Biden prepping to endorse sweeping changes to Supreme Court

Even now, Biden isn't suggesting packing the court. Nothing he's proposing impinges on the independence of the court. There is no hypocrisy or flipflopping here. He's asking for reasonable reforms that would, if anything, improve the independence of the court by reducing the opportunities of presidents to manipulate who is on it.

 

sure Jan dot gif

 

Ballsy for Biden to want to strip presidential immunity if he's the criminal Trump claims he is.

 

I do not know what you mean.

 

People seem to forget once upon a time there were no term limits for Presidents.

 

Another conservative critique of the proposal that has absolutely nothing to do with its merits, but who is proposing it.

 

He means that he likes the current ideological makeup of the court (see his subsequent tweet) because it benefits Republican policy goals. He's right that Democrats are upset about that.

But what he doesn't address is that this proposal - rotating terms, limiting appointments to two per president (not in this proposal, but proposed elsewhere), and allowing Supreme Court justices to go back down to circuit courts like David Souter - would do an immense amount of good to reduce partisanship.

But he's always been a partisan.

 

Wish they would have done the same for all the other branches while the iron was hot.

 

I don't know who this tweeter is but he just asserts stuff and he doesn't make sense. Proposal is reasonable and not psychotic. It is transparent and I would add that it also makes things more predictable. It is eminently workable. The constitutionality is a bit tenuous, but that's probably why Biden is proposing a constitutional amendment. Dude makes a lazy assumption that because Biden is starting to show dementia means that nothing useful can ever come out of his brain. Also makes the lazy assumption that Biden doesn't have a whole team of advisors to actually put this proposal together.

To the dude's last point, yeah, I don't like that paleoconservatives have seized the court. But, I also really don't want to see it just swing back to a liberal court that will say the last court was wrong about saying the previous court was wrong. In my eyes, the Court in general has no credibility anymore, even if it was packed with people who thought like me. It's a nuke that is getting tossed back and forth like a football. It's a crazy and dangerous game we're playing. The court needs to reduce volatility and it needs some more insulation from presidential politics. These reforms can do that. You could even grandfather in the sitting Justices if people are concerned about changing the rules mid-game.

Anyway, post me a gif or a tweet since I know you're afraid to post your own opinion.

 

I don't see why anyone has a problem with these proposals by President Biden.

1) He is calling for a constitutional amendment that makes clear no president is above the law or immune from prosecution for crimes committed while in office. - Agree

2) He is also pushing Congress to implement 18-year term limits for Supreme Court justices, with presidents appointing a justice every two years, according to the White House official. Currently, justices serve lifetime appointments. - Agree

3) Biden is pressing for a binding and enforceable code of conduct and ethics rules for the high court that would require justices "to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity, and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest." - Agree

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/bid...amendment-strip-presidents/story?id=112356142

 

Why are term limits a bad idea? Everything you've posted so far tacitly endorses them.

 

They are very reasonable. Hard to see how any reasonable person can argue (in good faith) against these points.

 

impossible, no way to achieve a 2/3 vote to pass in Congress

unconstitutional, see Article III

Congress doesn't have the authority to do this; so back to (1) the amendment, which is basically impossible

 

Currently the law is written that a president is immune from crimes if the act is done while acting in presidential authority. This is the way it should be - We do not need endless court cases trying to prosecute the president for every action.

A president is not immune from crimes if they are acting outside of the presidential authority.

This is fair enough. Focus on congress too.

A bit vague, however I thought this was already in place for the most part

 

I support term limits for congress.

 

Federalist 78 online:

https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed78.asp

 

You're not addressing the point.

Term limits on judges would remove the high-pitched political battles over nominations. Rotating them would limit the politicization of the court if each president were only allowed to nominate two justices. It would foster more impartiality rather than the current zero-sum situation. I assume you're feeling pretty good about the court's current makeup; remember the "permanent Democratic majority" that party hyped up after 2008? "Demographics are destiny"? Nothing is forever, not even the court.

Let me turn it around: why do you support lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court, but not Congress?

 

the purpose of a lifetime appointment to SCOTUS, is to insulate them from political pressure. the democrats are furious that the court is immune from politics, so they're attempting an end run. I can guarantee that if Roe had not been overturned, or if the court had ruled differently in the Trump case, this proposal would never have been made.