidency and the Senate (which happens, what, every ten years or so?), then for any given Court to make rulings with lasting impact it will have to pursue moderate, bipartisan consensus.  Under our current system, where one party can control the judiciary for a generation or more, there's really no incentive for restraint or moderation.

[Progressive Pessimist]

I guess this is becoming a more mainstream view within the Democratic Party. In theory, I support it, but it's an idea that will almost definitely backfire after awhile. We just need to accept that the Supreme Court and our process for appointing and approving Justices is forever tarnished. Thanks Mitch! I await the day when you're made into turtle soup.

[Horus]

Yet again Gillibrand shows herself to be the worst candidate. It's like she's focusing on all of the wrong things in the most obnoxious way.

[7,052,770]

There's a very easy compromise to avoid this. Gorsuch (or Kavanaugh) steps down and is replaced by Merrick Garland OR a different Democratic appointee if Republicans have a substantive reason to vote him down.

[Progressive Pessimist]

There's a very easy compromise to avoid this. Gorsuch (or Kavanaugh) steps down and is replaced by Merrick Garland OR a different Democratic appointee if Republicans have a substantive reason to vote him down.

That would be nice...but is even less likely than passing a constitutional amendment reforming the Supreme Court.