[Discussion] Supreme court vacancy

Thread about the current (2016) Supreme Court vacancy and the issues surrounding filling it.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

I'm surprised more people aren't upset by this. The republicans pretty much ruined the supreme court nomination process forever and stole a seat that could easily be key to overturning many important laws. This is one of those things I would think might move crazy people to murder.

Hey Baron from the past. This is Baron from the future. The future is dark and full of terrors. Hide under the bed and don't come out until 2020. I hope future future Baron will have better news.

Gorsuch actually sounds worse than I had expected for Trumps nominee. Trump managed to find someone to the right of Scalia?! And relatively young.

Yeah Jesus, someone to the right of Scalia. That's scary. And an originalist, which is beyond stupid.

I'm willing to hear conservative arguments in favor of Gorsuch (here or in PMs).

Granted, I don't have a vote on the issue and I can guarantee both of my senators are going to be voting for him so there's not much practical use of convincing me. But I'm willing to listen.

Gremlin wrote:

I'm willing to hear conservative arguments in favor of Gorsuch (here or in PMs).

Granted, I don't have a vote on the issue and I can guarantee both of my senators are going to be voting for him so there's not much practical use of convincing me. But I'm willing to listen.

I would love to listen as well.

fangblackbone wrote:
538 puts him slightly to the right of Scalia:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...

Thanks for that. I was reading some things about how he was an "independent" from Colorado, a moderate state with recent humanist spin. So I was questioning his filibuster.
His stances on euthanasia and Hobby Lobby are non-starters. And I didn't know what originalism is. But now that I do, just NO!
Plus anyone that is my age and that cold, I consider very dangerous.

Basically, trying to mind read people who've been dead for over 200 years to get their thoughts on modern topics.

Not even that is it?
Mind reading dead people to get their thoughts on topics, ignoring any and all modern context.

I mean, those long dead guys presumably would, if you could revive them, take into account the modern context. Originalists wont.

gore wrote:

I think many of progressives' recent woes are due to a reliance on the judicial reinterpreting the Constitution to mean what they want it to mean. This can result in short term wins for minority viewpoints, but it's also a great way to make the majority of voters pissed off and energized in opposition.

This effect is not limited to Progressives, and it has energized and antagonized both sides for decades. It's been going on ever since the preamble, the necessary and proper clause, and the interstate commerce clause were leveraged into "anything goes" while the 10th amendment was ignored. Abortion is a perfect case in point - what part of the Constitution gives the federal government the right to intervene in women's medical choices in the first place, let alone necessitate laws establishing that it is legal? An actual originalist interpretation of that should be "it's none of the federal government's damn business."

That is, in fact, why Supreme Court justice appointments have become so political - how the Constitution is "interpreted" is critical, because that's actually the law of the land. The Constitution itself is almost irrelevant today, and generally ignored.

Yonder wrote:

The only really unpopular opinion I can think of is the "unlimited political donations ok" one, and you'd have to convince me that that was as example of judicial revisionism rather than constitutionalism.

Yes - it's entirely constitutional, or perhaps more accurately non-constitutional. The Constitution makes no mention whatsoever of political contributions, and there is no structure in the Constitution that even remotely gives the federal government the power to control, monitor, or even influence donations to political candidates in any way. And according to the 10th amendment, Congress does not have that power. In fact, one could make a very strong argument that the entire FEC financial regulatory structure is unconstitutional.

Roe v. Wade is an excellent example of a case that has energized the right for over forty years - that might not be a majority of voters, but it's certainly a significant portion of them. Brown v. Board of Education was certainly strongly opposed by a majority of voters at the time. NFIB v. Sebelius (Obamacare) attracted much the same strong opposition as Roe v. Wade. Miranda v. Arizona was extremely unpopular at the time, despite being accepted today.

Yonder wrote:

I don't know what Supreme Court cases you are referring to, but if you have a list of them that an actual majority of the population are strongly negative about (I figure "pissed off" means more than slight dislike) I'd be interested to see it. The only really unpopular opinion I can think of is the "unlimited political donations ok" one, and you'd have to convince me that that was as example of judicial revisionism rather than constitutionalism.

I'll throw out this little gem, which Scalia opposed

Granted, I'd rather have Garland (or Obama for that matter). But here we are.

Gremlin wrote:

I'm willing to hear conservative arguments in favor of Gorsuch (here or in PMs).

Granted, I don't have a vote on the issue and I can guarantee both of my senators are going to be voting for him so there's not much practical use of convincing me. But I'm willing to listen.

These are not my arguments, nor do I consider myself conservative. I just happened to read this over lunch today.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...

I wanted to share this story from October, because I think this context is also something Democrats should bear in mind as they approach this strategically.

Boudreaux wrote:
Gremlin wrote:

I'm willing to hear conservative arguments in favor of Gorsuch (here or in PMs).

Granted, I don't have a vote on the issue and I can guarantee both of my senators are going to be voting for him so there's not much practical use of convincing me. But I'm willing to listen.

These are not my arguments, nor do I consider myself conservative. I just happened to read this over lunch today.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...

