Alternatives to Court Packing

[Mr.Bakari-Sellers]

Dems have to win the election first, all this assuming that we are gonna win a landslide, due to polls isn't gonna get us closer to the elction.

Trump will contest the election results, he already stated this, so just because a state finished counting ballot doesn't mean is a done deal. He is likely to get a conservative Barrett before the election so the Court is 9 justices, instead of 8, McConnell has his 51 majority to confirm a Conservative justice without Murkowski, Romney and Collins, with a Mike Pence tie

The likely outcome is a 291-247 non pbower 413 map, which he predicted in 2016 and he got wrong, and election season isn't gonna end on November 3rd

Trump is likely to take his anger out on the Dems, but installing a Conservative Crt for a generation, since he felt he was untreated by MSN who have not been reporting on Hunter Biden Ukraine but reporting only on his mishandling of Covid. This is what MSN did during impeachment.

Lastly, Pelosi overreeached on Stimulus 1200,  300 multiplied by 4 gives you 1200 and you can get food stamps, consumers want 2400 and pay their car payments on unemployment and when you are on Unemployment and SSI, a car becomes a luxury, like air conditioning, Heating and utlities are necessities

[Ye We Can]

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.

I'm well aware the Republicans jumped the shark first, but it won't matter in the end. Everybody's jumping on the radicalism train now.

[Santander]

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

On what grounds?

[Gass3268]

Jurisdiction stripping

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I don't see how stripping the Supreme Court of jurisdiction over something like abortion would help guarantee the right to abortion.  The only reason this right is guaranteed is that the Court is considered supreme over state law.

In the specific case of preserving Roe, Congress should just pass a law guaranteeing a nationwide right to abortion in the case that Dems get the trifecta.

[Darthpi - Crush the Oligarchy]

The best option is to abolish the Senate, but we're still a ways off from the majority of the country thinking that is a good idea, sadly.

[dw93]

I don't see how stripping the Supreme Court of jurisdiction over something like abortion would help guarantee the right to abortion.  The only reason this right is guaranteed is that the Court is considered supreme over state law.

In the specific case of preserving Roe, Congress should just pass a law guaranteeing a nationwide right to abortion in the case that Dems get the trifecta.

Only for the Republicans to get a trifecta and overturn said nationwide right. This is the main reason I don't want Roe overturned as you're just going to see a back and forth on the issue every time the White House and Congress change hands.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I don't see how stripping the Supreme Court of jurisdiction over something like abortion would help guarantee the right to abortion.  The only reason this right is guaranteed is that the Court is considered supreme over state law.

In the specific case of preserving Roe, Congress should just pass a law guaranteeing a nationwide right to abortion in the case that Dems get the trifecta.

Only for the Republicans to get a trifecta and overturn said nationwide right. This is the main reason I don't want Roe overturned as you're just going to see a back and forth on the issue every time the White House and Congress change hands.

Roe was a bad decision, judicially speaking. The whole issue of abortion boils down to the question of what constitutes a human life. The only justification for banning abortion would be to hold that human life begins before birth. The Constitution itself is silent on the issue of when human life begins and it is an inherently subjective topic that should have been left to the legislative branch(es) to decide. SCOTUS should have ruled on the issue only if there had been conflicting Federal and State laws so as to decide which level of sovereignty had the responsibility for making the decision.

It's not the abortion issue that worries me, it's that the Republican courts might invalidate on spurious grounds a whole host of laws that Republican politicians oppose but have been unable to repeal. That's the most damaging aspect of how the Republicans have packed the courts, not the abortion issue.

[SInNYC]

Roe was a bad decision, judicially speaking. The whole issue of abortion boils down to the question of what constitutes a human life. The only justification for banning abortion would be to hold that human life begins before birth. The Constitution itself is silent on the issue of when human life begins and it is an inherently subjective topic that should have been left to the legislative branch(es) to decide. SCOTUS should have ruled on the issue only if there had been conflicting Federal and State laws so as to decide which level of sovereignty had the responsibility for making the decision.

My own views dont go for that argument but if that is the criteria, there are plenty of sources the court could draw from. There are of course interpretations, but the Talmud has a 40 day rule. There are Islamic hadiths that have it at 120 days. While the Bible doesnt really say, Judaism and Islam are close enough to Christianity. If you want religions further away, Hinduism says 7 months.

