5312

I trust the voting public can tell the difference between a party with integrity that expands the court to rebalance dirty politics vs. one that simply engages in dirty politics.

(And aren’t you just using a slippery slope fallacy here?)

Beyond the political fight over the change being made, I don’t think folks care much what the precise number of judges is.

5313

Not before @Sharpe gets a spot, I hope.

5314

Well there’s your issue.

5315

Heh.

It’s hard to find hope these days, but we do have numbers on our side. Not to mention being morally right.

5316

Folks killed millions of people using this as their justification, just saying.

Well, no, it doesn’t really apply because in this case the extension of the process seems fairly obvious, even implied by your rationale.

I mean, why would the party that comes into power, if it doesn’t already control the court, not expand the court?

Can you think of any rational reason at all? Presumably they would have gotten into power because “they had the numbers”, and they’re going to think that they’re morally right.

I’m not even saying that it’s a bad plan. I just don’t see what the end game is.

5317

Fair play. Standing by your word. Integrity. A court that accurately represents its population.

I think you’re applying my “morally right” comment more broadly than I had intended. I just meant it in the context of what happened with Scalia/Garland in 2016 and now what is likely to happen with RBG in 2020.

5318

The problem we’re seeing though, is that the notion of fair play is clearly out the window.

And for that reason, i understand the logic of abandoning the rules… Because the other team isn’t following them anyway.

But the result of that isn’t that everything is going to be cool. The result is going to be a world without rules.

I look at the GOP, and their lawlessness and refusal to abide by any principles and rules, instead just redefining right to be whatever benefits them politically, made them bad.

5319

If it gives the American people a more balanced court that reflects the broader will of the people, then it wouldn’t be “abandoning the rules” so much as “improving our government.”

And I don’t think “a world without rules” is the likely outcome. Were it to happen, that would mean it had broad public and political support and it would be seen as an attempt to return to a world with rules.

Who knows what will happen but it’s a fun hypothetical. I mean, at least some of our archaic systems need to be updated to better serve our democracy. These scenarios where the whims of cancer and the calendar have such a profound effect on our system of governance are just nutburgers.

5320

5321

Does the supreme court have a literal bench? If so, I imagine it will end when they couldn’t possibly fit more people on there. I think it would be great to limit the supreme court not by number but space limitations. We could fit two RBGs for every Scalia!

5322

I think Biden would sign a court-expansion bill. He’s just not going to openly say he would. If enough of the Senate agrees to such a bill to get it passed, Biden knows the mainstream Dems demand it, and Harris would be howling at him to do it as well. Obama and Hillary would probably veto it, but Biden wouldn’t.

The last thing Biden wants is for the left to turn on him entirely- a veto of such a bill would lead to the left declaring war on him, then nothing gets done.

5323

Maybe someone ought to tell Timex that, in fact, the size of the Supreme Court was initially set by law to 6 (1789), then reduced by law to 5 (1801), then restored to 6 (1802), then increased to 7 (1807), then to 9 (1837), then to 10 (1863). In 1866 it was reduced to 7 at least theoretically, by attrition (the law required not replacing retiring justices until the right size was achieved). The idea was to not let Andrew Johnson make appointments. 2 justices actually retired, but in 1869 they reset the number of judges to 9.

At least some of these changes were the result of partisan fighting. Despite that, there was never any arms race to constantly increase the size of the court.

5324

But the rules allow Congress to set the size of the court.

And where do you think the GOP is going to stop? First it was a Democratic president can’t appoint a justice in an election year. With the current GOP, I don’t know if they’ll ever allow a Democrat to appoint a justice again. They didn’t suffer for it last time and there’s always going to be an absurd excuse. They’re not trying to broaden their base, they’ll looking to seize power by whatever means necessary.

5325

In fact, they said they would not. They explicitly said that, were Clinton to win in 2016, they were prepared to hold the seat open for 4 years.

Recall that, when Obama was in office, they used their filibuster power to blanket prevent him from filling any judicial vacancies. That’s what prompted Reid to abandon the filibuster for normal judicial appointments, if not justices. There is absolutely no reason not to believe they would prevent a Democratic president from appointing a justice, and every reason to believe they would.

5326

Oh, to be clear, packing the court is absolutely within the technical rules. But at the same time, and perhaps a source of a lot of problems these days, is that there are implied rules where we used to kind of agree on certain things. And not changing the size of the court just because your ideology isn’t in charge is something that we generally have agreed to for a very long time.

As the statement you quoted suggests, I don’t think they will. That’s why I understand the notion that there’s no reason to abide by such unwritten rules, because the GOP is going to break them anyway.

5327

This is the attack that (I think, anyway) Democrats should be leaning into, and hard.

5328

Not going to. Already has. As @scottagibson mentioned, the GOP already threatened in 2016 they wouldn’t allow Clinton to appoint a justice.

So unless we start using the rules that are afforded to us with the goal of safeguarding democracy and the vulnerable among our population, I think we end up ceding control to fascists, white nationalists, authoritarians, religious zealots, and QAnon conspiracy theorists.

In the last twenty years I’ve watched the minority vote control all branches of government, simultaneously, in multiple occasions. They disenfranchised voters due to gerrymandering. The Senate is structured to do so by its nature, as well as the electoral college. And now Republicans will not allow Democrats to appoint Supreme Court justices.

I dislike using this term, but it’d be easier in my comfy white male privilege to take the high road here and hope somehow things improve and more Republicans abandon authoritarianism and buy back in to a democratic society. But if I’m a woman, a minority, LBGT, or some combination of the above? It’s my life and my civil liberties at stake.

I’m not for throwing out all the rules and seizing power ourselves, I’m for safeguarding democracy and our way of life: making sure the Court isn’t taken over by ideologues of a single (dangerous) party. Balancing the Wyomings and Dakotas by granting Puerto Rico and D.C. statehood if they wish it. Banning political gerrymandering and creating a nonpartisan system for creating the districts. Fair, democratic, and within the rules.

5329

I’d say this is already against the rules under the “one person, one vote” standard, but who knows with a new Supreme Court? Also, it’s not really the problem here. The House is actually relatively small-d democratic. The Senate is the problem. It’s the least democratic legislative body in any powerful democracy, and it wields outsized influence over appointments. That’s the problem. And neither can be solved by anything but a Constitutional amendment.

5330

Well, after the gerrymandering in 2010 you had states where a majority voted for Democratic representatives but Republicans held significant majorities of the seats. By its nature I don’t think gerrymandering is a permanent advantage because voters move around and the demographics of those districts change. 10 years in it’s not as effective now, but it was a problem this decade in my opinion. I mean, when you have states that split about 50/50 vote wise but Republicans control significantly more seats, it’s an issue especially when the Senate is already very undemocratic. I think it’s unhealthy for all parties and leads to more extreme candidates, everyone loses.

5331

I already explicitly stated that I understand the logic of this.

It’s just that the result is bad.

I don’t see any way to make it less bad though, so whatever I guess.