Is it time to restore the Supreme Court to legitimacy?

So Clarence Thomas 25 years before Garland was the last time? And how many nominations/confirmation since then? That's some powerful precedent you got there.

The rest of your post is just ad hominems that conservatives could just as easily claim about liberal justices and adds no value to anything.

The conservative justices in overturning Roe and sending the abortion issue back to the people is the exact opposite as acting as Kings. Liberal justices want to waive their sceptres and "find" unenumerated rights and rule the country via their rulings. The conservative justices are returning the question to the people at the state level. That is actually way more democratic.

 

Then stop your complaining. Everything was above board. Win some elections and control some branches of government if you want to effectuate things you want. Democrats are partisan too. If you want to posit a Democratic senate was going to consent to a Trump nominee you're being entirely disingenuous. The notion is laughable.

 

You initially claimed that Garland was not considered because of differences over jurisprudence. But what you're saying since then suggests there was a different reason that had nothing to do with jurisprudence and everything to do with rank partisanship. Which you try to excuse by pointing out that McConnell was still playing by the rules and Democrats would have done the same thing. I don't think either is a very good excuse. The appropriate thing would have been to give Garland a hearing and then make a decision.

The fact that the SC nomination process has become so politicized that it must hinge on control of the Senate is a sad state of affairs and I doubt it is what the Framers intended.

 

Yea, as in Garland's interpretations and jurisprudence don't jive with what Republican Senators would want... so they didn't bring him up to a vote and likely wouldn't have confirmed him had he gotten one.

If Dems wanted to have their Supreme Court nominees approved by the Senate they should have won more seats in the Senate. Blame yourself but that wouldn't be very pleasant would it?

So Garland gets a vote and gets 46 Democrats and 3 Republicans and Democrats still wouldn't be complaining and talking about Garland getting robbed? Unlikely.

The Supreme Court nomination process is partisan. It has been for a long time.

Democrats are just as political as Republicans. Go take a look at any vote in the last thirty years. Whenever a Republican is nominated the majority of Democrats... sometimes the vast majority... sometimes all Democrats vote against them. Same thing with Democratic nominees and Republican Senators.

Democrats are just big mad vacancies happened to fall Republicans way.

 

I understand that, and I'm saying he should have gotten one, and then they could make their decision to not confirm him after the American people hear the arguments. Democrats are also partisans, but I'd like to think they would have at least given a centrist, non-controversial nominee from a Republican president a hearing, at the very least. There's no point arguing over whether it would have happened or not. I'm not trying to make a point that Democrats are better than Republicans in this regard, even though that's how you are construing it.

 

I mean, this is totally subjective. Your representation of Garland as a "centrist" and the newest Republican nominees as "Kings" or "extremists" or "Christian White Nationalists" or whatever is just a matter of opinion.

 

I don't really have an opinion on where Garland fits on the political landscape. I'm referring to how he's been described by others, including Republicans. SCOTUSblog referred to him as "essentially the model, neutral judge".

 

In that case, a version of abortion is still the constitutional right of every American, abstinence. Sure it isn't actually abortion, but the result is you don't have a baby. Or we could just let words mean what they mean.

Many of your fellow travelers don't seem to understand that, because they think the Republicans packed the Supreme Court.

That is exactly what they have done. Since Marbury v. Madison, the job of the court has been understood to be that a case is heard and they determine how the case should be decided, including overturning any law that is unconstitutional. The current court is just more closely tracking the language of the Constitution instead of basing their decisions on public policy. You say the court should not legislate from the bench. I agree. Where in the Constitution did they locate the trimester framework from Roe? The viability and undue burden standards in Casey?

I would say Congress is failing because they don't understand their limits and they grew complacent dealing with a court that would let them get away with anything.

Exactly what we did, work for decades to get judges and eventually justices in place that would being the Supreme Court back on course.

I disagree, I think they are finally returning (hopefully) to making sure the Constitution is what determines what laws can stand, not public policy. The people who disagree with whatever religious alignment you are attributing to the court (Catholicism? Judaism? Dobbs was 5 Catholics and an Episcopalian on one side and 2 Jews and a Catholic on the other side) are having their full states rights. That is what they are complaining about.

