This post is beyond ignorant and is just arrantly inane. You must think everyone is an idiot like those guys who stupidly keep voting for your nonsense. Seeing the tide about to turn, you are already pivoting back to the usual self righteous BS that you spew when not in power While Obama was president, the GOP didnt even give Garland a vote, but you now claim that the same GOP senate would have approved 2 SCOTUS nominees under HRC. GOP hypocritically blocked a 5-4 liberal court but would approve a 6-3 court? Please save that stupid nonsense for those idiots who blindly watch fox and still listen to your ilk. The GOP knows that a politicized judiciary is the only thing saving their minority rule from extinction. They couldnt even find competent nominees and instead we end up with an embarassment like Kavanaugh, who seem to have penned a SCOTUS opinion after have one too many bottles. But the GOP will gladly take any idiot that is willing to legitimize their vote suppression, voter disenfranchisement and gerrymandering tactics The GOP politicized the judiciary using every means they could and were proud to do so, so please sit back and enjoy the show as the shoe swings to the other foot. You call it packing the court, I see at as duly elected president and legislators doing what they were elected to do.
McConnell refering to Barrett as a political asset, simply shows what the GOP is about when it comes to judicial nominees.
Following up on some of the other replies. McConnell and other Republican Senators had hinted that if Clinton won they might be willing to hold up Scalia's seat for four years. Whether they would've done that we don't know but given they held it up for 8 months shows that they were very willing to hold up SC seats. I'm against changing the number of seats but if it does happen I will blame McConnell. If he had allowed Merrick Garland to proceed as per tradition I don't think we would be talking so much about stacking the court. I fully agree moderates should step up but McConnell's moves regarding the court have made it much harder for moderates.
How dare you believe us? While we suspect, what kind of voters and public are we to hold the position that we should never believe or hold politician to their words? Oh, it's okay if they lied straight to your face. No, it's not okay, that's not a society we should devolve into. This nation needs to return to some core principles, such as not lying, good character, good moral. RBG doesn't control when she dies and she doesn't control how the GOP behave. I'm not going to blame a person who think they can still do their function and not do the political calculation along party line. Justices, in an ideal word, is independent of party and act as impartial judges. The very idea that they should consider party in power is part of the problem, isn't it? I get that the world is not ideal, but again, I'm not going to shoot down a person for shooting for an ideal. Focusing on RBG seems to be a deflection to me. The core problem here is political escalation, not RBG choice. When does it end? When one side escalate, how do you expect the other side does not respond? This court packing idea would not happen without the escalation. It is the very fact that DEM packing the SC is itself more escalation that I said I do not want that to happen without a plan to stop / limit it (if that's even possible).
Sorry I missed this earlier. You have to win state elections. Even if there was a liberal majority on the USSC that wouldn't change that districts are drawn in favor of Republicans if Democrats didn't control the state house. Now I agree that is much more difficult that it was before but this is where I will say why it is important to contest elections at all levels.
Suggesting to pack the court because your team lost is extremist behavior. I would disagree with this notion regardless of which team suggested. And yes, I do view myself as a moderate. Just because I disagree with one of your points does not make me a Trumper or a right winger. I get the same accusations when I have discussions with right wingers. I frequently get the same unimaginative group think replies from both sides. If someone can not deviate from their teams group think from time to time, they are an extremist. I have no problem agreeing with Republicans and I have no problem agreeing with Democrats. And I have no problem disagreeing with both. You do not see me rebuking right wingers because they are practically non existent on this forum. On the contrary, there are quite a few of short sighted liberals that make for easy pickings. And yes, I am a contrarian. This is why you will find my views often something different than what both teams are aligning with.