[AndyHogan14]

I am somewhat in favor of court packing if the Republicans do indeed succeed (extremely likely) in replacing RBG. Personally, I think it would make sense to add four seats to the Supreme Court so there is one justice per circuit court. HOWEVER, only two of the four would be eligible to be filled in this term (thus returning the court to the status quo of a 1 seat GOP majority) with the other two only eligible to be filled after 2025. This will give the American people a say in which faction they want in control of the court long term. If Dems win in 2024, then the Supreme Court would end up 7-6 liberal and if Republicans win, it would be 8-5 conservative.

[Trends Are Fake]

Roe was a bad decision, judicially speaking. The whole issue of abortion boils down to the question of what constitutes a human life. The only justification for banning abortion would be to hold that human life begins before birth. The Constitution itself is silent on the issue of when human life begins and it is an inherently subjective topic that should have been left to the legislative branch(es) to decide. SCOTUS should have ruled on the issue only if there had been conflicting Federal and State laws so as to decide which level of sovereignty had the responsibility for making the decision.

My own views dont go for that argument but if that is the criteria, there are plenty of sources the court could draw from. There are of course interpretations, but the Talmud has a 40 day rule. There are Islamic hadiths that have it at 120 days. While the Bible doesnt really say, Judaism and Islam are close enough to Christianity. If you want religions further away, Hinduism says 7 months.

Wouldn't scientific sources be much more admissible in court than religious ones?

[Mr.Bakari-Sellers]

MSN as opposed to Fox has been on this Crt packing plan since RBG's death. They won't even allow Prez Trump to do his constiutional duty to fill the vacancy.


That's because they can't talk about Pelosi obstructing the stimulus, the Unions are up and arms against a Conservative Crt due to Citizens United and McCain-Feingold was passed and there were holes in the reform bill and we got Citizens United

[jimrtex]

It might not require a constitutional amendment.

https://fixthecourt.com/fix/term-limits/

https://khanna.house.gov/sites/khanna.house.gov/files/KHANNA_070_xml.pdf

Justices beginning with Amy Coney Barrett would serve an 18-year term. The current eight justices would continue to have a life-time term, but could retire and assume senior status. The new justices beginning with Barrett would also assume senior status after completion of their term, or an earlier retirement. Retired justices Souter and Kennedy would also begin senior service.

After Barrett is appointed in 2020, a president would appoint a new justice in the first and 3rd year of his term (the odd year after elections).

Initially the court would grow but after all the current justices have retired the court would have nine justices. The above web site includes a model assuming that all current justices will serve 27 years before retirement.

The court would become:

Souter (81) (senior status)
Kennedy (84) (senior status)
Thomas (72, 28+, projected retirement 2021)
Breyer (82, 26+, 2021)
Roberts (65, 14+, 2033)
Alito (70, 14+, 2033)
Sotomayor (66, 11+, 2036)
Kagan (60, 10+, 2037)
Gorsuch (53, 3+, 2044)
Kavanaugh (55, 1+, 2046)
Barrett (48, 0, 2038 term limit)

[Beet]

I don't see how stripping the Supreme Court of jurisdiction over something like abortion would help guarantee the right to abortion.  The only reason this right is guaranteed is that the Court is considered supreme over state law.

In the specific case of preserving Roe, Congress should just pass a law guaranteeing a nationwide right to abortion in the case that Dems get the trifecta.

Only for the Republicans to get a trifecta and overturn said nationwide right. This is the main reason I don't want Roe overturned as you're just going to see a back and forth on the issue every time the White House and Congress change hands.

Roe was a bad decision, judicially speaking. The whole issue of abortion boils down to the question of what constitutes a human life. The only justification for banning abortion would be to hold that human life begins before birth. The Constitution itself is silent on the issue of when human life begins and it is an inherently subjective topic that should have been left to the legislative branch(es) to decide. SCOTUS should have ruled on the issue only if there had been conflicting Federal and State laws so as to decide which level of sovereignty had the responsibility for making the decision.