The more legally conservative among us have been fed up with the court since before I was born. We complained about decision after decision. We largely never pushed to change the nature of the court or the rules on how to get there. People have worked and campaigned and voted to shift the court for decades. Now that the tide has finally turned, those who were used to getting their way are not happy about it. That's what happens when the tables turn.

I disagree that this is activism, I would call it a return to a more conservative jurisprudence. Insofar as there are profound changes, those were happening and no Civil War or Secession resulted. The Court made up a right to abortion and millions of abortions happened (which I understand you are all good with, but to those of us on the other side, that is millions of lives lost). Look at the outrage because 200 kids die in school shootings. More people are aborted than that on an average day. Was there a Civil War over it, no. People worked within the system to change the system.

I see it the opposite. The Supreme Court is there as a break, a check on the executive and Congress. They are there to say, "No sir, you have gone too far and you are not allowed to do that." You cannot force states to allow abortion on demand. You cannot prevent people from exercising their right to bear arms. You cannot fire a coach for exercising his religious freedom, you cannot give unlimited power to an unelected agency under the executive branch to set whatever rules they want. The Constitution provides very limited powers to Congress and to the Executive, and the court is supposed to make sure they are bounded within those limits. Not to point out even more ways for Congress to exercise power.

Then "Liberals" (and I think you are misusing that term) have been wrong for many decades, because they sure were applauding the court governing like Kings in establishing Roe, Casey, Obergefell, etc.) You just liked it, so you thought what they were doing was fine. You are up in arms because they say they can find a right to bear arms in the Constitution, but not a right to abortion. That just means they can read.

That's what I said. Just reject him and move on. Heck, do it in committee if you want. Don't do the stupid, "We have to wait for the election." song and dance. Send a list to Obama of candidates you would confirm. Take this bullet out of the gun of your opposition.

 

you have far more patience than I do.

 

He’s true to what he believes in here on this forum. I know he’s a staunch Republican and conservative who will give mostly factual information and won’t beat around the bush when it comes to answering questions about where he stands. So I’m sure many including myself respect him on that front more so than others here who just want to play games.

 

It’s Hard to Overstate the Danger of the Voting Case the Supreme Court Just Agreed to Hear


The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear Moore v. Harper, an “independent state legislature” theory case from North Carolina. This case has the potential to fundamentally rework the relationship between state legislatures and state courts in protecting voting rights in federal elections. It also could provide the path for election subversion in congressional and presidential elections.

The issue presented in this case has been a recurring one in recent years. Two parts of the Constitution—Article I, Section 4 as to congressional elections and Article II as to presidential elections—give state “legislatures” the power to set certain rules (in the Article I, Section 4 context, subject to congressional override). In cases such as Smiley v. Holm, the Supreme Court has long understood the use of the term legislaturehere to broadly encompass a state’s legislative process, such as the need for a governor’s signature on legislative action (or veto override) about congressional elections. As recently as 2015, in Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission v. Arizona Legislature, the Supreme Court held that the voters in Arizona could use the initiative process to create an independent redistricting commission to draw congressional districts even when the state legislature objected. The majority saw voters passing legislation via initiative as part of that legislative process.

But that latter case was 5–4 with a strong dissent by Chief Justice John Roberts, who believed the legislature could not be cut out of the process. Most of the justices in the majority in that case are now off the court.

There’s a more radical version of the idea that the legislature has power, standing on its own as a body and not part of the general structure of state government, in the independent state legislature theory.

Take the facts of the Moore case. The North Carolina Supreme Court, interpreting a provision of the state constitution protecting the right to vote, held that partisan gerrymandering violated the state constitution and required drawing fairer lines, including in congressional districts. That state court is majority Democrat, and the North Carolina General Assembly is majority Republican. The Republican legislature argued that this holding usurped its sole and plenary power to choose the manner for drawing congressional districts.

Pause on that for a moment: The theory in this extreme form is that the state constitution as interpreted by the state supreme court is not a limit on legislative power. This position would essentially neuter the development of any laws protecting voters more broadly than the federal Constitution based on voting rights provisions in state constitutions. It also goes against what Roberts wrote for the conservative majority of the court as recently as in the 2019 redistricting case Rucho v. Common Cause, when he explicitly said that “provisions in state statutes and state constitutions can provide standards and guidance for state courts to apply” regarding redistricting. As Roberts wrote, the courts have a role to play in redistricting fights:

more here…
https://slate.com/news-and-politics...ous-independent-state-legislature-theory.html

 

Actually, I am registered No Party Preference and vote primarily Libertarian, though I do prefer Republican candidates to Democrats when those are the only options available. Thank you, though.

