Red avatars only: Your opinion on Democratic court-packing

[You Don’t Mess With The Zohran]

I've probably gone from "not a good move" to "if they steal, then we steal back".

If Republicans want to abuse it when they get in power again all the merrier. We can't save democracy when one side is willing to flagrantly breach the rules and the other is doing nothing to stop it. At this point the only way to save the Supreme Court from itself is damage it so much that it loses all creditibility and a newer, better system is born from its ashes.

[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.

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

So what?

There are two possibilities:

• Norms should be respected. If so, Republicans have already broken this and there's nothing wrong with Democrats acting in kind as long as they don't go any further than Republicans did. Republicans' blatant inconsistency in how the Scalia and Ginsburg seats were handled has netted them 1 extra seat, so it's OK for Democrats to pack in 2 more seats to get back to the margin it would have been without Republicans breaking the norms, but not OK to add 4 or more seats.
• Norms should are made up. Politics is a game. Well ok, but then there's nothing wrong with Democrats adding 2 seats or however many they can get away with.

Whichever of those two above is true, Democrats can't take the brunt of the blame.

[American2020]

I followed Manu Raju's interview with Don Lemon on CNN. He was talking about possible retaliation from the Democrats.

Senate Democrats are open to pushing for additional Supreme Court seats if they take majority

Senate Democrats are indicating that they may push legislation to expand the Supreme Court by adding additional seats to retaliate against Republicans if they succeed in confirming President Donald Trump's pick to fill the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat.

It's an option that has picked up increased interest in the wake of Ginsburg's death -- and one that Democratic leaders are not ruling out.
"We basically have kept options open," Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin told CNN's Newsroom anchor Ana Cabrera Saturday night.
"We'd rather see this go through the regular process that Senator (Mitch) McConnell announced four years ago and that all of the Republicans stepped forward and said that we believe in this approach: We don't fill vacancies on the Supreme Court in the last year of a president's term," said Durbin in reference to GOP senators' 2016 sentiments on filling Supreme Court vacancies.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/19/politics/senate-democrats-scotus-seats/index.html

https://twitter.com/JRubinBlogger/status/1307482758474870786

[BoJack Horseman]

Absolutely. It's the only way we're going to fix our democracy.

[American2020]

https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1307273301904052224

[7,052,770]

Why does Mark Kelly have to wait until November 30? I'm assuming the AZ government will wait as long as the legally can to certify the result?

[lfromnj]

Why does Mark Kelly have to wait until November 30? I'm assuming the AZ government will wait as long as the legally can to certify the result?

AZ actually has a D SOS btw.

[Santander]

Why does Mark Kelly have to wait until November 30? I'm assuming the AZ government will wait as long as the legally can to certify the result?

That is the canvass date as mandated by Arizona law.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Terrible idea. Once they start, Republicans will do it better/worse. There is no other way it ends other than growing at a never-ending exponential rate.

Really simple. 18 year terms. New justice every other year. Next outgoing justice is Chief Justice. No re-appointments.

For some reason, the Virgin Islands, Guam, and Northern Marianas Islands federal courts have 10 year terms. There seems to be a lot of bipartisanship in renominating judges, though.

Those are Article IV territorial judges.  They aren't constitutionally guaranteed life terms like Article III judges are.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

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 ?

If Trump wins then obviously the court won't be packed in 2021, but at this point, I don't see how he can possibly win the PV, so if he is reelected, it'll be only because of the Electoral College.  Trump winning the election twice in a row despite solidly losing the popular vote will be even more of a danger to the stability of the republic than any court packing might be,

[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.

Even if trump wins the election ?

Well then we're ed ten ways to Sunday regardless. You can't pack the court if you don't control Congress, lmao

[Ferguson97]

Do it. Enough of this unilateral disarming bullsh-t.

Pack the courts enough that we can do whatever the hell we want without having to worry about the Republicans ever doing anything ever again.

[Big Abraham]

How about instead of court packing, we erode the power of the federal judiciary by removing judicial review?

[Badger]

How about instead of court packing, we erode the power of the federal judiciary by removing judicial review?

Bad terrible idea.

[Big Abraham]

How about instead of court packing, we erode the power of the federal judiciary by removing judicial review?

Bad terrible idea.

The very fact that "democracy itself" (in the mind of many red avatars) hinged on the life or death of an 87-year-old cancer patient is proof positive. If the unelected, life-tenured Supreme Court did not hold more authority than every other branch of government (including, you know, the ones that are actually chosen by the voters), Ginsburg's death would have been a mere bagatelle

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

How about instead of court packing, we erode the power of the federal judiciary by removing judicial review?

Bad terrible idea.

The very fact that "democracy itself" (in the mind of many red avatars) hinged on the life or death of an 87-year-old cancer patient is proof positive. If the unelected, life-tenured Supreme Court did not hold more authority than every other branch of government (including, you know, the ones that are actually chosen by the voters), Ginsburg's death would have been a mere bagatelle

Judicial review by a nonpartisan court is a big plus for a republic. Ideally we'll figure out a way to return to having a reasonably nonpartisan court. In any case, there are plenty of other ways to influence the courts without throwing out the judicial review baby with the bathwater.