It's not the abortion issue that worries me, it's that the Republican courts might invalidate on spurious grounds a whole host of laws that Republican politicians oppose but have been unable to repeal. That's the most damaging aspect of how the Republicans have packed the courts, not the abortion issue.

Everything the court rules on is inherently subjective... including your opinion that the abortion rights question comes down to when life begins and not, say, the equal protection clause.

No matter if you are pro-choice or pro-life, however, the arguments all rest on universal values or principles that do not vary from state to state. It should be a federal issue just as much as Jim Crow and segregation are federal issues. We recognize that fundamental moral issues aren't left to states' rights.

[CellarDoor]

The best option is to abolish the Senate, but we're still a ways off from the majority of the country thinking that is a good idea, sadly.

The Senate is a huge long-term problem for this country.  I read some study that said by 2050, 70% of the population in this country will live in 15 states.  That means that 70% of the population would be represented by 30 Senators and 30% of the population would be represented by 70 Senators.  That is not sustainable. 

[インターネット掲示板ユーザー Punxsutawney Phil]

Court packing is ignoramus-tier back then, and it is merely stupid-tier now, but still unwise.
Thankfully Biden has more respect for institutions.

[DrScholl]

Court packing is ignoramus-tier back then, and it is merely stupid-tier now, but still unwise.
Thankfully Biden has more respect for institutions.

Things can change. After a series of blatantly partisan rulings I think Biden will take a different outlook. He hasn't even taken it off the table as it is.

And let's not talk about respecting institutions. Not after what has happened with the court over the past few years. Whatever "stupid-tier" means it certainly doesn't apply to expanding the court (which is legal).

[インターネット掲示板ユーザー Punxsutawney Phil]

Court packing is ignoramus-tier back then, and it is merely stupid-tier now, but still unwise.
Thankfully Biden has more respect for institutions.

Things can change. After a series of blatantly partisan rulings I think Biden will take a different outlook. He hasn't even taken it off the table as it is.

And let's not talk about respecting institutions. Not after what has happened with the court over the past few years. Whatever "stupid-tier" means it certainly doesn't apply to expanding the court (which is legal).

Thing is, people are actually becoming alarmist about the actual consequences of a Barrett appointment.
1) we don't know how firm of a vote Amy Coney Barrett actually will be on the court (outside of a few issues such as abortion, in which case you can definitely count her as a vote to weaken Roe - which is fine by me but whatever). Plenty of people on the bench only play the part of hardline partisan to have a shot on SCOTUS, after which they are free to do whatever they like on the Court.
2) Being on the SCOTUS can change people and alter their perspectives. You can't assume Amy Coney Barrett will be necessarily exactly in line with how she is now in mindset, hidden or not, once she actually gets on SCOTUS.
3) People's stances on ideological questions can be rendered almost completely meaningless if one has a sufficiently cautious legal philosophy. Case in point: O'Connor, who was very clearly center-right in almost all matters but was a swing vote because of her views in this department.
4) SCOTUS doesn't behave as a particularly partisan outfit once you get past skewed media coverage. Even 6 or 7 R appointed judges wouldn't guarantee a favorable ruling for an R administration. The institution naturally tends towards moderation and fairness. We saw a collection of rulings that were hostile to Trump in recent weeks, despite a majority of R-appointed judges. In the 1940s and early 1950s, a court that was almost uniformly D-appointed didn't behave hackishly pro-Dem. In a body like the SCOTUS, relatively untouched by partisan polarization and not dependent on voters for re-appointment, I see little reason for this to change.
5) All of this leads me to believe that hysteria has gripped a major faction in the anti-Trump side of the equation and they see Amy Coney Barrett being seated as literally destroying any legitimacy the court has. What utter bunk. I get where it's coming from but I utterly despise the conclusion and the specifics of the thought process that result in it. They say politics is sports - this may as well be politics' version of football hooliganism. I for one don't want my team to go around destroying what is probably our most sacred institution of all.

[freepcrusher]

Court packing is ignoramus-tier back then, and it is merely stupid-tier now, but still unwise.
Thankfully Biden has more respect for institutions.

Things can change. After a series of blatantly partisan rulings I think Biden will take a different outlook. He hasn't even taken it off the table as it is.

