The Supreme Court, bastion of conservatism

[fusnik]

Not a problem. I'm a lawyer and I'm still not very smart.

I have no idea where the line between too many empty seats and an acceptable number of empty seats should be drawn. There is certainly some threshold of empty seats not being that big a deal. (When Justice Gorsuch was elevated from the Tenth, there was some democratic opposition to filling his seat at all because the Tenth Circuit reportedly had a light workload. But they picked an excellent candidate to replace him.)

Obviously at some point too many open seats presents a real challenge to a properly functioning judiciary. You would hope the senate and executive could reach arrangements before we ever got close to that point.

But in any event you are focusing on appointments in lower courts. Without taking away from any of the concerns you raised, my focus has been on the Supreme Court, which dictates what the lower courts may do.

Ok let’s just focus on MG.

I was told by my republican friends, read mostly likely here, that the ‘titan’ Scalia couldn’t be replaced by a flaming liberal.

If they would have gone through the nomination we would be sitting at a 4-4 ideological deadlock and ACB could take Scalias seat and we would go back to a 5-4 conservative slant and we wouldn’t even be worried about court packing or a nomination when millions have already voted.

You say you are worried about the norms, where wee you and JL and all the other conservatives when Mitch did what he did?

[Northwestcoug]

All these cliff’s edge scenarios and generational changes to the SCOTUS fights have convinced me that term limits is a terrible idea.

[Eddie]

Ok let’s just focus on MG.

I was told by my republican friends, read mostly likely here, that the ‘titan’ Scalia couldn’t be replaced by a flaming liberal.

If they would have gone through the nomination we would be sitting at a 4-4 ideological deadlock and ACB could take Scalias seat and we would go back to a 5-4 conservative slant and we wouldn’t even be worried about court packing or a nomination when millions have already voted.

You say you are worried about the norms, where wee you and JL and all the other conservatives when Mitch did what he did?

As a conservative - I was right here when Mitch was doing what he did - saying that it's the president's role to nominate a justice and the senate's role to give that nominee a vote up or down. The president and senate should both do their jobs through their entire term - so Obama was right to nominate Garland, and the senate should've given him a vote.

[All-American]

Ok let’s just focus on MG.

I was told by my republican friends, read mostly likely here, that the ‘titan’ Scalia couldn’t be replaced by a flaming liberal.

If they would have gone through the nomination we would be sitting at a 4-4 ideological deadlock and ACB could take Scalias seat and we would go back to a 5-4 conservative slant and we wouldn’t even be worried about court packing or a nomination when millions have already voted.

You say you are worried about the norms, where wee you and JL and all the other conservatives when Mitch did what he did?

I don't remember if I posted anything here about it, but I believe my position on the matter at the time was that it was a tactical mistake by McConnell not to take Garland over whatever flaming liberal Hillary would appoint once she was elected. That turned out to be untrue. By submitting the question to the voters, Republicans rolled the dice on the biggest political gamble in years and won big time.

As for whether the Republican Senate COULD do what it did, I mean, they obviously CAN, though it is fair to question whether they SHOULD and how bad it would be if they DID. All of which is also basically true of court packing. But any way you slice it, I don't see holding a seat open as having even a fraction of the consequences of adding more seats.

Two parenthetical comments. First, I see no meaningful difference between voting to reject the nomination and simply not voting on the nomination. If anything the latter is more humane.

Second, I think there is a superficial case to be made that Republicans have NOT breached norms by not confirming the nomination of another party's president, but confirming the nomination of their own party's president, in an election year. I am not surprised that few have found that argument convincing. I won't push it here other than to mention that the argument has been made.

[SCcoug]

I don't remember if I posted anything here about it, but I believe my position on the matter at the time was that it was a tactical mistake by McConnell not to take Garland over whatever flaming liberal Hillary would appoint once she was elected. That turned out to be untrue. By submitting the question to the voters, Republicans rolled the dice on the biggest political gamble in years and won big time.

As for whether the Republican Senate COULD do what it did, I mean, they obviously CAN, though it is fair to question whether they SHOULD and how bad it would be if they DID. All of which is also basically true of court packing. But any way you slice it, I don't see holding a seat open as having even a fraction of the consequences of adding more seats.

Two parenthetical comments. First, I see no meaningful difference between voting to reject the nomination and simply not voting on the nomination. If anything the latter is more humane.

Second, I think there is a superficial case to be made that Republicans have NOT breached norms by not confirming the nomination of another party's president, but confirming the nomination of their own party's president, in an election year. I am not surprised that few have found that argument convincing. I won't push it here other than to mention that the argument has been made.

Voters had two elections to punish Rs but instead rewarded them with Senate majorities in '16 and '18. There would of course be no vote had Ds won in '18.

