Alternatives to Court Packing

[Nyvin]

And I'm sure packing the courts will garner a similar if not lower number.  Still failing to see your point beyond "eye for an eye".

That's because you're refusing to listen.  My point is, to use an analogy, the Republicans have begun a war.  The only way we can return to peace is by threatening to return fire.  If we don't return fire, they will just continue massacring civilians.

If you really care and aren't just trolling, you should be criticizing the Republicans for starting the war.

What you see as a war is not a war to others, including me.  Republicans should have given a vote to Garland.  There's a good chance he wouldn't have been confirmed anyway.  Republicans have acted in bad faith.  What Democrats are proposing is not acting in bad faith.  Its shaking the foundations of this country to its core, from which there is probably no way to recover from.  If Republicans fill this seat, its within their right to do so, elections have consequences.  With that said, they shouldn't do it.  Democrats should come out with a compromise, or idea for reform right now.  They are proposing no alternative.

Accept that elections have consequences.  That's where this discussion has to start.  Otherwise, you're just throwing a tantrum.

An Election that the Democrats won the vote by 2% has consequences.

[GeneralMacArthur]

And I'm sure packing the courts will garner a similar if not lower number.  Still failing to see your point beyond "eye for an eye".

That's because you're refusing to listen.  My point is, to use an analogy, the Republicans have begun a war.  The only way we can return to peace is by threatening to return fire.  If we don't return fire, they will just continue massacring civilians.

If you really care and aren't just trolling, you should be criticizing the Republicans for starting the war.

What you see as a war is not a war to others, including me.  Republicans should have given a vote to Garland.  There's a good chance he wouldn't have been confirmed anyway.  Republicans have acted in bad faith.  What Democrats are proposing is not acting in bad faith.  Its shaking the foundations of this country to its core, from which there is probably no way to recover from.  If Republicans fill this seat, its within their right to do so, elections have consequences.  With that said, they shouldn't do it.  Democrats should come out with a compromise, or idea for reform right now.  They are proposing no alternative.

Accept that elections have consequences.  That's where this discussion has to start.  Otherwise, you're just throwing a tantrum.

You're downplaying what the Republicans did as "acting in bad faith."  They straight-up stole a Supreme Court seat, and in order to score another one they're sacrificing any semblance of morality.  And they're not just stealing these seats, they are packing them with very young, extremely conservative justices for the express purpose of cementing long-term extremist single-party rule over an institution that was always meant to be non-partisan.  And they've even been bragging about it.  Trump goes around saying "we want the youngest, most conservative guys we can find."

Refusing to allow a president to fill a Supreme Court vacancy was unconstitutional in 2016 and it is still true today.  It is the definition of cheating.  Furthermore, in order to fill this seat before the election, they will have to rush through the confirmation hearings, thus absconding their duty to actually scrutinize the nominee.  Nothing matters.  Nothing matters except getting some young extremist on the court so they can overturn a 7-2 Supreme Court precedent that has stood for 48 years.

You can't just say "election have consequences" to every instance of your side cheating.  Winning an election (which you didn't do in the most recent election!) doesn't give you the right to cheat.

[EastOfEden]

The Democrats should use court packing as a blackmail weapon to force through a constitutional amendment fixing all the problems with the court.  "Either you agree to make things fair, or we go to this place where we just continue escalating the cheating until the country is destroyed."



There are 9 Supreme Court nominees.

Supreme Court nominees serve for a term of 18 years, at which point their term ends.

Terms are staggered so that a new nominee is selected every two years during an odd year (so not an election year).

If a justice dies in office, they are immediately replaced, and two years are added to every remaining justice's term (so that the replacement schedule is essentially shifted to be two years later).

The existing justices will be replaced in descending order of tenure.  In practice this would mean Biden replaces Breyer+Thomas in his first term, and Alito+Sotomayor in his second term.

Require 2/3 of the Senate to confirm Supreme Court justices, to avoid politicization.

This is good, except: replace Senate confirmation with unanimous confirmation by the rest of the court. Remove parties from the equation entirely.

[Crumpets]

My mom's suggestion is that Biden should just straight up appoint someone now and then try to make the case after he wins the election that preemptive appointments can supercede lame duck appointments if they take effect after the inauguration and just see where the cards fall.

[SteveRogers]

A palatable alternative to straight-up court packing is some system where you rotate out justices periodically. Maybe you keep the 9 lifetime appointees but increase the Court’s size to 13 by adding 4 slots where other appellate court judges sit on the Supreme Court by designation on a rotating basis (in the same way that district judges can be brought in to sit on an appellate court panel as a visiting judge by designation).

[7,052,770]

Something seems a little gross about Supreme Court justices publicly voting up or down on each other, like a violation of impartiality.

