Packing the courts is better for the Dems, even if the Republicans pack back

[7,052,770]

The courts are already packed. Trump and McConnell openly brag about it.

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Republicans replacing Scalia and Ginsburg in a single term is packing, period.

No one is truly against packing if they don't consider that as at least equally bad as Biden adding 2 more justices, and they really should consider it worse, as Biden is only doing it in response.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The courts are already packed. Trump and McConnell openly brag about it.

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Republicans replacing Scalia and Ginsburg in a single term is packing, period.

No one is truly against packing if they don't consider that as at least equally bad as Biden adding 2 more justices, and they really should consider it worse, as Biden is only doing it in response.

This is rank inability to define "packing" properly. It is one of two things: expanding the size of the court and filling all or most of the new seats with people sympathetic to you, or impeaching some or all of the justices sympathetic to your opponents and filling the vacancies with a group that is mostly favorable to you instead, in an effort to change its alliegence.
Rs have done neither. They haven't packed the courts.

[7,052,770]

The courts are already packed. Trump and McConnell openly brag about it.

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Republicans replacing Scalia and Ginsburg in a single term is packing, period.

No one is truly against packing if they don't consider that as at least equally bad as Biden adding 2 more justices, and they really should consider it worse, as Biden is only doing it in response.

This is rank inability to define "packing" properly. It is one of two things: expanding the size of the court and filling all or most of the new seats with people sympathetic to you, or impeaching some or all of the justices sympathetic to your opponents and filling the vacancies with a group that is mostly favorable to you instead, in an effort to change its alliegence.
Rs have done neither. They haven't packed the courts.

They refused to let Obama fill a seat with anyone, citing a phony precedent, then when they were in that situation, they did [or presumably will] fill the seat. That's a pack, and it takes a lot of spin and contriving to argue otherwise.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Crt Packing is Act blue's way to deligitmize the ACB, and raise money for candidates, to get rid of Citizens United. They wasted so much money on Amy McGrath. We just have to see what happens on election day I am not a fan of Act blue when Joe Kennedy lost

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

This is exactly why the GOP needs to hold the Senate so we can stop you guys from doing this. You guys obviously just like Trump are against our institutions so yah if you wanna know why Im writing someone in , this is the reason because I will never vote for a candidate that will court pack 

You aren't writing anybody in. You've been desperate to for an excuse to vote for Trump all year, and now you've contrived one.

I am NOT gonna vote for Trump and that is final.

You've already said you will if Democrats "pack the Court" (which you've redefined to include merely reversing the Republican pack to get us back to R+1).

Why are you trying to convince him that he's going to vote for Trump? 

[Asta]

I'd rather see term limits for Supreme Court to something like 10 to 15 years for each justice (effective for all future justice) but I'm fine with packing as well. 

See Nate Silver's post on senate skew toward Republicans.
Small-populated states are not getting bluer for Democrats and this puts them at a huge disadvantage.

Democrats need to do this within 2 years when it counts before Republicans come out with fury in 2022.

If they can't do that, then turn DC and PR into a state and gain 4 senators.

[Virginiá]

This is rank inability to define "packing" properly. It is one of two things: expanding the size of the court and filling all or most of the new seats with people sympathetic to you, or impeaching some or all of the justices sympathetic to your opponents and filling the vacancies with a group that is mostly favorable to you instead, in an effort to change its alliegence.
Rs have done neither. They haven't packed the courts.

What?

They literally blockaded Obama's judicial nominations for the last 2 years of his presidency, creating a large backlog of open judicial seats that they then spent Trump's entire term filling with young ideologues, some of whom better fit the description of a political operative than a qualified judge. That's not packing by expanding the court, that's packing by stealing a huge number of seats to fill, which is basically the same result.

