US PoliERA 2018 |OT6| An Unmitigated Disaster
- Thread starter Midnight Jon
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If they're already too afraid to pack the courts, then probably.
After McConnell's bullshit with Garland, Democrats should speak honestly and openly about packing the courts to try to undo the damage done to this country. A lot of terrible SCOTUS decisions have already been made and a lot more are coming.
Glad it wasn't the cultist lady but ugh, Kavanaugh. Senate Dems need to grill him hard for that "sitting presidents shouldn't be indicted" shit.
People in the OT still don't realize that even if we had Clinton as president, we would still be in a big mess with the GOP controlled Congress.
To bad Rick Perry’s Only Good Idea Ever (TM) would need a constitutional amendment.
I would add that new justices are appointed two per term even if lifers didn’t retire so there may temporarily be more than 9 justices AND if one dies or retires before their term is up the sitting president may nominate a replacement only to finish that justices term.Rick Perry’s campaign website said:
Manchin released a statement:
Let's read between the lines a bit. That sentence about health care could be his escape clause and the cry around which Democrats rally against the nomination.
Let's read between the lines a bit. That sentence about health care could be his escape clause and the cry around which Democrats rally against the nomination.
This is also the best spearhead argument due to its broadness of politicality and uncomfort at arguing its necessity as a question. Its a secret to everyone he's fixated over loyalty and a reckoning is at hand at some point so we might as well act like this is an open secret too.
I think Democratic states should just ignore the court whenever possible and necessary. Pack it or weaken it by ignoring it, I don't care.
Democrats would likely control the Senate if Clinton won do to the coat tails effect. However, after 2018 there would probably about 60 Republicans in the Senate.
There's been a focus in this thread the past few days/weeks of "pack the courts". And whilst that's great (seriously!), it's not something that (I think) can be campaigned on. Go back two years and there were relatively few people-and-places talking about Roe vs Wade being in trouble, and that was all "What if Trump wins and nominates SCOTUS judges". So my point is that campaigning on legislation to protect abortion rights, protect LGBTQ rights, protect civil rights needs to become more of a centrepiece for Dems - reliance on SCOTUS precedents is a norm that the Dems have been beholden to for awhile, when they could have used passing legislation as a motivational tool to get out the vote.
Yeah there is absolutely no way any Republican Senator goes for that. You would need a 67-member Democratic supermajority, and even then I’m not convinced.
It would be the cleaner option than packing the courts, but far less practical. Same with, for example, overturning Citizens United via constitutional amendment versus just passing another campaign finance bill with a more liberal court (which we could get by hey, packing the court!).
Impeaching sitting justices is a centrist option and Republicans who don't want to do it will face the wrath of moderate swing voters
Once we're in power, we should just pass popular legislation, and, if it gets struck down by the Supreme Court trying to move us back into the 1800s by interpreting everything through an originalist lens, then we should rightly point all our attention at them and use our political power to deal with it (e.g. through institutional means like court reform and through individual means like protest).
I'm not saying we should delegitimize the court, but we should at least talk about the court as a partisan body so it in case we ever decide that we want to play hardball, we're more amenable to using partisan tactics.
I'm not saying we should delegitimize the court, but we should at least talk about the court as a partisan body so it in case we ever decide that we want to play hardball, we're more amenable to using partisan tactics.
I don't think we'll ever get a Dem supermajority for a long, long time. There are just too many red states compared to blue.
But by the time stuff is struck down you've already lost power in midterms
You don't have to campaign on packing the court to pack the court. In fact, I'm not sure that it would even be wise to campaign on. It's something you would do with a majority government like immediately after the inauguration of a D president so hopefully it isn't a major motivating factor for Rs in the midterms. I actually wouldn't campaign on it. It would just be something you do to have a liberal court for at least some amount of time. If Rs then start campaigning on getting the court back then you campaign on keeping it, along with all of your more important legislative issues. Like maybe we can finally convince the D base that midterms are important.