[Migrant Crime]

Something seems a little gross about Supreme Court justices publicly voting up or down on each other, like a violation of impartiality.

Its just like the College of Cardinals.  There is no more Holy institution on this Earth.

[GeneralMacArthur]

It feels like there must be some sort of compromise that the two sides can come to w.r.t. judiciary reform.

If Democrats make it clear that they're willing to play hardball the same way the GOP has been for the last ten years, and play hard enough to frighten the GOP, that may force the GOP to entertain some sort of compromise reform proposal, which is the best outcome for all sides.

The politicization of the judiciary, which to be clear is 100% on Mitch McConnell, has to end.  The GOP has structured the country so that the judicial and legislative branches, rather than being checks and balances on each other and the executive, are just extensions of the executive branch as long as the same party controls the executive and at least one house of the legislative.  This has completely broken our country because there's absolutely no accountability anywhere and the voters become more powerless by the day.

[Wrong about 2024 Ghost]

The Democrats should use court packing as a blackmail weapon to force through a constitutional amendment fixing all the problems with the court.  "Either you agree to make things fair, or we go to this place where we just continue escalating the cheating until the country is destroyed."



There are 9 Supreme Court nominees.

Supreme Court nominees serve for a term of 18 years, at which point their term ends.

Terms are staggered so that a new nominee is selected every two years during an odd year (so not an election year).

If a justice dies in office, they are immediately replaced, and two years are added to every remaining justice's term (so that the replacement schedule is essentially shifted to be two years later).

The existing justices will be replaced in descending order of tenure.  In practice this would mean Biden replaces Breyer+Thomas in his first term, and Alito+Sotomayor in his second term.

Require 2/3 of the Senate to confirm Supreme Court justices, to avoid politicization.

And Republicans will refuse to confirm any Justices they don't ideologically support, and then continue merrily violating the law and Constitution as they do now.

This is just one more destined-to-fail bureaucratic patch that tries work around the core problem without really acknowledging it:

a nation cannot function when a sizeable minority bloc participates in both government and society in bad faith. The problem is that the US has too many Republicans and Republicans have repeatedly demonstrated they're participating in bad faith.

I don't know of any truly good ways to approach the problem. We've very slowly started to push back against the endless bad faith after four damn years of having it blatantly and clumsily shoved in everyone's face every single day. Eventually, enough of the GOP's dwindling crop of ignorant amoral idiots will die off and hopefully not be replaced, so that even all the scheming in the world won't keep them in power, but that little to count on and I don't know if the US can even last that long.

But if we don't come up with a solution, one will be provided for us eventually, as the United States collapses and suffers enough that people are finally done with modern Republicanism (or are all dead, in a worse case scenario).

[Badger]

The Democrats should use court packing as a blackmail weapon to force through a constitutional amendment fixing all the problems with the court.  "Either you agree to make things fair, or we go to this place where we just continue escalating the cheating until the country is destroyed."



There are 9 Supreme Court nominees.

Supreme Court nominees serve for a term of 18 years, at which point their term ends.

Terms are staggered so that a new nominee is selected every two years during an odd year (so not an election year).

If a justice dies in office, they are immediately replaced, and two years are added to every remaining justice's term (so that the replacement schedule is essentially shifted to be two years later).

The existing justices will be replaced in descending order of tenure.  In practice this would mean Biden replaces Breyer+Thomas in his first term, and Alito+Sotomayor in his second term.

Require 2/3 of the Senate to confirm Supreme Court justices, to avoid politicization.

"Do what we say or we will destroy the county".  Ummm... and you're supposed to be the reasonable Democrat??

Its not like Democrats are currently offering or even talking about court reform.  I would love to see it, in all seriousness.  Your approach is just flat out dangerous though.  I hope we can work to reform.  It sure as hell won't come under the threat of "we'll turn this country into a dictatorship" though.

Republicans are destroying the country as we speak.  It's "put rules in place to end the destruction of the country, or this becomes a two-person fight."

1/2 the country does not agree with you on that, so good luck selling it to GOP senators.  The solution is, ya know, OFFERING SOLUTIONS, not escalating an arms race you won't win.

Watch us.

[R.P. McM]

The Democrats should use court packing as a blackmail weapon to force through a constitutional amendment fixing all the problems with the court.  "Either you agree to make things fair, or we go to this place where we just continue escalating the cheating until the country is destroyed."



There are 9 Supreme Court nominees.

Supreme Court nominees serve for a term of 18 years, at which point their term ends.

Terms are staggered so that a new nominee is selected every two years during an odd year (so not an election year).