And let's not talk about respecting institutions. Not after what has happened with the court over the past few years. Whatever "stupid-tier" means it certainly doesn't apply to expanding the court (which is legal).

Thing is, people are actually becoming alarmist about the actual consequences of a Barrett appointment.
1) we don't know how firm of a vote Amy Coney Barrett actually will be on the court (outside of a few issues such as abortion, in which case you can definitely count her as a vote to weaken Roe - which is fine by me but whatever). Plenty of people on the bench only play the part of hardline partisan to have a shot on SCOTUS, after which they are free to do whatever they like on the Court.
2) Being on the SCOTUS can change people and alter their perspectives. You can't assume Amy Coney Barrett will be necessarily exactly in line with how she is now in mindset, hidden or not, once she actually gets on SCOTUS.
3) People's stances on ideological questions can be rendered almost completely meaningless if one has a sufficiently cautious legal philosophy. Case in point: O'Connor, who was very clearly center-right in almost all matters but was a swing vote because of her views in this department.
4) SCOTUS doesn't behave as a particularly partisan outfit once you get past skewed media coverage. Even 6 or 7 R appointed judges wouldn't guarantee a favorable ruling for an R administration. The institution naturally tends towards moderation and fairness. We saw a collection of rulings that were hostile to Trump in recent weeks, despite a majority of R-appointed judges. In the 1940s and early 1950s, a court that was almost uniformly D-appointed didn't behave hackishly pro-Dem. In a body like the SCOTUS, relatively untouched by partisan polarization and not dependent on voters for re-appointment, I see little reason for this to change.
5) All of this leads me to believe that hysteria has gripped a major faction in the anti-Trump side of the equation and they see Amy Coney Barrett being seated as literally destroying any legitimacy the court has. What utter bunk. I get where it's coming from but I utterly despise the conclusion and the specifics of the thought process that result in it. They say politics is sports - this may as well be politics' version of football hooliganism. I for one don't want my team to go around destroying what is probably our most sacred institution of all.

this isn't the days of the Bakke era court. Rehnquist was the only appalling member of the court during that time. Now people like him are the norm.

[インターネット掲示板ユーザー Punxsutawney Phil]

Court packing is ignoramus-tier back then, and it is merely stupid-tier now, but still unwise.
Thankfully Biden has more respect for institutions.

Things can change. After a series of blatantly partisan rulings I think Biden will take a different outlook. He hasn't even taken it off the table as it is.

And let's not talk about respecting institutions. Not after what has happened with the court over the past few years. Whatever "stupid-tier" means it certainly doesn't apply to expanding the court (which is legal).

Thing is, people are actually becoming alarmist about the actual consequences of a Barrett appointment.
1) we don't know how firm of a vote Amy Coney Barrett actually will be on the court (outside of a few issues such as abortion, in which case you can definitely count her as a vote to weaken Roe - which is fine by me but whatever). Plenty of people on the bench only play the part of hardline partisan to have a shot on SCOTUS, after which they are free to do whatever they like on the Court.
2) Being on the SCOTUS can change people and alter their perspectives. You can't assume Amy Coney Barrett will be necessarily exactly in line with how she is now in mindset, hidden or not, once she actually gets on SCOTUS.
3) People's stances on ideological questions can be rendered almost completely meaningless if one has a sufficiently cautious legal philosophy. Case in point: O'Connor, who was very clearly center-right in almost all matters but was a swing vote because of her views in this department.
4) SCOTUS doesn't behave as a particularly partisan outfit once you get past skewed media coverage. Even 6 or 7 R appointed judges wouldn't guarantee a favorable ruling for an R administration. The institution naturally tends towards moderation and fairness. We saw a collection of rulings that were hostile to Trump in recent weeks, despite a majority of R-appointed judges. In the 1940s and early 1950s, a court that was almost uniformly D-appointed didn't behave hackishly pro-Dem. In a body like the SCOTUS, relatively untouched by partisan polarization and not dependent on voters for re-appointment, I see little reason for this to change.
5) All of this leads me to believe that hysteria has gripped a major faction in the anti-Trump side of the equation and they see Amy Coney Barrett being seated as literally destroying any legitimacy the court has. What utter bunk. I get where it's coming from but I utterly despise the conclusion and the specifics of the thought process that result in it. They say politics is sports - this may as well be politics' version of football hooliganism. I for one don't want my team to go around destroying what is probably our most sacred institution of all.

this isn't the days of the Bakke era court. Rehnquist was the only appalling member of the court during that time. Now people like him are the norm.

it's not the days of the Bakke era court, but the rules haven't actually changed.