My gosh. Nothing is normal or ethical about what they did with Obama or under Trump. Arguing semantics about the word 'packing' misses the issue here.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This is rank inability to define "packing" properly. It is one of two things: expanding the size of the court and filling all or most of the new seats with people sympathetic to you, or impeaching some or all of the justices sympathetic to your opponents and filling the vacancies with a group that is mostly favorable to you instead, in an effort to change its alliegence.
Rs have done neither. They haven't packed the courts.

What?

They literally blockaded Obama's judicial nominations for the last 2 years of his presidency, creating a large backlog of open judicial seats that they then spent Trump's entire term filling with young ideologues, some of whom better fit the description of a political operative than a qualified judge. That's not packing by expanding the court, that's packing by stealing a huge number of seats to fill, which is basically the same result.

My gosh. Nothing is normal or ethical about what they did with Obama or under Trump. Arguing semantics about the word 'packing' misses the issue here.

In the context of court packing as it is generally understood to refer to in this month of Anno Domini 2020, SCOTUS is the beginning and the end. Nothing in my post pertains to the lower courts, only to SCOTUS.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It's beyond laughable to claim that Gorsuch being placed on SCOTUS and Kav being placed on SCOTUS is court-packing, unless you happen to be a particular kind of Democratic partisan. Words have meaning.
This sort of behavior from Dems, if repeated regularly, would ruin America even more than Mitch could hope to do, which is a tall order that somehow is surpassed by this sort of stuff.

[Badger]

This is exactly why the GOP needs to hold the Senate so we can stop you guys from doing this. You guys obviously just like Trump are against our institutions so yah if you wanna know why Im writing someone in , this is the reason because I will never vote for a candidate that will court pack 

Republicans committed blatant court-packing with both styninger Garland's nomination and rushing through Barrett's. It's just a different means to the same goal of court-packing. You can't pick and choose which court packing you objective and which you're willing to accept just because you want right wing justices

[freepcrusher]

isn't this the idea of "peace through strength". If dems reach for the loaded gun on the table - maybe the republicans agree to a "cease fire" agreement. If they don't pack - then it leaves people no choice but to [REDACTED].

[Virginiá]

It's beyond laughable to claim that Gorsuch being placed on SCOTUS and Kav being placed on SCOTUS is court-packing, unless you happen to be a particular kind of Democratic partisan. Words have meaning.

Gorsuch was filling a seat blockaded by the GOP under Obama. If they are going to make this a thing, then Democrats very well ought to escalate. Or, you know, just continue letting Republicans play by a whole different set of rules while we do nothing.

Kavanaugh was just a flawed nominee for a seat that Trump was entitled to. The only issue I ever had with that situation was the idea of politicians thinking their SCOTUS picks are beyond reproach every single time, and never responding to ethical/moral concerns, because god forbid they just pick someone else. Nowadays it seems that no matter what the issue is, the response is to dig in harder and never budge.

You're free to favor the high ground approach, though. I'm simply saying that if Democrats stick to that failed approach, they'll just end up buried under a mountain of GOP shenanigans and deceitful power-grabs. Because if you think it ends with things like the Garland situation, I've got a bridge to sell you. Republicans have already packed courts, tried to pack them, or otherwise tampered with judiciaries at the state level. You think that behavior is not moving up the chain?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It's beyond laughable to claim that Gorsuch being placed on SCOTUS and Kav being placed on SCOTUS is court-packing, unless you happen to be a particular kind of Democratic partisan. Words have meaning.

Gorsuch was filling a seat blockaded by the GOP under Obama. If they are going to make this a thing, then Democrats very well ought to escalate. Or, you know, just continue letting Republicans play by a whole different set of rules while we do nothing.

Kavanaugh was just a flawed nominee for a seat that Trump was entitled to. The only issue I ever had with that situation was the idea of politicians thinking their SCOTUS picks are beyond reproach every single time, and never responding to ethical/moral concerns, because god forbid they just pick someone else. Nowadays it seems that no matter what the issue is, the response is to dig in harder and never budge.