There's a pretty good chance Ds will win unified government in '20. I suspect the polling on packing the court is bad which is why D candidates are being evasive when asked if they support court packing. This leads me to believe there would be a massive backlash if they go through with court packing. Would they do it if it ment losing Congressional majorities? I tend to think not but 2020 has jumped the shark many time over so

[fusnik]

Got it.

Let’s just paraphrase this entire thing thusly:

The conservatives here and in general are ok with an executive who denies a peaceful transition of power, are fine with states that ‘pack’ state courts, think it’s an awesome political play to hold up over a 100 judicial seats and not fill a SC nomination for political reasons, but the second a couple blue check marks on twitter talk about adding a couple SC seats (which has been done before) they run back to the Orange Jesus because of norms and precedent.

GTFO.

Joe isn’t going to pack the court everyone knows this. Why wouldn’t you hold this as a bargaining chip in the event the senate stays red?

[Northwestcoug]

I don't remember if I posted anything here about it, but I believe my position on the matter at the time was that it was a tactical mistake by McConnell not to take Garland over whatever flaming liberal Hillary would appoint once she was elected. That turned out to be untrue. By submitting the question to the voters, Republicans rolled the dice on the biggest political gamble in years and won big time.

As for whether the Republican Senate COULD do what it did, I mean, they obviously CAN, though it is fair to question whether they SHOULD and how bad it would be if they DID. All of which is also basically true of court packing. But any way you slice it, I don't see holding a seat open as having even a fraction of the consequences of adding more seats.

Two parenthetical comments. First, I see no meaningful difference between voting to reject the nomination and simply not voting on the nomination. If anything the latter is more humane.

Second, I think there is a superficial case to be made that Republicans have NOT breached norms by not confirming the nomination of another party's president, but confirming the nomination of their own party's president, in an election year. I am not surprised that few have found that argument convincing. I won't push it here other than to mention that the argument has been made.

I absolutely agree. I'm not naive enough to believe that the democrats would have acted differently if they saw the stakes in a similar manner. They've shown plenty of times that they are willing to forget tradition when it suits there purpose. The one and only time I donated to a national party was when Obamacare was passed. I was incensed that Reid et al went through procedural votes when Mass voted the 51st 'yes' vote out. I couldn't believe that they were rejecting the clear wishes of state voters and time-honored tradition. And now look at me, a solid ACA supporter. That was a long time ago.

Anyways, that is besides the point. I'm not really interested in this confirmation. I'm interested in fixing a broken system that allows both parties to eschew quasi senate rules and tradition when it suits them. If there's a less drastic way to fix this for the future than SCOTUS term limits, I'm all ears.

[CardiacCoug]

The Republicans were wrong to not give MG an up or down vote.

I disagree with the idea of waiting for an election — it just seems lazy and inconsistent to wait. Just keep working until the next people take over!

It reminds me of having a call shift that goes until 7 AM and when I take over at 7 AM the guy before says “well they called me at 6:30 about this patient but I figured it was close enough I’d just have you take care of it.” Lazy!

[Applejack]

I don't remember if I posted anything here about it, but I believe my position on the matter at the time was that it was a tactical mistake by McConnell not to take Garland over whatever flaming liberal Hillary would appoint once she was elected. That turned out to be untrue. By submitting the question to the voters, Republicans rolled the dice on the biggest political gamble in years and won big time.

As for whether the Republican Senate COULD do what it did, I mean, they obviously CAN, though it is fair to question whether they SHOULD and how bad it would be if they DID. All of which is also basically true of court packing. But any way you slice it, I don't see holding a seat open as having even a fraction of the consequences of adding more seats.

Two parenthetical comments. First, I see no meaningful difference between voting to reject the nomination and simply not voting on the nomination. If anything the latter is more humane.

Second, I think there is a superficial case to be made that Republicans have NOT breached norms by not confirming the nomination of another party's president, but confirming the nomination of their own party's president, in an election year. I am not surprised that few have found that argument convincing. I won't push it here other than to mention that the argument has been made.

Yes, I agree that we aren't talking about if the Senate has the power to do those things: the constitution gives the Senate the power to confirm for SCOTUS, AND the constitution gives Congress the power to expand (or shrink!) the Supreme Court. Both the McConnell power play and the hypothetical court packing are perfectly legal.

And I also agree that both moves are bad precedent (I think you are saying this): court packing would just permanently make the Supreme Court a voting issue, with power dictating how big the court becomes. But I would argue that McConnell's move does the exact same thing, albeit, without the superficial detail of changing the court's composition. Imagine a scenario in which Biden wins (glory hallelujah!) but Repubs keep the senate: what's stopping them from refusing to hear Biden's nominee once Thomas/Breyer die? Is it unusual to wait 2-3 years to fill a Supreme Court vacancy? Sure, but there's nothing illegal about it. Or flip the script, Dems take the senate but Trump wins (NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!): what would stop the Senate from holding a hearing for Trump's pick to replace Sotomayor?