[ibagli]

Add seats to the lower courts (something that was already in the Democratic platform, not that anybody cares) and then make it harder to take a case to the Supreme Court, either by explicitly jurisdiction-stripping or by changing the rules for how the court takes cases on appeal. The court could be required to draw no more than a set number of cases by lot, rather than picking and choosing. Or the number of votes needed to grant cert could be changed to seven. If that leaves them with too much free time (they already work a shockingly small number of days per year if you look at their deluxe salaries and account for their clerks doing much of the work), we could simply bring back circuit-riding and let them spend some time among Real Americans in lovely locales like Minot in February or Brownsville in August.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Roe was a bad decision, judicially speaking. The whole issue of abortion boils down to the question of what constitutes a human life. The only justification for banning abortion would be to hold that human life begins before birth. The Constitution itself is silent on the issue of when human life begins and it is an inherently subjective topic that should have been left to the legislative branch(es) to decide. SCOTUS should have ruled on the issue only if there had been conflicting Federal and State laws so as to decide which level of sovereignty had the responsibility for making the decision.

My own views dont go for that argument but if that is the criteria, there are plenty of sources the court could draw from. There are of course interpretations, but the Talmud has a 40 day rule. There are Islamic hadiths that have it at 120 days. While the Bible doesnt really say, Judaism and Islam are close enough to Christianity. If you want religions further away, Hinduism says 7 months.

Wouldn't scientific sources be much more admissible in court than religious ones?

No.  All science could do is help determine when a specific criterium is met, not determine which criteria should be used.  Which criteria are used to decide what constitutes a human life is inherently subjective, which in my government philosophy makes it something that legislatures, not courts should decide.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I don't see how stripping the Supreme Court of jurisdiction over something like abortion would help guarantee the right to abortion.  The only reason this right is guaranteed is that the Court is considered supreme over state law.

In the specific case of preserving Roe, Congress should just pass a law guaranteeing a nationwide right to abortion in the case that Dems get the trifecta.

Only for the Republicans to get a trifecta and overturn said nationwide right. This is the main reason I don't want Roe overturned as you're just going to see a back and forth on the issue every time the White House and Congress change hands.

Roe was a bad decision, judicially speaking. The whole issue of abortion boils down to the question of what constitutes a human life. The only justification for banning abortion would be to hold that human life begins before birth. The Constitution itself is silent on the issue of when human life begins and it is an inherently subjective topic that should have been left to the legislative branch(es) to decide. SCOTUS should have ruled on the issue only if there had been conflicting Federal and State laws so as to decide which level of sovereignty had the responsibility for making the decision.

It's not the abortion issue that worries me, it's that the Republican courts might invalidate on spurious grounds a whole host of laws that Republican politicians oppose but have been unable to repeal. That's the most damaging aspect of how the Republicans have packed the courts, not the abortion issue.

Everything the court rules on is inherently subjective... including your opinion that the abortion rights question comes down to when life begins and not, say, the equal protection clause.

No matter if you are pro-choice or pro-life, however, the arguments all rest on universal values or principles that do not vary from state to state. It should be a federal issue just as much as Jim Crow and segregation are federal issues. We recognize that fundamental moral issues aren't left to states' rights.

Even if you think that the equal protection clause is the primary factor, that still leaves unanswered whether the unborn are covered by it, which then again boils down to the issue of whether they constitute human lives, since if they do, then they are just as deserving under the Constitution of equal protection.

Incidentally, the Constitution is a legal document, not a moral one. While ideally, we want all moral laws to be Constitutional and vice versa, it is quite possible for a law to be Constitutional and immoral or for a law to be moral and unconstitutional. Courts should leave morality to the legislative branch to decide. Courts intruding into moral issues inherently makes courts political which is undesirable.