If a justice dies in office, they are immediately replaced, and two years are added to every remaining justice's term (so that the replacement schedule is essentially shifted to be two years later).

The existing justices will be replaced in descending order of tenure.  In practice this would mean Biden replaces Breyer+Thomas in his first term, and Alito+Sotomayor in his second term.

Require 2/3 of the Senate to confirm Supreme Court justices, to avoid politicization.

"Do what we say or we will destroy the county".  Ummm... and you're supposed to be the reasonable Democrat??

Its not like Democrats are currently offering or even talking about court reform.  I would love to see it, in all seriousness.  Your approach is just flat out dangerous though.  I hope we can work to reform.  It sure as hell won't come under the threat of "we'll turn this country into a dictatorship" though.

It's certainly preferable to the rule of a bigoted, authoritarian, cultish minority.

1/2 the country does not agree with you on that, so good luck selling it to GOP senators.  The solution is, ya know, OFFERING SOLUTIONS, not escalating an arms race you won't win.

Oh, we'll definitely win the arms race, because in realpolitik terms, CA and WY are in no way equal. You should count yourself fortunate that democrats have been willing to tolerate anti-majoritarian vestiges of the federal government up until this point. But you're on incredibly precarious ground.  

[Yoda]

Win elections.

This statement might be more relevant if the candidate who is trailing in polls by ~10 points wasn't openly declaring on a daily basis that he intends to declare himself the winner when there are potentially still tens of millions of ballots yet to be counted nationwide. Oh, and he's also blatantly trying to make mail ballots disappear or never reach their county election boards.

[Mike Thick]

What besides court packing is going to make the GOP come to the table at this point? If they get this seat sans pack, it's ball game -- SCOTUS can gut the VRA, gut campaign finance laws, gut federal regulatory power, gut Roe, gut Obamacare, gut anything Biden passes even if Dems get a trifecta. Conservatives get everything they've dreamed about for decades and more. They don't even have to win this election to do it -- they just have to suffer the consequences of ramming through a pick in this cycle, then run in 2022 under a set of election laws much more favorable to them and against a President who's been kneecapped since before he took office.

The only thing that can stop them is a credible threat of packing. If they think that by going through with this, they piss away the judicial majorities that they've put years of work into building up, maybe they'll back down and settle for the 5-4 situation we have right now.

[Ye We Can]

There's no good solution to this quite frankly.  It's unfortunate and dangerous that the supreme court basically is now just a House of Lords with another name.

Ultimately I think the problem is less the court itself and it's instead a more glaring symptom of the increasing political crisis that the United States faces.  Packing the Court isn't going to fix anything, the GOP will just take that as carte blanche to appoint twice as many justices next time they have control of the Government.

And then where does it end? At what point does either party simply decide that the other is too dangerous or wrong or whatever and just decide to use the state apparatus against the other with the support of their own voters? The way people talk these days and throw fascist and marxist around without any meaning and politicize every stupid news story I'm thinking we're going to get to a point soon where both sides consider it morally acceptable to do whatever it takes-including overtly circumventing the Democratic system by force or otherwise-to keep the other party out of power.

You can find some blame for everyone, Gingrich, the media, the internet, whoever for the death of political consensus in America but I'm starting to think the very bonds that are supposed to keep America together in the imagined community of Nationhood are actually starting to become undermined by polarization.

I ain't talking like the end of the United States ala Yugoslavia but a situation more like the Spanish Republic in the 1930's. God help us if we have an extended economic crisis (Covid doesn't count) before we sort this out. I ultimately think we will, and very much hope we can all just stop hating each other, but the outlook gets grimer by the day.

[Beet]

There are no alternatives.

If each Party appoints more justices whenever it takes power, that is still a better situation for the Democrats than simply losing the Court all the time. They in that case lose the Court only half the time. A spoils system is not, after all, unfair; at least it is democratic. It might actually make our form of government work better by removing a veto point and allowing electoral winners to perhaps actually govern. Then if the people don't like their policies, they can throw the bums out. Isn't that how it's supposed to work?

Besides, the reality is we already have a politicized Court and recognizing that is a good thing; not a bad thing. The Roberts fantasy of a professional apparatus is something that nobody truly believes. If they did, RBG dying would not have any political implications and no one would care about it any more than if, say, the UnderSecretary of the Coast Guard died. The fact that this is setting up to be a big fight reveals the truth that the Court is already politicized. The sooner we can frankly admit it the better.

[Former President tack50]

Something seems a little gross about Supreme Court justices publicly voting up or down on each other, like a violation of impartiality.

Who said it had to be a public vote? It could easily be done behind closed doors if you want anonymity.

