[Discussion] Supreme court vacancy

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

We don't have a new thread about this but there have been a couple comments by those in Washington about the subject so I thought we might want to have a specific place to talk about it.

Here is the article that made me start the thread

Obama Nails Republicans For Hyper-Partisan Reversal On Supreme Court Nominees

President Barack Obama let Republicans have it Wednesday for their change of tune on how they might deal with Supreme Court vacancies.

Speaking at a rally for Hillary Clinton in North Carolina, the president pointed the finger at that battleground state’s Sen. Richard Burr. Obama chided Burr, who is fighting for his own re-election, over his recent vow to leave the high court short-handed for four more years if Clinton wins next week.

“Some are saying they won’t appoint a ninth Supreme Court justice at all,” Obama said. He noted Burr “just said that if Hillary wins, he’ll do everything he can to block all Supreme Court nominations.”

It will very much be a Constitutional crisis, I think, if the Senate were to refuse to "advise and consent" for 4 more years. While it doesn't hobble the Court it does really weaken it a lot and I don't think that is good long term for America.

It has been 30+ years but I seem to recall in government that our system was cool because we had checks and balances that prevented any one branch from controlling the whole thing. Now Republicans seem to be indicating they would like to stop the judicial branch from functioning. That feels very contrary to the ideals of the founding fathers.

Also the statements by republicans seem to contradict their own justification for not confirming Garland - that they American people should get to vote first. It feels quite clear that was not their reason if they ignore the vote in a week.

Well, they are used to contradicting themselves. I think if they try to do this then the new rules that say they are "always in session" will somehow get adjusted and Clinton will just be able to push it through (if she wins)

Checks and balances only work if all the parties involved actually have some modicum of respect for their political opponents and for the government. The GOP has become a party that just assumes all government is bad and they've won enough state houses to gerrymander themselves into a position where they can flagrantly abuse the system without suffering much in the ballot box.

I'm starting to think that a lot of the Republicans actually believe their line about saving the country from the insidious liberal agenda. If they have to break the rules to "Save America" then so be it.

The arguments I'm now hearing from conservatives to justify are justifying not approving any Clinton appointments is that they will inevitably be activist judges. Therefore, it's their duty to oppose nominees with incorrect views of the Constitution, who won't respect the rule of law.

(I disagree with these premises, and think the vast majority of the elected representatives are being disingenuous and making up post-hoc rationalizations. But that's the argument they're making at the moment.)

Gremlin wrote:

The arguments I'm now hearing from conservatives to justify are justifying not approving any Clinton appointments is that they will inevitably be activist judges. Therefore, it's their duty to oppose nominees with incorrect views of the Constitution, who won't respect the rule of law.

(I disagree with these premises, and think the vast majority of the elected representatives are being disingenuous and making up post-hoc rationalizations. But that's the argument they're making at the moment.)

So they need to violate the Constitution to protect the Constitution?

It relies heavily on the technicality that the Constitution doesn't say how many justices there are on the Supreme Court. It started at 6, gradually went up to ten, and then down to 7 by attrition (the Judicial Circuits Act of 1866), and then back to 9. Now, to do this properly they should probably pass a law amending the Circuit Judges Act of 1896, instead of trying to ignore the issue and hope it goes away.

So there is some precedent for reducing the size of the Court. It's just that last time it happened, it was in the hopes that it would make it easier to pass an increase for the justice's salaries.

What happened to the thought that they would rush to confirm Garland after Tues, assuming Hillary wins? He's not a far left judge, and was praised by both sides when put in his current position. Should be much more palatable to the GoP than anyone Clinton will nominate.

Stele wrote:

What happened to the thought that they would rush to confirm Garland after Tues, assuming Hillary wins? He's not a far left judge, and was praised by both sides when put in his current position. Should be much more palatable to the GoP than anyone Clinton will nominate.

That would be a logical move for them, yes. Except none of them are talking about the possibility.