You're free to favor the high ground approach, though. I'm simply saying that if Democrats stick to that failed approach, they'll just end up buried under a mountain of GOP shenanigans and deceitful power-grabs. Because if you think it ends with things like the Garland situation, I've got a bridge to sell you. Republicans have already packed courts, tried to pack them, or otherwise tampered with judiciaries at the state level. You think that behavior is not moving up the chain?

My view is that we ought to leave open the possibility of going as far as the GOP has gone, but go no farther. It is the obligation of the left-of-center to care about functional government and destroying functionality in Washington only helps Republicans argue the government doesn't work. Regardless of the short-term wins we notch, we'd be doing the GOP's dirty work for them, whether we realize it or not.

Things the GOP has done:
1. block Obama's appointees to stack the courts with conservatives after Trump took over; I fully support Harry Reid having gotten rid of the 60 vote threshold for circuit court judges and then proceeding to confirm Obama nominees and I fully support a President Biden filling all vacancies still existing by the time he's sworn in, with the full backing of the new Dem-majority Senate.
2. block Obama's SCOTUS pick Merrick Garland, an act that I heavily disapprove of but live with. In the future, if we have the senate majority, we can simply tell a GOP president that their SCOTUS pick won't get a hearing in a presidential election year and it'll be determined by the election - exactly what McConnell did

Things the GOP didn't do:
1. increase the size of the court and fill all the new seats with hacks. That's a dangerous, stupid, and wrong idea that Biden is too much of an institutionalist to approve of, thank god
2. completely lose faith in institutions and insist on tearing down everything for the sake of partisan gain if they don't get their way. I'm glad the GOP has an element of constitutional conservativism on these sorts of things even if I know it comes from a highly self-interested and amoral, even immoral, POV

So how do we fight the GOP? We fight them with precedents they engineered being in our toolbox and being fair game. Go no further. People might raise harsh emergency doom-and-gloom scenarios. To that I say - let us get to that bridge when we come to it. But adding seats to the court? No way in hell.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

It's gonna be hard for Rs to win in 2022, and 2024, given the Senate lineup, PA and WI are gone in 2022, and 2024, Casey, Baldwin, Kaine, Stabenow protects the 278 freiwall. The only map favorable to them is the 2026, which will be full of newly Dem incubent senators and by then it will be too late to do anything for the Rs

[7,052,770]

It's beyond laughable to claim that Gorsuch being placed on SCOTUS and Kav being placed on SCOTUS is court-packing, unless you happen to be a particular kind of Democratic partisan. Words have meaning.
This sort of behavior from Dems, if repeated regularly, would ruin America even more than Mitch could hope to do, which is a tall order that somehow is surpassed by this sort of stuff.

No one ever mentioned Kavanaugh, but nice strawman anyway.

Trump replacing BOTH Scalia and Ginsburg is packing. If he'd only replaced 1, either 1, it wouldn't be packing, but replacing both is packing.

[Calthrina950]

You all (and by "you all", I mean the Democrats on this board) are truly demonstrating that the Democratic Party remains, at its deepest, most fundamental level, the Party of Jackson. Andrew Jackson did not believe in the concept of judicial review, believed that Justices should be subject to popular election, and did not allow the Court to obstruct the implementation of his Administration's policies-most notably with Indian removal. And now, modern Democrats are arguing for the courts to be packed to redress what they see as its inherent bias, and celebrate the fact that this will result in the further destruction of our democratic norms.

Interestingly enough, Biden himself is fully aware of the consequences court-packing would have. Why do you think he has been so reluctant to state whether or not he is in support of it? And when pressed, why did he say that he wasn't a "fan" of court packing? To say nothing of the fact that there are Democratic Senators-institutionalists who believe in the process-who are wary of making the same kind of moves?