The Good: As far as I’m concerned, the most important thing to look for in a Supreme Court justice right now is a willingness to stand up to executive power. For at least the next four years (in all likelihood), the White House will be occupied by a narcissist with a proclivity for authoritarianism. We aren’t yet two weeks in to Trump’s administration, and we’re already barreling toward one or more constitutional crises. Oddly and perhaps in spite of himself, of the three names said to be on Trump’s shortlist (Gorsuch, Thomas Hardiman and William Pryor), Gorsuch appears to be the most independent and has shown the most willingness to stand up to the executive branch.
Given that the book is argued from a pro-life perspective, it seems likely that Gorsuch would affirm Trump’s explicit and unprecedented promise to conservatives that he’ll nominate only antiabortion judges. Gorsuch’s record on actual abortion cases is thin, but we can probably presume that he’d vote with Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and John Roberts. That would keep the court unchanged on abortion rights.
There are a lot of important areas where Gorsuch has no record at all. Some of these issues are especially critical right now, including press freedom, free expression and the right to protest, various “war on terror” issues and forensics issues such as the confrontation clause and ongoing disputes over Daubert analyses.

Gorsuch could, of course, deviate from his record in any number of ways once he’s on the court. But all told, my own feeling is that this is a surprisingly good pick from Trump. The general sentiment around Washington is that Trump basically outsourced the job of picking a nominee. That seems about right. If Trump had really been paying attention or had the capacity to really research his pick, it seems doubtful that the president we’ve seen over the past 12 days would have chosen someone so skeptical of executive power or that the guy who campaigned on law and order would have chosen a judge with Gorsuch’s history on the Fourth Amendment. Not only is this a pick that could have been made by an alternative-universe President Marco Rubio or President Mitt Romney, it would have been an encouraging, good pick from them, too.

Boudreaux wrote:

These are not my arguments, nor do I consider myself conservative. I just happened to read this over lunch today.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...

The author isn't conservative - it's Radley Balko, who is a senior editor at Reason and a prominent libertarian.

Ok, noted.

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:

I wanted to share this story from October, because I think this context is also something Democrats should bear in mind as they approach this strategically.

Just more evidence that Republicans, even "honorable" McCain, don't really believe their rhetoric when they say stuff like "needs to reflect the will of the voters."

I just stopped in to say that it is very suspect and unusual that people should ask for PMs from middle (America didn't get the president it did through thoroughly red or thoroughly blue states, did it?) or right viewpoints. A social atmosphere where only a narrow range of viewpoints can be publicly voiced should serve as an alarm that something is awry in the realm of D&D.

Disclaimer: I did not vote for Trump

Disclaimer disclaimer: It perturbs me I feel the need to say that as a ward.

Indivisible a new public radio show. Last nights was about this pick.

http://iowapublicradio.org/programs/...

silentsod wrote:

I just stopped in to say that it is very suspect and unusual that people should ask for PMs from middle or right viewpoints..

I took it as a way of looking for other viewpoints without putting the viewpoints in a thread that is about Supreme Court nominees, not as a 'keep the Conservatives hidden' thing.

Honestly, I think any nominee should refuse the nomination until Garland gets a hearing, but these people are all lawyers, so expecting any kind of nobility is pretty futile.

silentsod wrote:

I just stopped in to say that it is very suspect and unusual that people should ask for PMs from middle (America didn't get the president it did through thoroughly red or thoroughly blue states, did it?) or right viewpoints. A social atmosphere where only a narrow range of viewpoints can be publicly voiced should serve as an alarm that something is awry in the realm of D&D.

Disclaimer: I did not vote for Trump

Disclaimer disclaimer: It perturbs me I feel the need to say that as a ward.

I'm merely repeating my pre-election offer, which several people told me they personally found helpful.

Spoiler:

And as a very-recently-former-Republican I'm getting really tired of people insisting that I'm some kind of wild liberal Democrat. (That's not in response to you, I hasten to add. Facebook is a cesspit.) I took the Republicans at their word, and then they decided they didn't really mean what they said.

silentsod wrote:

I just stopped in to say that it is very suspect and unusual that people should ask for PMs from middle (America didn't get the president it did through thoroughly red or thoroughly blue states, did it?) or right viewpoints. A social atmosphere where only a narrow range of viewpoints can be publicly voiced should serve as an alarm that something is awry in the realm of D&D.

Disclaimer: I did not vote for Trump

Disclaimer disclaimer: It perturbs me I feel the need to say that as a ward.

Gremlin wrote:

I'm willing to hear conservative arguments in favor of Gorsuch (here or in PMs).

It's not unusual for conservative commenters here to get dogpiled (occasionally with good reason, but more often than not simply as a function of being outnumbered), and I read that as Gremlin offering a dogpile-less route for comment.

That's not to discourage posting, just a recognition of the realities of the demographics here.

I would post more if I weren't so afraid of wild liberal democrats like Gremlin.
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/HXh86el.gif)

Nomad wrote:

I would post more if I weren't so afraid of wild liberal democrats like Gremlin.
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/HXh86el.gif)

In Gremlin's defense, he's at least partially domesticated, and makes it into the litter box more times than not.