Gremlin wrote:
Stele wrote:

What happened to the thought that they would rush to confirm Garland after Tues, assuming Hillary wins? He's not a far left judge, and was praised by both sides when put in his current position. Should be much more palatable to the GoP than anyone Clinton will nominate.

That would be a logical move for them, yes. Except none of them are talking about the possibility.

They're not going to until after the election. They want a show of strength to bring the party faithful to the polls. If the Dems take the senate, their plans are ruined.

Ugh.

I guess the best case now is that we get a justice like Roberts. Someone who is conservative but who also seems to respect the law and be quite intelligent.

I'm sure Trump's advisors are lining up reasonable, fact-based, moderate Conservative justices, to please the liberals.

Yeah, as a reminder, Roberts was appointed at a time when Bush didn't control Congress, so he had to put up someone not-too-far-right.

I suspect that's never even entered the GOP's thought process at this point.

I will go so far as to assert that it was suggested that they do this, and they explicitly rejected it.

This is bullsh*t. We were robbed of a supreme court picked and it's going to f*ck us over for decades to come.

Again, the conservatives will never again give up power. They will change any law required to keep Democrats from ever regaining control, because they know they'll lose power permanently if they do, simply due to demographic shift.

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.

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.

Well, just goes along with their ruining of the legislative process, and not enough people seem upset by that, so...

Yeah Congress with 10% approval and a bunch of them just got reelected

There are 2 petitions on We the people to get Obama to force Merrick Garland appointment through. Probably not going to get anywhere with it but I signed them anyway.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/pet...

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/pet...

Arovin wrote:

There are 2 petitions on We the people to get Obama to force Merrick Garland appointment through. Probably not going to get anywhere with it but I signed them anyway.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/pet...

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/pet...

Signed, for all the good it is likely to do.

One of Trump's possible SCOTUS picks is William Pryor?

William ""equated private consensual sexual activity between homosexuals to prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, incest, and pedophilia" Pryor

Thinks homosexuals should be jailed for sex in their own homes...

yeah, that one.

That seems pretty likely to be a Pence pick, but yeah.

Well here we go.

gore wrote:

Well I know Democrats are going to hem and haw about this guy, but when it comes to the Supreme Court I fully support originalism and Gorsuch seems largely to fit the bill.

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.

Don't confuse the majority of conservative voters with the majority of voters. For example, I wouldn't say that the majority of voters were angry by the more modern interpretation of LGBT members counting as a protected class.

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 haven't looked into Gorsuch much, partially because it was patently obvious that this appointment was going to be a circus even before our president decided to make a media event out of his announcement. There a lot at stake here on both sides that don't have much to do with the candidate specifically.

Can we get a run-down on what he's done in the past or what decisions that he's known for?

I'm going to call my Senators and tell them to vote NO on ANY justice that isn't Merrick. He should at least be voted down for political BS reasons before moving on to anyone else.

He was strongly in favor of Hobby Lobby's "religious rights" in that case. He does not have an especially deep background on abortion or guns. He's written a lot on end-of-life issues- assisted suicide and euthanasia - and he's strongly against both. That leads me to think that he'll be a solid anti-abortion vote. (That, and if Trump is out of the gate with someone the religious right see as an abortion squish they will *crucify* him.)

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

Spinning off from the Trump thread...

Shifter wrote:

The entire SCOTUS thing is maddening and it's a lose lose situation for Democrats. Delay the approval of Gorsuch and they've taken exactly the same unethical road Republicans did with Garland, only with no reward (they can't hold him off for 4 years). The other option is to approve him, take the high road, and appear spineless. Doing the right thing is seldom appreciated in politics so it definitely feels like why bother?

No. It isn't the same thing at all. The GOP is attempting to deliberately deprive Obama of his nomination. Fighting against that - even if you are using a similar tactic - is not the same action as the action the GOP took.

Also, in regards to the filibuster, the Dems SHOULD make the GOP fight for every inch of land. If they want to take the filibuster away, then let them own that. Let them own the consequences. The protests have been amazing so far, but if the filibuster gets taken away then we're going to see a whole new level of anger.

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.

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