And for the last time, why are you all holding Neil Gorsuch personally accountable for what happened to Merrick Garland? He's not responsible for what McConnell did whatsoever. And Kavanaugh-someone who I would not have confirmed-didn't "steal" Kennedy's seat, even under McConnell's hypocritic definition. Kennedy retired on his own accord and Kavanaugh was confirmed in a midterm year, not a presidential election year.

[Stranger in a strange land]

A better option, IMO, would be that, since term limits can only be implemented via a constitutional amendment, rather than having a fixed number of seats on the court, having a new justice appointed to the court every two years (i.e. an "every president gets two" approach). The appointments would occur in odd years to reduce the impact on election campaigns, and the senate would be required to give the nominee an up or down vote within 90 days (or some other reasonable timeframe) of receiving the nomination. It wouldn't be a democratic power grab, since future Republican presidents would have the same power to appoint justices, and indeed Rick Perry suggested something similar during has 2012 campaign. This would end the disgraceful practice of vulturing the seats of elderly justices, provide some regularity, predictability, and fairness to judicial appointments, and remove the incentive for justices to retire under a favorable president.

[Del Tachi]

The courts are already packed. Trump and McConnell openly brag about it.

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Republicans replacing Scalia and Ginsburg in a single term is packing, period.

No one is truly against packing if they don't consider that as at least equally bad as Biden adding 2 more justices, and they really should consider it worse, as Biden is only doing it in response.

This is rank inability to define "packing" properly. It is one of two things: expanding the size of the court and filling all or most of the new seats with people sympathetic to you, or impeaching some or all of the justices sympathetic to your opponents and filling the vacancies with a group that is mostly favorable to you instead, in an effort to change its alliegence.
Rs have done neither. They haven't packed the courts.

They refused to let Obama fill a seat with anyone, citing a phony precedent, then when they were in that situation, they did [or presumably will] fill the seat. That's a pack, and it takes a lot of spin and contriving to argue otherwise.

No, that is the Senate's constitutional role to advise and consent to the president's nominees.  Elections have consequences. 

[Del Tachi]

Anyway, packing the Court is not a good short-term strategy for the Democrats.  2 of the conservative justices are currently in their 70s, and Roberts will turn 70 by the end of Biden's first term.  If Democrats win in 2020 and 2024, there's a good chance they get to nominate replacements to at least one of these seats.  Under the right circumstances, we could be talking about a permanently liberal court by the end of this decade. 

[redjohn]

If you're a Democrat not for packing the courts, you're naive and do not understand the core of the Republican Party. Do not play softball with the fascist party. The GOP will seize power and rig it in favor of themselves at every possible opportunity. I've seen it first-hand in Wisconsin, where the GOP has transformed my state into a political hellhole where power has been entrenched in the hands of the anti-civil liberties Republican Party.

You can't give them an inch, or they'll quite literally fight until the end to strip you of your rights and liberties. If Biden wins and gets a Democratic Senate, his first priorities (besides undoing Trump's dreadful executive orders over the past three years) should be making DC and Puerto Rico states, and packing the courts. We've watched the Republicans push through unqualified judge after judge for federal courts these past few years, many of whom have been openly bigoted and against Americans' civil rights. I trust that Biden knows and understands this, considering he's also watched it happen up close.

[7,052,770]

The courts are already packed. Trump and McConnell openly brag about it.

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Republicans replacing Scalia and Ginsburg in a single term is packing, period.

No one is truly against packing if they don't consider that as at least equally bad as Biden adding 2 more justices, and they really should consider it worse, as Biden is only doing it in response.

This is rank inability to define "packing" properly. It is one of two things: expanding the size of the court and filling all or most of the new seats with people sympathetic to you, or impeaching some or all of the justices sympathetic to your opponents and filling the vacancies with a group that is mostly favorable to you instead, in an effort to change its alliegence.
Rs have done neither. They haven't packed the courts.

They refused to let Obama fill a seat with anyone, citing a phony precedent, then when they were in that situation, they did [or presumably will] fill the seat. That's a pack, and it takes a lot of spin and contriving to argue otherwise.

