Red avatars only: Your opinion on Democratic court-packing

[Splash]

The thought that we're headed to a 6-3 conservative-controlled court when the Democratic candidate has won the popular vote in six of the last seven presidential elections just shows how fundamentally wrecked our system of government is at this point.

I fear the Democrats will be backed into packing the Court. We'll have no choice, but I am nominally more in favor of judicial term limits of 30 years, which would lead to Thomas being kicked off the Court in 2021 and Breyer retiring in 2024. That would at least restore us to a 5-4 conservative court. Maybe you could get GOP buy-in if term limits were also applied to the Circuit and/or District courts too since there would be a lot of Clinton-era judges who would then be term-limited in the next eight years. Haven't really thought the whole idea through though, however.

[The Dowager Mod]

I have no problem with it.

[OBD]

It's a terrible idea, but if Republicans pack the court more (i.e replace RBG and Breyer with conservatives) the unprecedented ideological imbalance could force the issue.

I am officially reversing myself. If RBG is replaced by Barrett or another Trump minion, court packing will become a necessity.

[lfromnj]

It's a terrible idea, but if Republicans pack the court more (i.e replace RBG and Breyer with conservatives) the unprecedented ideological imbalance could force the issue.

I am officially reversing myself. If RBG is replaced by Barrett or another Trump minion, court packing will become a necessity.

Even if trump wins the election ?

[VBM]

If Democrats try to do this I hope republicans obstruct that president at least 5 times more than they did to Obama


Also if any democrat runs on this is they win the nomination, I will drop my never Trumpism in a second and will vote to re-elect Trump as that Democrat will have proven that they totally hate democracy , and are a total threat to our constitution .

Court packing is neither anti-democratic nor anti-Constitution

[7,052,770]

This poll result proves that democrats wanted to pack the court even before now oh and if any of them is trying to question if this is really a redline for me , right here from the thread

If Democrats try to do this I hope republicans obstruct that president at least 5 times more than they did to Obama


Also if any democrat runs on this is they win the nomination, I will drop my never Trumpism in a second and will vote to re-elect Trump as that Democrat will have proven that they totally hate democracy , and are a total threat to our constitution .

Whether I go through with this or not depend on how democratic leadership handles this issue over the next few weeks

So you oppose how Republicans acted on the Scalia/Garland/Gorsuch issue, but less than you would oppose Democrats balancing it out by adding 2 justices, so much so that you'd flip from super anti-Trump to voting FOR Trump?

Sorry, that just doesn't make sense.

[OSR stands with Israel]

This poll result proves that democrats wanted to pack the court even before now oh and if any of them is trying to question if this is really a redline for me , right here from the thread

If Democrats try to do this I hope republicans obstruct that president at least 5 times more than they did to Obama


Also if any democrat runs on this is they win the nomination, I will drop my never Trumpism in a second and will vote to re-elect Trump as that Democrat will have proven that they totally hate democracy , and are a total threat to our constitution .

Whether I go through with this or not depend on how democratic leadership handles this issue over the next few weeks

So you oppose how Republicans acted on the Scalia/Garland/Gorsuch issue, but less than you would oppose Democrats balancing it out by adding 2 justices, so much so that you'd flip from super anti-Trump to voting FOR Trump?

Sorry, that just doesn't make sense.

Again the senate has all the right in the world to reject any nominee. On the other hand if the court is packed, that means whenever a President has a trifecta they will immediately pack the court in a way to make sure they get favorable ruling. That would absolutely destroy democracy much much more than anything that was done with Garland

Also read my last line again

[Abolish ICE]

If Democrats try to do this I hope republicans obstruct that president at least 5 times more than they did to Obama


Also if any democrat runs on this is they win the nomination, I will drop my never Trumpism in a second and will vote to re-elect Trump as that Democrat will have proven that they totally hate democracy , and are a total threat to our constitution .

k

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Absolutely justified. Republicans have destroyed this country and now we are going to fix it. We have a corrupt president who should be making license plates, not be appointing supreme court justices
And I'm not usually a whataboutism person but the hypocrisy is.dishgusting. Any Senator who opposed giving Garlanda hearing and wants to rush through a justice now should be ashamed of themselves. They've chosen to have no morals and bow down to a fascist wannabe dictator and now they will suffer the consequences
 And OSR if you think having a court dole out rulings you disagree with is more dangerous then having a president who is trying to destroy our postal service to win an election, silence dissenters, and collude with foreign nations to dig up dirt on political opponents then that's very disappointing.