[Big Abraham]

How about instead of court packing, we erode the power of the federal judiciary by removing judicial review?

Bad terrible idea.

The very fact that "democracy itself" (in the mind of many red avatars) hinged on the life or death of an 87-year-old cancer patient is proof positive. If the unelected, life-tenured Supreme Court did not hold more authority than every other branch of government (including, you know, the ones that are actually chosen by the voters), Ginsburg's death would have been a mere bagatelle

Judicial review by a nonpartisan court is a big plus for a republic. Ideally we'll figure out a way to return to having a reasonably nonpartisan court. In any case, there are plenty of other ways to influence the courts without throwing out the judicial review baby with the bathwater.

There's no such thing as a nonpartisan court wherein said judges are appointed by a partisan president and confirmed by a partisan senate. The judicial nomination process is extremely partisan in this country, you know that as well as I do. And, for the record, we've never had a "nonpartisan" court, at least not since Marbury v Madison

[Former President tack50]

I guess this will be an unpopular opinion among red avatars in here but I am fully opposed to court packing.

Court packing would still be an escalation, and a bigger break of democratic norms than anything Republicans would have done. It may be within the letter of the law, but it is not within the spirit of the law, and would break a tradition that as of now is over 150 years old.

Let's be real, in 2016 the Republicans held a Senate majority. Would it have been any better if Senate Republicans had just voted down all of Obama's nominees instead of not giving them a vote? Would suddenly court packing suddenly not be justified? Even if the outcome is literally the same? (a 6-3 SC; with either an Obama appointed diehard conservative or Obama's nominees all voted down until Trump got elected)

As for my solution, I'd personally go with a constitutional amendment to make the SC fixed at 9 members, and require 2/3 supermajorities to confirm a judge. This will eventually lead to either only centrists being nonminate (and eventually a bipartisan 0-0-9 court that rules based); or if you want to be cynical, no judges being nominated (and eventually the judiciary would collapse but I have to imagine cooler heads would prevail)

Another solution could be to remove judges from politics, and make it so the judicial system is endogamic, and elected only by the judges themselves. So lower level justices elect the SC, and you keep going down until the lowest level judges (who would probably get their job though some sort of job selection process, not by politics)

[woodley park]

I am not sure what the right answer is to any of this, but i think it is worth reminding folks that it is a huge problem that the party that has won the popular vote in the last three elections has lost the opportunity to appoint potentially three Supreme Court Justices; that same party won the popular vote in four out of five elections since 2000, yet only got into the White House twice. That is feeding into a dangerous legitimacy problem, exacerbated by cynical opportunists and hypocrites like McConnell and most current GOP Senators.

I hope we just get a blue tsunami this fall to stop this abomination in its tracks. Maybe that will help calm things down a bit before we start going down a path from which we can’t easily come back.

[Dr. Frankenstein]

I guess this will be an unpopular opinion among red avatars in here but I am fully opposed to court packing.

Court packing would still be an escalation, and a bigger break of democratic norms than anything Republicans would have done. It may be within the letter of the law, but it is not within the spirit of the law, and would break a tradition that as of now is over 150 years old.

Let's be real, in 2016 the Republicans held a Senate majority. Would it have been any better if Senate Republicans had just voted down all of Obama's nominees instead of not giving them a vote? Would suddenly court packing suddenly not be justified? Even if the outcome is literally the same? (a 6-3 SC; with either an Obama appointed diehard conservative or Obama's nominees all voted down until Trump got elected)

As for my solution, I'd personally go with a constitutional amendment to make the SC fixed at 9 members, and require 2/3 supermajorities to confirm a judge. This will eventually lead to either only centrists being nonminate (and eventually a bipartisan 0-0-9 court that rules based); or if you want to be cynical, no judges being nominated (and eventually the judiciary would collapse but I have to imagine cooler heads would prevail)

Another solution could be to remove judges from politics, and make it so the judicial system is endogamic, and elected only by the judges themselves. So lower level justices elect the SC, and you keep going down until the lowest level judges (who would probably get their job though some sort of job selection process, not by politics)

It is beyond me how one could seriously ask this...

[Doomer]

I used to be against it, but now I'm for it.

I want revenge.

When they go low, we need to go even lower.  When they fight dirty, we need to fight dirtier.

This is a political war.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

How about instead of court packing, we erode the power of the federal judiciary by removing judicial review?

Bad terrible idea.

The very fact that "democracy itself" (in the mind of many red avatars) hinged on the life or death of an 87-year-old cancer patient is proof positive. If the unelected, life-tenured Supreme Court did not hold more authority than every other branch of government (including, you know, the ones that are actually chosen by the voters), Ginsburg's death would have been a mere bagatelle

Judicial review by a nonpartisan court is a big plus for a republic. Ideally we'll figure out a way to return to having a reasonably nonpartisan court. In any case, there are plenty of other ways to influence the courts without throwing out the judicial review baby with the bathwater.

The only obvious way to make a judicial system less partisan is to render its partisanship less relevant. That means breaking the gridlock in the legislature (and possibly empowering it, too) or empowering the executive branch.