No, that is the Senate's constitutional role to advise and consent to the president's nominees.  Elections have consequences. 

No one has ever said Court packing is illegal, just that it was against the previous norms.

Democrats didn't treat Reagan and GWHB like McConnell treated Obama, and now we're living with the consequences.

[Brittain33]

Supreme Court Reform is essential if our democracy is to survive. Hopefully Democrats win enough seats and overcome bad-faith objections from the Republicans ramming through Amy Covid Barrett to embrace reform and lead the charge.

[Brittain33]

This is rank inability to define "packing" properly. It is one of two things: expanding the size of the court and filling all or most of the new seats with people sympathetic to you, or impeaching some or all of the justices sympathetic to your opponents and filling the vacancies with a group that is mostly favorable to you instead, in an effort to change its alliegence.
Rs have done neither. They haven't packed the courts.

What?

They literally blockaded Obama's judicial nominations for the last 2 years of his presidency, creating a large backlog of open judicial seats that they then spent Trump's entire term filling with young ideologues, some of whom better fit the description of a political operative than a qualified judge. That's not packing by expanding the court, that's packing by stealing a huge number of seats to fill, which is basically the same result.

My gosh. Nothing is normal or ethical about what they did with Obama or under Trump. Arguing semantics about the word 'packing' misses the issue here.

In the context of court packing as it is generally understood to refer to in this month of Anno Domini 2020, SCOTUS is the beginning and the end. Nothing in my post pertains to the lower courts, only to SCOTUS.

Well, yes, Republicans attacking Democrats are focusing on what they expect Democrats to do, not what they’ve already done. But they aren’t a particularly objective judge of this, are they?

[Brittain33]

The courts are already packed. Trump and McConnell openly brag about it.

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Republicans replacing Scalia and Ginsburg in a single term is packing, period.

No one is truly against packing if they don't consider that as at least equally bad as Biden adding 2 more justices, and they really should consider it worse, as Biden is only doing it in response.

This is rank inability to define "packing" properly. It is one of two things: expanding the size of the court and filling all or most of the new seats with people sympathetic to you, or impeaching some or all of the justices sympathetic to your opponents and filling the vacancies with a group that is mostly favorable to you instead, in an effort to change its alliegence.
Rs have done neither. They haven't packed the courts.

They refused to let Obama fill a seat with anyone, citing a phony precedent, then when they were in that situation, they did [or presumably will] fill the seat. That's a pack, and it takes a lot of spin and contriving to argue otherwise.

No, that is the Senate's constitutional role to advise and consent to the president's nominees.  Elections have consequences. 

And if those consequences include shrinking the court because you don’t like the President, they can include reforms that expand the size of the court.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The courts are already packed. Trump and McConnell openly brag about it.

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Republicans replacing Scalia and Ginsburg in a single term is packing, period.

No one is truly against packing if they don't consider that as at least equally bad as Biden adding 2 more justices, and they really should consider it worse, as Biden is only doing it in response.

This is rank inability to define "packing" properly. It is one of two things: expanding the size of the court and filling all or most of the new seats with people sympathetic to you, or impeaching some or all of the justices sympathetic to your opponents and filling the vacancies with a group that is mostly favorable to you instead, in an effort to change its alliegence.
Rs have done neither. They haven't packed the courts.

They refused to let Obama fill a seat with anyone, citing a phony precedent, then when they were in that situation, they did [or presumably will] fill the seat. That's a pack, and it takes a lot of spin and contriving to argue otherwise.

No, that is the Senate's constitutional role to advise and consent to the president's nominees.  Elections have consequences.  

And if those consequences include shrinking the court because you don’t like the President, they can include reforms that expand the size of the court.

It's dubious to compare leaving a seat vacant, and expanding the court's size.  The court's size was in fact still 9 throughout the entire time, it was just that one seat was unfilled.