[Badger]

This poll result proves that democrats wanted to pack the court even before now oh and if any of them is trying to question if this is really a redline for me , right here from the thread

If Democrats try to do this I hope republicans obstruct that president at least 5 times more than they did to Obama


Also if any democrat runs on this is they win the nomination, I will drop my never Trumpism in a second and will vote to re-elect Trump as that Democrat will have proven that they totally hate democracy , and are a total threat to our constitution .

Whether I go through with this or not depend on how democratic leadership handles this issue over the next few weeks

Translation. I absolutely endorsed a Republican Senate and president packing the courts through freezing Democratic nominees Ernie, but Democrats trying to redress the balance by expanding the Judiciary will make me abandon my values.

You were trying oh so hard to appear like a principled conservative, but you're just a party hack. You completely supported Republican court-packing for years now, but in the name of getting "strict constructionist" justices - - that is reliable hard right wing votes for a 5 to 4  majority against "commie" legislation - - you totally adopted it.

Let's not mince words, kid. Most people in this forum always believed you were one hot-button issue during the campaign away from dropping your so-called principled opposition to Trump and reverting to Republican Party Line hackery. Congratulations, you finally found your excuse

[OSR stands with Israel]

Absolutely justified. Republicans have destroyed this country and now we are going to fix it. We have a corrupt president who should be making license plates, not be appointing supreme court justices
And I'm not usually a whataboutism person but the hypocrisy is.dishgusting. Any Senator who opposed giving Garlanda hearing and wants to rush through a justice now should be ashamed of themselves. They've chosen to have no morals and bow down to a fascist wannabe dictator and now they will suffer the consequences
 And OSR if you think having a court dole out rulings you disagree with is more dangerous then having a president who is trying to destroy our postal service to win an election, silence dissenters, and collude with foreign nations to dig up dirt on political opponents then that's very disappointing.

Packing the courts completely undermines our republic in every way and no its not about particular rulings and I made this clear in January but endosing a positon of packing the courts is a 100% and total dealbreker for me

[OSR stands with Israel]

This poll result proves that democrats wanted to pack the court even before now oh and if any of them is trying to question if this is really a redline for me , right here from the thread

If Democrats try to do this I hope republicans obstruct that president at least 5 times more than they did to Obama


Also if any democrat runs on this is they win the nomination, I will drop my never Trumpism in a second and will vote to re-elect Trump as that Democrat will have proven that they totally hate democracy , and are a total threat to our constitution .

Whether I go through with this or not depend on how democratic leadership handles this issue over the next few weeks

Translation. I absolutely endorsed a Republican Senate and president packing the courts through freezing Democratic nominees Ernie, but Democrats trying to redress the balance by expanding the Judiciary will make me abandon my values.

You were trying oh so hard to appear like a principled conservative, but you're just a party hack. You completely supported Republican court-packing for years now, but in the name of getting "strict constructionist" justices - - that is reliable hard right wing votes for a 5 to 4  majority against "commie" legislation - - you totally adopted it.

Let's not mince words, kid. Most people in this forum always believed you were one hot-button issue during the campaign away from dropping your so-called principled opposition to Trump and reverting to Republican Party Line hackery. Congratulations, you finally found your excuse

Despite everything that happened in the summer I still opposed Trump despite the fact that on so many "hot button issues" the Democrats were angering me in every way but out of principle I still opposed Trump.

The issue of packing the courts is not a "hot button issue" for me its a deeply held principle and I made that clear in January of this year so its not like im coming up with it now. So if all you guys did was come out literally for the most basic principle of opposing court packing , id still oppose Trump.


Thanks to this now im in the Reserving Judgement phase

[Badger]

The problem is all these Pearl clutching blue avatars and other conservatives somehow don't consider the fact that initially Clinton's, and then to an extremely Amplified the great, Obama's judicial nominees we're largely Frozen or very much slow tracked. Republicans doing this on such whole-scale level literally defied centuries of tradition. Of course as soon as a republican was President their nominees were railroaded through the system on an unprecedented scale. And then there was the absolute unmitigated hypocritical highway robbery of the Scalia seat and now trying to Ram through an unprecedented last minute before the election confirmation.