 

Curious here, who’s the last Democrat you voted for?

 

Several of them in the primary earlier this month. (In California, the primary frequently serves as the general election, as anyone that gets over 50% is deemed the winner of the general election, despite the lower turnout in primaries). Not a lot of options though, in several cases there were people running unopposed or two Democrats running against each other. I don't know if I have ever voted for a Democrat in a general election where there was a Republican or Libertarian or something running against them. I did vote for the more left leaning judge in our Judicial election, but I also have faced him in court dozens of times and know he can be fair.

 

I remember this dumb idea popped up in Rehnquist's concurrence in Bush v Gore (where he suggested that state courts didn't have a say on elections since it was a florida court that had originally ordered the expanded recount). No one else signed on to his idea at the time because that was insane but here we are over 20 years later and there are at least four justices ready to vote for this garbage. The kicker is that the median justice (the "swing" vote) at the moment is Brett Kavanaugh and he already signaled that he believes this stuff. If you read his and Gorsuch's concurrence in the Wisconsin mail ballot case, they already suggested that the Supreme Court should be the final arbiter on everything election related (even if a state supreme court is ruling on a state constitutional claim). So they're ready to usurp the authority of state courts on elections.

So that means your four initial votes are Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch to start. Roberts probably isn't ready for this insanity (and I believe in a past ruling he's already noted that state courts can strike down partisan maps on state constitutional grounds). So that means this basically hinges on Amy Coney Barrett and I don't like the odds on that one.

So my sad prediction is a 5-4 usurping the power of state courts. No more state courts stopping gerrymandering. No more state courts stopping whatever scheme Republican legislators are up to around fake electors, etc... It'll just be an endless series of shadow docket rulings by the Supreme Court.

 

I don't necessarily agree with this theory, but a former friend of mine once argued that elections would be less volatile if they mattered less on a federal level. To me that just seems like your abuser saying it's your fault for not wanting to be treated like **** but there is some merit to it, namely that the right sees every election as a potential loss of everything.

This **** also isn't new. Reconstruction basically stopped and was reversed through similar tactics.

 

But that isn't what is happening here. This is actually the opposite of what you are proposing. State legislatures get to continue to dictate the process but they lose state courts as a check on their power. Meanwhile the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that it also has no role in the process. Remember the court already struck down a large part of the Voting Rights Act and it recently ruled that it has no place in policing partisan gerrymandering.

This ruling effectively says that state legislatures can do whatever they want and neither state nor federal courts will do anything to stop their abuses. So gerrymandered legislatures get a blank check to keep gerrymandering. And if they want to send fake electors to Washington, they can probably do that too since courts aren't allowed to serve as a check.

For example, in Nebraska, the government there is currently arguing in a case around referendum petitions that the idea of one man one vote doesn't apply. State governments are basically stripping away voting rights and the Supreme Court is concurrently saying that courts (both federal and state) have no role in policing state governments.

 

Oh I misunderstood then. Yeah that's absolutely absurd.

 

Wow, that's a stretch argument. equating abortion to abstinence? A for effort. lol

You are fighting a losing battle if your position is "let words mean what they mean".

There is no authority that defines what "court packing" means. That said, more generally, the meaning of words are what the general public believes them to be ...which is in a constant state of flux. It's why the dictionary folks are constantly adding/revising words and definitions. The dictionary is not static. We also have the cliche "Perception is king".

A great current example of this is the term "fake news". We all thought we knew what that meant in 2015 and it's safe to say the general public views that term to mean something else at this point.

What is important is not semantics but "intent". The intent is to manipulate the system by thinking outside the box to add justices that are friendly to your agenda. Mitch was definitely thinking outside the box. He is a master, the likes of Darth Vader.

 

This thread is stupid, this concept is stupid. Any time things don't turn out the way libs want, that means the system is broken and must be revamped. Electoral College must be banned, SCOTUS must be overhauled, lol. Y'all are idiots.