The argument then becomes circulant i.e. win state elections to redraw districts, but you cant win state elections cos they are jerrrymandered, and so you are back to the initial problem of redrawing district. The legality of drawn districts can be be contested and hopefully at some point we have a less jerrymandered outcome. Then we can truly start contesting seats at all levels
I dont disagree with you at all. If Republicans always want to play the obstructionist, they will eventually pay the price. If Democrats held the Senate, they would have seated Garland. And I would have no issues with that. But I will say this again, with certainty. There is one person who could have prevented this mess. RBG. It wasn't like she was just another elder on the court. She was a very sick elder. She could have secured her seat to her preference if she wasn't so concerned about less important things.
Where were the moderates all the while the GOP had been pulling their shenanigans? If moderates step in at this stage, they will be moderates only in name while their actions would be siding with the likes of Mcconnel. Such an intervention will on embolden the likes of Mcconnel in the future, basically saying the GOP or any other party can get away with actions ithat politicize the judiciary. The GOP have already damaged the judiciary and, unless you can flush out all appointments that should have been made but was blocked by the GOP, they need to feel the shoe on the foot to learn their lesson.
When every argument you make is “Trump is really not that bad you stupid liberals” and “Joe Biden Dems are extremists” being in the “Moderate” of those two positions makes you a pretty freakin obnoxious likely Trump supporter who just wants to seem moderate so you can feel cool. You are no “moderate”. We are not as stupid as you hope we are to buy your BS.
So it’s Liberals fault that they are not able to predict cancer and death. Wow what profound logic from such a thoughtful scholar.
There is changing or re-drawing district and there is court approval, to put it plainly, of an attempt to redraw a district. Hypothetically, Dem can win all states gov, redraw in all districts to their advantage and a partisan conservative Supreme Court can strike all of them down. In the new Republican way, where there is no constraint to power, and where it's not about process (integrity, honor, system, tradition, value) but only about outcome, the Dem will die out if they continue to operate within the process. I support them at least to match what the Republican has escalated to (for example, pack / expand lower courts), and I want them to work on making the process legally binding. We can no longer trust, as @Space Ghost said, politicians to tell the truth and not outright lie. And I expand that to you can't trust them to have honor, integrity, tradition or honor. You have to build a process that have those quality built in, legally.
Eventually, in our system, there has always been a level that is found eventually. Then things swing the other way. Nationally and statewide, at least up until now. Things could seriously turn blue in Texas with this state election and the election in 2022, when the statewide positions will be contested, including seats on the Texas Supreme Court. There is an excellent chance that Democrats will take the House and elect the Speaker. That would give them a strong voice in redistricting. If the Republican leadership, Abbott, Patrick, and Paxton, decide to push through extreme redistricting similar to what we have now, it will be tied up in the courts. Legislation will be tied up in the House by the Speaker, a powerful position, and in the Senate by Patrick. Then in 2022, in my opinion, statewide elected Republicans will get hammered at the ballot box, especially if Biden takes Texas, which looks increasingly possible, and even if he doesn't. As you essentially said, state elections have consequences with redistricting. If Democrats take one or more Texas Supreme Court seats in this election, and more in 2022 (the state SC seats are in staggered 6 year terms), a big if, it has a real impact on Texas politics. Tom DeLay was able to remake redistricting in Texas in 2003, outside of the normal post-census period. Who's to say Democrats can't return the favor in a couple of years? Yes, it's complicated, but this is how the GOP has remained in power for most of the last two decades.
How long before Clarence Thomas is the swing vote on the Court. Anybody think Biden and the Dems will have the balls to pack the Court.
after what the trumplicans did these past 4 years especially since RBGs death if the Dems are smart they should
Still have to win the Senate first. Right now if I'm Biden, Warnock, Ossof or other surrogates the last thing we want to be discussing is changing the size of the court.
There is no way that senators like Manchin, Sinema or Kelly go for this. While I was initially intrigued by the idea, I've come to see court packing as a reactionary approach to a problem that was allowed to grow unchecked over decades. Liberals need their own equivalent of the Federalist Society (along with some political shamelessness, I admit) to counter what the GOP has been able to do with the court.