What's my answer about how I feel about court packing? I'm absolutely opposed to it and the way Republicans having gauged in it in a non stop fashion for years now. As longtime conservative David Frum noted, if Republicans are forced to choose between democracy and power, they will choose power every single time. This is proven itself. For a party that has only narrowly won the popular vote for the presidency one in 30 years - - with just under 51% of the vote - - and facing an increasingly non-white and post Gen X electric that they gave up years ago even trying to appeal to oh, they absolutely need to entrench in an undemocratic unelected unanswerable Federal judiciary to protect them from the popular will.

What's being proposed here is nothing more than redressing the balance. This is best described as unpacking the court, not packing it.

[MABA 2020]

Freedom idea, I wish it didn't have to come to this but you gotta fight fire with fire. Republicans have already broken democracy, now dems must respond accordingly.

[SN2903]

This poll result proves that democrats wanted to pack the court even before now oh and if any of them is trying to question if this is really a redline for me , right here from the thread

If Democrats try to do this I hope republicans obstruct that president at least 5 times more than they did to Obama


Also if any democrat runs on this is they win the nomination, I will drop my never Trumpism in a second and will vote to re-elect Trump as that Democrat will have proven that they totally hate democracy , and are a total threat to our constitution .

Whether I go through with this or not depend on how democratic leadership handles this issue over the next few weeks

Translation. I absolutely endorsed a Republican Senate and president packing the courts through freezing Democratic nominees Ernie, but Democrats trying to redress the balance by expanding the Judiciary will make me abandon my values.

You were trying oh so hard to appear like a principled conservative, but you're just a party hack. You completely supported Republican court-packing for years now, but in the name of getting "strict constructionist" justices - - that is reliable hard right wing votes for a 5 to 4  majority against "commie" legislation - - you totally adopted it.

Let's not mince words, kid. Most people in this forum always believed you were one hot-button issue during the campaign away from dropping your so-called principled opposition to Trump and reverting to Republican Party Line hackery. Congratulations, you finally found your excuse

Take it from me OSR has not supported Trump. Him and I have had frequent arguments about it on discord. He has even talked about wanting Trump to lose so it would lead to the more traditional conservative wing rising up but he is saying this is a major issue for him. He is not a party hack at all.

[ND, SD, MT, WY, and ID statehood was and is unconstitutional]

Necessary if we want to still live in a free country with a functional rule of law and with free and fair elections in the future.

[7,052,770]

Absolutely justified. Republicans have destroyed this country and now we are going to fix it. We have a corrupt president who should be making license plates, not be appointing supreme court justices
And I'm not usually a whataboutism person but the hypocrisy is.dishgusting. Any Senator who opposed giving Garlanda hearing and wants to rush through a justice now should be ashamed of themselves. They've chosen to have no morals and bow down to a fascist wannabe dictator and now they will suffer the consequences
 And OSR if you think having a court dole out rulings you disagree with is more dangerous then having a president who is trying to destroy our postal service to win an election, silence dissenters, and collude with foreign nations to dig up dirt on political opponents then that's very disappointing.

Packing the courts completely undermines our republic in every way and no its not about particular rulings and I made this clear in January but endosing a positon of packing the courts is a 100% and total dealbreker for me

There's no functional difference in "packing the Courts" and not letting Obama appoint anyone to the Supreme Court in 2016, but then when Trump is in the same situation, doing a 180 and letting him do it.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Absolutely justified. Republicans have destroyed this country and now we are going to fix it. We have a corrupt president who should be making license plates, not be appointing supreme court justices
And I'm not usually a whataboutism person but the hypocrisy is.dishgusting. Any Senator who opposed giving Garlanda hearing and wants to rush through a justice now should be ashamed of themselves. They've chosen to have no morals and bow down to a fascist wannabe dictator and now they will suffer the consequences
 And OSR if you think having a court dole out rulings you disagree with is more dangerous then having a president who is trying to destroy our postal service to win an election, silence dissenters, and collude with foreign nations to dig up dirt on political opponents then that's very disappointing.

Packing the courts completely undermines our republic in every way and no its not about particular rulings and I made this clear in January but endosing a positon of packing the courts is a 100% and total dealbreker for me

There's no functional difference in "packing the Courts" and not letting Obama appoint anyone to the Supreme Court in 2016, but then when Trump is in the same situation, doing a 180 and letting him do it.

