If trump wins, I fully expect the evangelicals to push for everything they can and for it to be taken to SCOTUS...........Contraception, Abortion, everything will be on the table. If trump wins I assume there is a red wave and the gop will have 2 years to take us back to 1925
And Jim Crow. The good old days according to Byron Donalds. I wonder if his marriage will end up being annulled or grandfathered in.
I've changed my mind on this issue but if Biden wins and the Democrats hold the Senate they should seriously consider expanding the court. The only other option would be to impeach Thomas and Alito which I think would be very hard to get enough votes for removal. I still haven't changed my mind that altering the number of justices might lead to other problems down the road but at the moment with practically no accountability on them diluting the power of the justices might be the only thing that is feasible. At the minimum just the threat of packing the court might push Roberts and the rest of the court to reform.
You know you are a dirty unethical party when you vote against an ethics bill. This still brings up the question I asked before. Is the oath they all take meaningless? If so, why take an oath at all? If it's not meaningless, then can't they get removed for breaking the oath?
Ahh, the FDR method. If that pesky Supreme Court is getting in your way by enforcing the Constitution, just threaten to add enough yes men to their ranks that you will get your way and hope they have a sudden and miraculous change of heart.
You're a lawyer so tell me, are oaths you lawyers, Supreme Court Justices, physicians, or anyone else who takes an oath meaningless, or are there legal consequences that can be taken if someone breaks that oath?
There are no meaningful consequences to breaking an oath, nor is it very easy to determine if an oath has been broken. For example, California has many laws regulating firearms. One such law is a ban on assault weapons. So, California law says it is illegal to possess a centerfire rifle with a detachable magazine and one of a list of other features (say a pistol grip). Am I breaking my oath to uphold the Constitution if I charge someone with possession of an assault weapon? What about possession of a handgun in a vehicle when they are not the registered owner? The Constitution says that people have the right to keep and bear arms. There are codified rules to be followed that are more detailed than the oaths we take. The business and professions code, the rules of civil procedure, the rules of court, etc. all have actual consequences associated with breaking them. I would say that accusations of oath breaking can be very partisan in nature. We have seen a lot of recent accusations against Samuel Alito based on what I would consider very reasonable statements made talking to someone who was actively trying to entrap him. You could find far more egregious oath breaking in far more consequential matters by other people, in my opinion, (the dissenting opinions in DC v. Heller, for an example).
All well and good. Now what if someone committed a crime such as burglary (let's not get into the weeds on the crime itself) then they took you on a nice vacation, and you didn't charge them with the crime? What would happen to you?
This isnt about the rulings but about the lack of accountability they have and that the justices are getting financial and other benefits from people with cases before the court.
Except there are statutes making perjury a crime, there are statutes making treason a crime, but no statutes making "oathbreaking" a crime, likely because of the reasons I mentioned. Hence why I talked about more detailed codified rules. There is a code section that makes it illegal to lie under oath in court. They are a statement of a moral agreement, a profession of a code. They have whatever meaning the oathtaker gives them. I take very seriously my oath to protect and defend the Constitution. I just go into it with the understanding that we have allowed the courts to weigh in on what the Constitution means, and that in the present day the 2nd Amendment is not an unlimited right for any person to have any weapon in any situation. I am sure doctors also take the Hippocratic oath very seriously, but many opinions could be rendered on what "do no harm" means with regard to any individual patient or situation. Some doctors might think that performing a circumcision is doing no harm, others might disagree. So, I wouldn't say they are meaningless, so much as they have little if any legal force and effect. Generally speaking, you would hand the case off to someone else and recuse yourself for a conflict of interest. I have done so when cases came across my desk involving people I have had personal interactions with in the past (positive or negative). What would happen to me if I instead chose to look at the case and didn't charge it? Probably nothing. Strange that the push for expanding the court always seems to happen after rulings that are unpopular among the party talking about expanding the court.
This is not a gotcha question. What do you do or have done when you don't agree with the law if you feel it is Unconstitutional?
