Discuss the current Supreme Court, its decisions, and its increasing politicization.
I also wanted to post this interesting issue brief by Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, which is long, but very easy to read.
https://www.acslaw.org/issue_brief/b...
Examining the Roberts Court’s output through OT 2017-2018, Senator Whitehouse catalogues 73 partisan majority opinions—joined by only the five conservative members of the Court, against liberal dissenters—in areas spanning voting and money in politics, protection of corporations from liability and regulation, civil rights, and advancing a far-right social agenda. His analysis concludes that in nearly 55 percent of these cases, the “Roberts Five” ignored precedent, congressional findings, and even their favored doctrines, such as originalism and textualism, to reach partisan and corporate-friendly outcomes. This pattern of outcomes speaks to a Roberts Court that, far from calling “balls and strikes,” appears intractably captured by powerful forces of special-interest influence.
I've said this elsewhere but my one quibble with this piece is that the author claims that the Supreme Court "as a national institution that could at least sometimes stand apart from partisanship—died last year." I'd say it died in 2016 when conservative court packing was allowed to continue instead of being addressed.
The next Democrat administration is going to face a lot of calls to add seats to the Supreme Court and given the way things went down I'm having a hard time imagining that it would pass on that given the chance. Once that happens the damage to the institution will truly be permanent. Plus, there's the much more serious issue, at least in my mind, of court packing that's been happening at the district level since 2017. I don't really see any way to address that at all.
Why wasn't the institution permanently damaged when seats were added in the past to the supreme court? Or do you think it was and it will be damaged even more now.
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The myth of a non-partisan supreme court/judiciary has always been a weird one to me. It's certainly more extreme now but the courts have been politically biased since this country was founded.
No one reads these.
The last time seats were touched was in 1869, which was part of a larger movement to reorganize the Federal courts after the Civil War. Certainly part of that movement a Republican desire to reduce the influence of slave states on the circuit system of the time.
The big difference I see here is that a Democratic administration adding seats to the court now will be seen as the logical response to McConell holding Scalia's seat open for a year on the chance that a Republican would win the election. Responding to court packing with more court packing. Unlike in 1937, I don't think there would be quite as much Democratic resistance this time around.
The logical response to that is for the next Republican administration to play with the number of seats again. It leads to a tit for tat game of brinksmanship that destroys whatever trust is left in the USSC. That's the damage I see.
If Democratic administration gets into power and stacks the Supreme Court the next Republican administration won't be able to do anything because they won't get easily get back in power once the court reinstates the Voter Rights Act, invalidates Citizens United, and generally tears down all the bullsh*t the Roberts Court has inflicted on the country.
Then the only way another Republican administration could happen then is if the GOP radically transforms itself and stops relying on billionaires and white supremacists.
Demographics are working against the Republicans and they know it. They're relying on the stacking the courts to delay their inevitable collapse.
Ima going to go to shalam baskey now
These things happening depends on cases working their way through the system to the SC. I'm not confident that will happen in a timely manner before Republicans gain control and mess with the court again. And frankly, I'm no longer confident the Dems will win the presidency in 2020, which is a prerequisite for any fix. I think midwestern states are only trending redder, and even if their voters don't necessarily approve of Trump, they disapprove of Democrats more.