[GeneralMacArthur]

And then where does it end? At what point does either party simply decide that the other is too dangerous or wrong or whatever and just decide to use the state apparatus against the other with the support of their own voters? The way people talk these days and throw fascist and marxist around without any meaning and politicize every stupid news story I'm thinking we're going to get to a point soon where both sides consider it morally acceptable to do whatever it takes-including overtly circumventing the Democratic system by force or otherwise-to keep the other party out of power.

The Democrats already want it to end.  The Democrats already decided that.  The Democrats had complete control of this country and an overwhelming mandate in 2008 and used it to fix the economy,  pass universal health care, impose ethics rules, and create emissions standards.  The Republicans have held onto power with either a narrow majority (2010-2016) or an outright minority (2016-present) of support, and they've used it to shatter all the rules we previously lived by and create new ones that only apply to Democrats.

[VBM]

The Democrats should use court packing as a blackmail weapon to force through a constitutional amendment fixing all the problems with the court.  "Either you agree to make things fair, or we go to this place where we just continue escalating the cheating until the country is destroyed."



There are 9 Supreme Court nominees.

Supreme Court nominees serve for a term of 18 years, at which point their term ends.

Terms are staggered so that a new nominee is selected every two years during an odd year (so not an election year).

If a justice dies in office, they are immediately replaced, and two years are added to every remaining justice's term (so that the replacement schedule is essentially shifted to be two years later).

The existing justices will be replaced in descending order of tenure.  In practice this would mean Biden replaces Breyer+Thomas in his first term, and Alito+Sotomayor in his second term.

Require 2/3 of the Senate to confirm Supreme Court justices, to avoid politicization.

"Do what we say or we will destroy the county".  Ummm... and you're supposed to be the reasonable Democrat??

Its not like Democrats are currently offering or even talking about court reform.  I would love to see it, in all seriousness.  Your approach is just flat out dangerous though.  I hope we can work to reform.  It sure as hell won't come under the threat of "we'll turn this country into a dictatorship" though.

Republicans are destroying the country as we speak.  It's "put rules in place to end the destruction of the country, or this becomes a two-person fight."

1/2 the country does not agree with you on that, so good luck selling it to GOP senators.  The solution is, ya know, OFFERING SOLUTIONS, not escalating an arms race you won't win.

Can Democrats stop being pushovers? The GOP is walking all over you, and here you are trying to be BFFs with them

[VBM]

Win elections.

Hopefully Justice Barrett doesn't side with a 5-4 majority to overturn the election and give it Trump.

Which is what makes this situation so disturbing. If the court wants to overturn an election there is no way to stop them.

Some of the “2nd Amendment people”, as Trump would say, could have a word with them about that

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Impeaching Kavanaugh, which would take 67 votes and will never happen.

[Mr.Bakari-Sellers]

The Senate is a Parliamentary system, not majority Congressional branch where it operates on unanimous consent and filibuster rules. Even if you get rid of one, 1 Senator can object to a rule. It has been unsuccessful in blocking nominees but it was successful when Ensign blocked a 2nd yr unemployment benefit after 911, I was on unemployment and that was my very first recession.

That's why the filibuster has been around for so many yrs, 1 Senator can stop anything if he objects to a rule

McConnell and Cruz has said they will use it, if Ds ram thru DC statehood, and 11 judge panel, I am not saying it cant be done, but hard to do. Heroes Act was also blocked thru unanimous consent, not by a vote on the floor

[Badger]

Something seems a little gross about Supreme Court justices publicly voting up or down on each other, like a violation of impartiality.

Who said it had to be a public vote? It could easily be done behind closed doors if you want anonymity.

It's kind of hard to write an opinion, majority, concurring, or dissenting, anonymously. Even if one simply joins with such an opinion, having it done anonymously is antithetical to the very principles of American Justice. Horrendous idea.

[Former President tack50]

Something seems a little gross about Supreme Court justices publicly voting up or down on each other, like a violation of impartiality.

Who said it had to be a public vote? It could easily be done behind closed doors if you want anonymity.

It's kind of hard to write an opinion, majority, concurring, or dissenting, anonymously. Even if one simply joins with such an opinion, having it done anonymously is antithetical to the very principles of American Justice. Horrendous idea.

It would be just an up or down vote though? No need to justify why a nominee would be accepted or rejected

Opinions themselves on cases would remain as they are now

[Mr. Illini]

The best alternative is to block unanimous consent on everything that moves between now and January. Shut the place down.

[GeneralMacArthur]

The best alternative is to block unanimous consent on everything that moves between now and January. Shut the place down.

Then Mitch will do away with unanimous consent permanently in five years and OSR will come back with an article about the one time we did it for a tactical reason, take it out of context, and say "look see the Democrats started it"