The Republicans didnt lose their senate majority in the midterms like the democrats did.


Now to be clear I believe that the justice should be chosen by the winner , but Garland wasnt stolen

[beaver2.0]

Absolutely justified. Republicans have destroyed this country and now we are going to fix it. We have a corrupt president who should be making license plates, not be appointing supreme court justices
And I'm not usually a whataboutism person but the hypocrisy is.dishgusting. Any Senator who opposed giving Garlanda hearing and wants to rush through a justice now should be ashamed of themselves. They've chosen to have no morals and bow down to a fascist wannabe dictator and now they will suffer the consequences
 And OSR if you think having a court dole out rulings you disagree with is more dangerous then having a president who is trying to destroy our postal service to win an election, silence dissenters, and collude with foreign nations to dig up dirt on political opponents then that's very disappointing.

Packing the courts completely undermines our republic in every way and no its not about particular rulings and I made this clear in January but endosing a positon of packing the courts is a 100% and total dealbreker for me

There's no functional difference in "packing the Courts" and not letting Obama appoint anyone to the Supreme Court in 2016, but then when Trump is in the same situation, doing a 180 and letting him do it.

The Republicans didnt lose their senate majority in the midterms like the democrats did.


Now to be clear I believe that the justice should be chosen by the winner , but Garland wasnt stolen

McConnell was open about the fact he intended not to let Obama get anything done.  Then he says in 2015 he will not even consider an appointment.  To me, "advice and consent" indicates at least some consideration.  I do not recall talk of any specific circumstances.  I'd call that stealing.

And yes, this would not be a totally fair move by the Democrats, but it's not fair either to have McConnell get away with brazen partisanship.  If a deal can be reached in which a Democratic nominee is sworn in alongside whoever Trump appoints, that might be fair.

[R.P. McM]

If Democrats try to do this I hope republicans obstruct that president at least 5 times more than they did to Obama


Also if any democrat runs on this is they win the nomination, I will drop my never Trumpism in a second and will vote to re-elect Trump as that Democrat will have proven that they totally hate democracy , and are a total threat to our constitution .

1.) Preventing a racist, authoritarian minority party from thwarting the will of the majority is in no way anti-democratic. The fact that Trump is allowed to make any SCOTUS picks whatsoever is an affront to democracy. He stole a pick from a president who twice won significantly more votes than the opposition, remember? If we undo the damage of this rancid presidency in favor of the party that earned more votes, that's a restoration of democracy.

2.) The Constitution doesn't specify the number of SCOTUS seats, a number that has fluctuated with time. So your point is nonsensical — something that doesn't violate either the letter or spirit of the Constitution cannot threaten it.

[WD]

I support it without hesitation. Our judiciary has been destroyed and packed by Republicans themselves. They fillibustered dozens of Obama’s lower Court nominees just so they could fill it under another Republican. They held open a Supreme Court Seat, saying that you shouldn’t fill one in a presidential election. Now they’re going back on that and are about to fill a vacancy less than 2 months before a election. All of this to stack our judiciary ststem with Right Wingers to enact their agenda, which they know they can never pass through legislative means. They’ve broken our institutions and norms, and our democracy is damaged because of it. If they’re willing to do anything to win and anything for power, why should we play fair? Expanding the court is the only way to fix this, it has to be done.

[GeneralMacArthur]

The only thing that's unconstitutional here is the Republican Party abusing their interpretation of the Senate's power to "advise and consent" to block a Democratic president from appointing a Supreme Court justice.  That's the power of the president as specified in the constitution, and the Republican Party prevented Obama from executing that power.

And before you start kidding yourself, back in October 2016 they were saying that if Hillary Clinton became president they were prepared to use the filibuster to keep the seat open for another four years.

If you think that's what the founders intended when they wrote the constitution, you are absolutely insane.

[R.P. McM]

Absolutely justified. Republicans have destroyed this country and now we are going to fix it. We have a corrupt president who should be making license plates, not be appointing supreme court justices
And I'm not usually a whataboutism person but the hypocrisy is.dishgusting. Any Senator who opposed giving Garlanda hearing and wants to rush through a justice now should be ashamed of themselves. They've chosen to have no morals and bow down to a fascist wannabe dictator and now they will suffer the consequences
 And OSR if you think having a court dole out rulings you disagree with is more dangerous then having a president who is trying to destroy our postal service to win an election, silence dissenters, and collude with foreign nations to dig up dirt on political opponents then that's very disappointing.

