Packing the courts with a bunch of unqualified, young federal judges (unqualified by the standard of the legal governing bodies) and ramming through a Supreme Court with less than a month until the election goes far and above the “sharing views of the constitution”. It is what is, so don’t be surprised when the Dems win in 2020 and they do it back. Deal with it.
I assume you won't complain then if Democrats gain power and expand the courts or do anything else you disagree with.
It wasn't technically unconstitutional, but yes, violated most norms and wasn't what framers intended. It was a power move and the Dems could do the same if they have the political will. I just don't see it happening because Dems have been less bold in their power moves than the Republicans.
The GOP has shrewdly realized that controlling the courts means you can control legislation even when not in power. In the real world, I wish things weren’t so but the Dems need to be far more Machiavellian to match the GOP.
Yeah, good point: just keep hammering the old classic. "Are you better off than you were four years ago? Is your country better off than it was four years ago?" And in this case: "Are you disturbed by what's happening? Does anything feel 'great again' right now? Not so much?"
There's an oddly-timed outbreak at her kids' school, but I haven't heard anything else. She supposedly had the bug in the summer, but it does seem possible to re-contract the damned thing. I can't believe she wasn't more careful, but ambition and power do funny things to peoples' brains.
Packing is an ok short term remedy. However, we need to correct the original S. Ct Power grab that gave the unelected (traditionally for the most part) 5 the power to override the democratically elected president and both houses of Congress. For those who make a fetish out of the "intent of the framers" actual humans this power was not in the Constitution. Yale law prof as well as PhD historian Samuel Moyn has much to say about the history of this power grab by the Supremes and how we should correct this. https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/qa-professor-samuel-moyn-supreme-court-reform. Abraham Lincoln had much to say about this unjust undemocratic power grab, also. In the long run the main problem with our ancient Constitution is that is way too hard to Amend. Tradition and custom have helped us work around it, but we see what happens when we have folks like McConnel and Trump who could give a crap about these workarounds.
Nice try I am talking about federal judges that turtle blocked the last 4 years of Obama presidency not just the Supreme Court. But you knew that. Pretty pathetic come back
Obama had the lowest percentage of appointed federal judges since 1977. 28 percent were confirmed during the last two years of his presidency. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45622.pdf P.S. before you reply back saying that there has been tradition of slowing down judges in the final year of the presidency. Turtle man slowed down Obama’s nominations over the last FOUR years not just his final year.
Most of the judges were put in by presidents who didn't win a popular majority. The Repugs are in a pathetic whiny nihilistic state right now...
The link is light on substance regarding the history of the power grab, so I'll have to read the Law Review article. I enjoy political history. Lincoln campaigned against SCOTUS 99% due to the Dred Scott decision, but when he was elected, he kind of had it similar to Trump where justices were dying or retiring. So instead of replacing justices from slave holding states (SCOTUS was a regional thing then) with others from slave holding states, he started putting New Yorkers in the court. And once the South took their ball and went home (and after Andrew Johnson lost power - bc he was not a Radical Republican, but only carried Lincoln's favor because he tried to keep the Union together), the post-Lincoln Republicans had their way with reshaping the courts. As for the Constitutional argument, it depends on which framer's view. Hamilton in Fed 78 definitely saw SCOTUS as the final arbiter. Jefferson wasn't a framer, but let's say he's in the same facebrook group - he felt like states could nullify laws if they decided it was unconstittuional. Madison started off more like a textualist who believed in co-equal governance and the power for any branch to strike down actions of other branches, but evolved more as he got older and I think came into line more like his buddy Hamilton. Different framers believed in different things, but ultimately, SCOTUS has become the arbiter of what's constitutional and what new things violate what old laws (and the story of how this came to be gets lost in the weeds, but we accept it as truth today). It's not perfect, but I imagine it's much more practical than having states being able to say, nope, I don't have to follow the Federal Voting Rights Act because I, Texas, find this legislation unconsitutional. I do agree that the constitution is way too hard to amend. And from your link, I don't think weakening the courts is any better when the current partisan gridlock can't get much done in the legislative branch. It's all about political will anyways. Once one party gets enough power, the Consitution is so malleable that it can be shaped by that party's power if the will is there.
It really does seem that appointing judges is the #1 priority of Congressional Republicans. After all the things the Turtle has pulled, for the Republicans to screech about packing the court? You doled out the medicine, now take some.
Good post and agree there was disagreement among the Founders about the role of the court. That was settled with Marbury V Madison that yes the USSC can rule on the Constitutionality of laws. I agree that the USSC has gained in importance in recent decades but a lot of that has to do with that the Legislative branch has gotten relatively weaker compared to other branches. Most USSC rulings tend to be narrow rulings and often on technical matters. In many cases passing new legislation can get around those.