Jonman wrote:

In Gremlin's defense, he's at least partially domesticated, and makes it into the litter box more times than not.

Easy for you to say, you've never had to clean one of the boxes after he was done.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
Jonman wrote:

In Gremlin's defense, he's at least partially domesticated, and makes it into the litter box more times than not.

Easy for you to say, you've never had to clean one of the boxes after he was done.

The Dark Matter drive isn't going to power itself.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
Jonman wrote:

In Gremlin's defense, he's at least partially domesticated, and makes it into the litter box more times than not.

Easy for you to say, you've never had to clean one of the boxes after he was done.

The trick is to stop feeding him after midnight.

I've been thinking about this most of the day, and while I'm not sure yet I think I don't want the Democrats to filibuster the confirmation.

I really, really, really hate what the GOP did with Garland. I already had a hugely low opinion of the party, but I was still surprised by how low that collection of sh*t stooped with Garland. But Garland is gone now, and nothing the Democrats do is going to get him back.

I'm not under any impression that the GOP will appreciate such a gesture in any material way, and lord only knows that they wouldn't reciprocate later on when there is an opportunity to. Hah, not a chance in hell. I don't even know if the much of the population will appreciate it.

But at the end of the day I feel like the filibuster is something that should be used when the majority party is doing something much more flagrantly wrong, and while I don't like Gorsuch as a pick, he really doesn't seem to fall into that category. I suspect that the Democrats will have many, many opportunities to filibuster something that I think falls into that category.

To be fair, the current GOP are largely sacks of sh*t, at least in public. Am I expecting McConnell to say "Hey Democrats, I really appreciate how you let Gorsuch through, it really shows that you are treating the filibuster process with integrity, so now two months later when you are using it to stop us from repealing the ACA I know that this means you guys feel really strongly, so we've looked at it again with fresh eyes and--" ahahahahahahaha. Hahahahaha. I can't keep going, it's so ridiculous. No. McConnell is going to say "this is flagrant obstructionism and blahblahblahblah".

So yeah, I'm not saying that I think there are political points in them for conceding, or that it's part of some four-dimensional chess strategy. I just think that they shouldn't. It's also not any sort of recommendation to Gorsuch. Trump has the smallest mandate of any President ever, and it would have been nice if he had chosen his nomination in a way that reflected that (**cough cough** Garland **cough cough**), and it would have been nice for someone high up in the GOP to suggest that. But, you know, they are currently being a horrible party mostly filled with despicable people, not really the model of behavior I want the Democratic party to follow.

In closing: someone out there may be itching to write up a nice false equivalency response. Just a reminder, it's going to be a false equivalency.

Yonder wrote:

I've been thinking about this most of the day, and while I'm not sure yet I think I don't want the Democrats to filibuster the confirmation.

I really, really, really hate what the GOP did with Garland. I already had a hugely low opinion of the party, but I was still surprised by how low that collection of sh*t stooped with Garland. But Garland is gone now, and nothing the Democrats do is going to get him back.

I'm not under any impression that the GOP will appreciate such a gesture in any material way, and lord only knows that they wouldn't reciprocate later on when there is an opportunity to. Hah, not a chance in hell. I don't even know if the much of the population will appreciate it.

But at the end of the day I feel like the filibuster is something that should be used when the majority party is doing something much more flagrantly wrong, and while I don't like Gorsuch as a pick, he really doesn't seem to fall into that category. I suspect that the Democrats will have many, many opportunities to filibuster something that I think falls into that category.

To be fair, the current GOP are largely sacks of sh*t, at least in public. Am I expecting McConnell to say "Hey Democrats, I really appreciate how you let Gorsuch through, it really shows that you are treating the filibuster process with integrity, so now two months later when you are using it to stop us from repealing the ACA I know that this means you guys feel really strongly, so we've looked at it again with fresh eyes and--" ahahahahahahaha. Hahahahaha. I can't keep going, it's so ridiculous. No. McConnell is going to say "this is flagrant obstructionism and blahblahblahblah".

So yeah, I'm not saying that I think there are political points in them for conceding, or that it's part of some four-dimensional chess strategy. I just think that they shouldn't. It's also not any sort of recommendation to Gorsuch. Trump has the smallest mandate of any President ever, and it would have been nice if he had chosen his nomination in a way that reflected that (**cough cough** Garland **cough cough**), and it would have been nice for someone high up in the GOP to suggest that. But, you know, they are currently being a horrible party mostly filled with despicable people, not really the model of behavior I want the Democratic party to follow.

In closing: someone out there may be itching to write up a nice false equivalency response. Just a reminder, it's going to be a false equivalency.

Democrats and Republicans are the same.

Sorry, best I could do on short notice.

Republicans are going to remove the filibuster option regardless of if Democrats use it to delay Gorsuch or not.

JC wrote:

Republicans are going to remove the filibuster option regardless of if Democrats use it to delay Gorsuch or not.

I agree. I am not sure why anyone would think different.