I think court packing sets a terrible precedent where we have bickering whenever the Senate and Presidency is divided and we get an ideological change to the court whenever the senate and Presidency are in the same hands. I also think the same scenario is currently in motion because of McConnell's move.

[UVACoug]

Really? Trump's damage to venerable governmental institutions (know anyone that works at the DOJ? How are they liking it?), his destruction of America's reputation abroad as being pro-democracy, his non-handling of Covid, his crazy tariffs, his restrictions on immigration that WILL harm the economy long term, etc, etc, etc scares you less than the "prospect of court packing?" That statement can't be correct. Can it? These things that Trump has done scare you less than things people are talking about on Twitter? Biden has said he was against it as recently as the Dem. debates. Even if he supported it, the Dems could only do it if they took control of the Senate and everyone or almost everyone in the senate voted for it. How many senators openly support court packing? 4 or 5? The democrats would have to waste all of their political capitol on the issue, and there would be nothing left to stop fracking!

I agree that court packing is a terrible idea that further politicizes the Supreme Court. Worst of all, there is no apparent end to the tit for tat in which Repubs would do the same thing when they are in power (like the Garland nomination, btw). That is why this is a non-starter politically: it would cost the hard earned (hypothetical) advantage the dems have achieved, and would just be undone (or worse) when the repubs take control.

But to say that the "prospect" of judge shopping is why you are going to vote for Trump? I call BS.

I agree with this, which is why I'm not too concerned about it. I don't think the Democrats will have the votes to pull it off. They'd probably need all Democrats in the Senate to vote for it, unless Democrats pull off a bigger victory in November than expected. Joe Manchin has already said he wouldn't vote to end the filibuster or to expand the court.

On the other hand, if Democrats in Congress become unified behind it, Biden would have a hard time vetoing it, regardless of what he's previously said.

[UVACoug]

Honestly what’s the difference?

I see fundamentally no real distinction from ‘packing’ a court through more seats and ‘packing’ a court by way of only filling seats with specific justices.

Is the outcome not the same?

Really? You don't see a difference between something that has been done consistently since the founding and something that hasn't been done in over 150 years and caused a crisis that I learned about in elementary school the last time it was seriously contemplated?

[fusnik]

Really? You don't see a difference between something that has been done consistently since the founding and something that hasn't been done in over 150 years and caused a crisis that I learned about in elementary school the last time it was seriously contemplated?

Umm no.

I don’t see a difference between packing a court and withholding nominations which packs a court.

They might be different mechanisms but the results are the same.

But I didn’t vote for a clown who was going to act frail and rip off his shirt showing a Superman tee when he was discharged from a hospital for a disease that’s killed 210k Americans.

[UVACoug]

Got it.

Let’s just paraphrase this entire thing thusly:

The conservatives here and in general are ok with an executive who denies a peaceful transition of power, are fine with states that ‘pack’ state courts, think it’s an awesome political play to hold up over a 100 judicial seats and not fill a SC nomination for political reasons, but the second a couple blue check marks on twitter talk about adding a couple SC seats (which has been done before) they run back to the Orange Jesus because of norms and precedent.

GTFO.

Joe isn’t going to pack the court everyone knows this. Why wouldn’t you hold this as a bargaining chip in the event the senate stays red?

Who are these conservatives on here that you are referring to? I haven't seen anyone say anything like that.

[All-American]

Got it.

Let’s just paraphrase this entire thing thusly:

The conservatives here and in general are ok with an executive who denies a peaceful transition of power, are fine with states that ‘pack’ state courts, think it’s an awesome political play to hold up over a 100 judicial seats and not fill a SC nomination for political reasons, but the second a couple blue check marks on twitter talk about adding a couple SC seats (which has been done before) they run back to the Orange Jesus because of norms and precedent.

GTFO.

Joe isn’t going to pack the court everyone knows this. Why wouldn’t you hold this as a bargaining chip in the event the senate stays red?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sRS1dwCotw

[fusnik]

Who are these conservatives on here that you are referring to? I haven't seen anyone say anything like that.

Look at his approval rating in the GOP.

Look at Romneys polls vs Trumps in Utah.

Read the posts of any cross section in this forum.

I’m born and raised in Utah and have been frequenting BYU slanted message boards for 17 years and I’ve read or heard very little push back to Trumps bloviating.

Two weeks ago AA was saying he and I’m assuming other lawyer friends were going to end up voting for Trump over an action that hasn’t even happened yet. KatyLied and dabrockster are so terrified of Kamala and ‘who is really running Joe Biden’ that they might vote for Trump.