Packing the courts completely undermines our republic in every way and no its not about particular rulings and I made this clear in January but endosing a positon of packing the courts is a 100% and total dealbreker for me

There's no functional difference in "packing the Courts" and not letting Obama appoint anyone to the Supreme Court in 2016, but then when Trump is in the same situation, doing a 180 and letting him do it.

The Republicans didnt lose their senate majority in the midterms like the democrats did.


Now to be clear I believe that the justice should be chosen by the winner , but Garland wasnt stolen

And Obama didn't lose his presidential majority in 2016, which was the previous standard before McConnell invented a new one. And Trump didn't change the dynamic by earning significantly fewer votes than either Obama or his successor. If your point is that power trumps principle, and you oppose Democratic efforts to expand the Court out of partisan considerations, just come out and say it. But don't try to obfuscate using a feigned concern for democracy on behalf of a political party that consistently earns fewer votes than the opposition.  

[Badger]

This poll result proves that democrats wanted to pack the court even before now oh and if any of them is trying to question if this is really a redline for me , right here from the thread

If Democrats try to do this I hope republicans obstruct that president at least 5 times more than they did to Obama


Also if any democrat runs on this is they win the nomination, I will drop my never Trumpism in a second and will vote to re-elect Trump as that Democrat will have proven that they totally hate democracy , and are a total threat to our constitution .

Whether I go through with this or not depend on how democratic leadership handles this issue over the next few weeks

Translation. I absolutely endorsed a Republican Senate and president packing the courts through freezing Democratic nominees Ernie, but Democrats trying to redress the balance by expanding the Judiciary will make me abandon my values.

You were trying oh so hard to appear like a principled conservative, but you're just a party hack. You completely supported Republican court-packing for years now, but in the name of getting "strict constructionist" justices - - that is reliable hard right wing votes for a 5 to 4  majority against "commie" legislation - - you totally adopted it.

Let's not mince words, kid. Most people in this forum always believed you were one hot-button issue during the campaign away from dropping your so-called principled opposition to Trump and reverting to Republican Party Line hackery. Congratulations, you finally found your excuse

Despite everything that happened in the summer I still opposed Trump despite the fact that on so many "hot button issues" the Democrats were angering me in every way but out of principle I still opposed Trump.

The issue of packing the courts is not a "hot button issue" for me its a deeply held principle and I made that clear in January of this year so its not like im coming up with it now. So if all you guys did was come out literally for the most basic principle of opposing court packing , id still oppose Trump.


Thanks to this now im in the Reserving Judgement phase

Fair enough. I got the impression that you had absolutely jumpship on your never Trump stance.

Let me simply suggest again, for your consideration, that the absolutely unprecedented - - and that's not a word I'm using lightly here, but rather quite literally Ivan Ivan ESPN Sloat fracking of Obama's nominees, and then Fast Track railroading all Trump's nominees with the exact same Senate, combined with the horrendous and hypocritical bait and switching situations between scalia's seat and Ginsberg seat, IS court-packing.

I don't think there's a Democrat here likes or is salivating at the idea of adding an extra two seats under the Supreme Court. As someone noted, if by some miracle McConnell in the Republicans swore to adhere to what they did with Scalia and hold off and on a nation vote until after the inauguration, talk about adding an extra two seats would disappear overnight. However, at this point adding an additional two seats is not so much Court packing, as a REMEDY to court-packing. If you pose that principle you must, repeat must to be consistent opposed it whether it is done through an absolute breach of centuries worth of historical tradition in Senate practice and even the rules laid out by McConnell and his ilk 4 years ago, or whether it's to add onto additional seats turn legislation.

If you somehow make a realistic distinction between those two as to what is and is not Court packing, I'm sorry but you're just factually wrong. Furthermore, Democrats are not going to continue playing Charlie Brown to the Republicans Lucy pulling away the football every time just because you and other Republicans are adhering to a double standard about what constitutes "Court-packing".

[Crumpets]

I'm not judiciary savvy enough to have a strong opinion, but from just my basic understanding, I lean opposed. It does seem like something that could easily be abused by both Republicans and Democrats with weak integrity.