This, except instead of "protesting" the justices we should just remove them
Swing voters love moderate compromise, and they're vital for any party looking to maintain power
Especially if you can get Merrick Garland into the seat you're impeaching
This requires 67 votes and is impossible, while adding more justices only requires 50
The only real death blow to the GOP would be making the Senate more proportional to population. Do that and it's game over. If some states (gasp) only had one senator. You have less than 5 million people? Well yeah then you get 1 senator. More than that you can have 2.
One requires an amendment, the other a bare majority. Also too late.
I mean, I doubt we get a GOP supermajority anytime soon, either. The Senate is working exactly as it's intended - it's not meant to shift so dramatically.
You'd probably need three great cycles for either party to get a supermajority and that's practically impossible. The reigning party suffers a big midterm loss, and then they either rally in the presidential election or lose the presidency as well. But then they come back in the next midterms and the cycle repeats itself.
If we had like a 30-state landslide in 2020, and then managed to buck the midterm curse in 2022? Maybe?
Do you know a single "moderate"? Moderate voters value, above all else, the status quo. Even in instances where they seem to support something radical it is only a way to return to a fabled time or return their own status to what they perceived it as. As demonstrated by Clinton, impeachment fits this as well as anything. No one outside of "inside baseball" commentators, like us, or nakedly partisan individuals will support impeaching Justices outside of gross, widely reported violations of law. You might get the public to support impeaching a Justice for murdering someone; you won't get them to support impeachment for "I disagree with their rulings".
I don't know if you haven't noticed but the GOP senate doesn't really give a fuck about any kind of popular mandate. If they did Trump would have been impeached months ago. You can't get 17 swing votes in the Senate. You won't get that to impeach trump even. It's completely delusional to think they would just oust a lifetime conservative justice.
Progressive liberals basically suck at math.
"Hey guys, we have trouble getting 50 Senate seats to even sit at the table to potentially refuse appointments and legislation. But you know, if we got to 67 we could run the whole shebang! So, why don't we do that?"
I disagree. Unfortunately it's the Democratic leadership that probably does agree with this line of thinking. Which is why we are in such trouble.
I still contend that Hardiman would have been a more strategic pick, because a doctrinaire meat puppet like Kavanaugh will keep liberals more engaged over the long run. Moreover, Kennedy was able to deflect the image of corruption through his relative moderation on social issues.
I'm thinking long term, because we're going to be dealing with a hostile Supreme Court for decades. So it's a matter of tying bad outcomes that happen as a result of court decisions directly to the Supreme Court. Until now, when we get a bad decision, we tend to accept it and then say that we need to take back Congress, as if the Supreme Court is not itself a partisan body that is made up of partisan individuals who can be pressured by protesting them or shunning them from polite society. So it's a matter of directing the focus of the populace directly to those responsible if and when good, popular legislation is struck down by activist conservative judges viewing things through an originalist lens.
you can't just up and destroy our norms by packing the court
it's unfortunate, but repeated elections have shown that the American people prioritize norms and functioning government above all else
it's unfortunate, but repeated elections have shown that the American people prioritize norms and functioning government above all else
I would not at all be surprised if Republicans ran with this like they did with "fake news" and pack the court pre-emptively with another conservative justice if they were given a stronger Senate majority.
Sure, but this requires enough of a populace that is willing to do so, and you do this by pointing out that the Supreme Court is ignoring the will of the people every time they strike down good, popular legislation.
The Republicans who managed to use the debt ceiling to restrict domestic spending for a decade would disagree with that statement.
I can feel Merrick Garland giving you the side-eye.
And how the hell do Americans prioritize functional government when in 2014 the REWARDED the party that shut the government down?
If there’s one thing you absolutely cannot say right now with a straight face it’s that the American people prioritize norms.
No, we can't keep playing softball when the GOP is playing hardball. Also, the populace probably would support packing the court.
I don't know where you guys are getting this garbage.
You just pack the fucking court regardless of what the polling is on it. If we have a D president and congress they can pack the court and they should.
Yeah, that's the thing. They already got this current majority but blatently ignoring the rules. Just look at the bs Rubio is now spewing about how this situation is completely different from Garland.
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