Can a Supreme Court Justice be impeached?

nOOky

Platinum Member
Aug 17, 2004
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Why expand the court though? What benefit would it serve by going from 9 seats to 11, 15 or hell 21.

Because the supreme court is supposed to be apolitical, not biased towards any one political ideology. So when they pack the supreme court and all of the lower courts with conservatives, it doesn't represent the will of the people, just the will of a few that wish to impose their beliefs on everyone else. So it starts the process of the liberals having to balance things out by appointing more liberals than conservatives so the ideals of the actual majority can be made law of the land.
 

bbhaag

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2011
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If you expand it you name the justices.
But that doesn't make much sense. What happens if Trump wins again but the Senate democrats regain control? Would you still want to expand the court?
Eventually the new seats will come up for nomination and nobody knows who will be in office when they do. It seems like a short term win but at the price of long term uncertainty.
IMO it's a bad idea and if I'm not mistaken history has already taught us that it is.
 
Jul 9, 2009
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Why expand the court though? What benefit would it serve by going from 9 seats to 11, 15 or hell 21.
Because that way unethical politicians can pack the court with toadies and lickspittles to push a leftist/socialist agenda. It's long been the way for authoritarian/totalitarian governments to get rid of a troublesome court.
 
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fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
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But that doesn't make much sense. What happens if Trump wins again but the Senate democrats regain control? Would you still want to expand the court?
Eventually the new seats will come up for nomination and nobody knows who will be in office when they do. It seems like a short term win but at the price of long term uncertainty.
IMO it's a bad idea and if I'm not mistaken history has already taught us that it is.
How has history said that? The court has been expanded before.
 

ivwshane

Lifer
May 15, 2000
32,200
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Because that way unethical politicians can pack the court with toadies and lickspittles to push a leftist/socialist agenda. It's long been the way for authoritarian/totalitarian governments to get rid of a troublesome court.

So you condemn mitch’s actions then right? After all, he not only denied Obama a pick using a made up rule but then he ignored that same rule when it came to trump when a vacancy came up under similar conditions.

Maybe try making a point that isn’t immediately exemplified by republican action in recent history.
 
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bbhaag

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2011
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Because that way unethical politicians can pack the court with toadies and lickspittles to push a leftist/socialist agenda. It's long been the way for authoritarian/totalitarian governments to get rid of a troublesome court.
Would you please just STFU already. I've read your posts and I know who you support so don't talk to me about "unethical politicians" you slimy piece of crap.
 

esquared

Forum Director & Omnipotent Overlord
Forum Director
Oct 8, 2000
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So you condemn mitch’s actions then right? After all, he not only denied Obama a pic using a made up rule but then he ignored that same rule when it came to trump when a vacancy came up under similar conditions.

Maybe try making a point that isn’t immediately exemplified by republican action in recent history.
No point in arguing with this ignorant fuckstick. I don't know why he wasn't on my ignore list before but here he goes.
He's in the top three of worst p&n posters.
A disingenious hack that's the equivalent of the russian useful idiot.
 

bbhaag

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2011
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How has history said that? The court has been expanded before.
If I'm not mistaken you are correct the court was expanded. Then the court was contracted down to it's current size and has been that way for along time. All I'm saying is that perhaps the people who came before us had a reason for their decision.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
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If I'm not mistaken you are correct the court was expanded. Then the court was contracted down to it's current size and has been that way for along time. All I'm saying is that perhaps the people who came before us had a reason for their decision.
No, it was never contracted. The reasons they did it were political, same as now.
 

bbhaag

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2011
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No, it was never contracted. The reasons they did it were political, same as now.
Are you sure? I thought at one time the SC had 10 justices then got reduced back to 9. I guess it doesn't matter anyway like you said the reasons behind it are and always will be political. I just don't see the point in expanding the SC. To me the trade offs in doing so seem like to great of risk over the long term.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
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Are you sure? I thought at one time the SC had 10 justices then got reduced back to 9. I guess it doesn't matter anyway like you said the reasons behind it are and always will be political. I just don't see the point in expanding the SC. To me the trade offs in doing so seem like to great of risk over the long term.
What’s the risk? What do you think Republicans would do differently than they would already do now?
 

senseamp

Lifer
Feb 5, 2006
35,783
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No need, pack the court and move on. Can do it with 50 Senate votes, vs 67 to remove through impeachment. Same effect, lower barrier.
 

Paratus

Lifer
Jun 4, 2004
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But that doesn't make much sense. What happens if Trump wins again but the Senate democrats regain control? Would you still want to expand the court?
Eventually the new seats will come up for nomination and nobody knows who will be in office when they do. It seems like a short term win but at the price of long term uncertainty.
IMO it's a bad idea and if I'm not mistaken history has already taught us that it is.

The point would be to take control of SCOTUS so Biden and the Dems agenda could be enacted.

To protect their agenda they’ll have to enact laws that disadvantage the GOP. They’ll do this by expanding voting rights so everyone, liberal and conservative has an equal vote towards their representatives.

They’ll also bring in new states and territories if possible to reduce the GOP advantage in the senate.

I think the Dems think these changes will have the insidious effect of changing the GOP so that instead of running on fear mongering to 1/3 of the country in behalf of the 0.01% they’ll have to run on policies that appeal to 50.1% of the country.

They’ll probably also pass laws protecting the 1st amendment for people not corporations, healthcare, tackling climate change by fostering jobs in renewables and infrastructure but not until getting coronavirus under control with a vaccine and stimulus to impacted citizens.

Equality, voting rights, and government assisting regular people as opposed to special interests or the 0.01% is anathema to some but this is probably what the Dems intend to do if they take the Presidency and Congress.
 
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BoomerD

No Lifer
Feb 26, 2006
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Are you sure? I thought at one time the SC had 10 justices then got reduced back to 9. I guess it doesn't matter anyway like you said the reasons behind it are and always will be political. I just don't see the point in expanding the SC. To me the trade offs in doing so seem like to great of risk over the long term.

In 1863, the Supreme Court’s size was increased to the Chief Justice and nine associate justices with the establishment of the Tenth Circuit. Six years later in 1869, the Court was fixed by law at its current size of nine members.
 

sportage

Lifer
Feb 1, 2008
11,493
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Why expand the court though? What benefit would it serve by going from 9 seats to 11, 15 or hell 21.

Actually, it does make sense. Packing would help ensure that the high court remain more balanced, which should be how it is in the first place. As we have seen, just a few justices within span of 4 or 8 years having either died off or retired can give a single president too much influence and unjustified influence on such a high court. This should not be allowed, for one president to have such influence. If we had 12 justices or better yet 16, then the chances of a whopping chunk of justices needing replaced within a short timeframe would be greatly reduced.

And, should the democrats retake the government then how about truly balancing the court? We have 6 republican appointed justices already on the court and 3 appointed by democrat presidents, so lets expand the court to 12 and allow only a democratic president to pick the next 3 nominees thus giving the court a true 50/50 balance.

Then, how about also allowing justices appointed by democrat presidents to only be replaced by other democrat presidents. For example, RBG was installed by a democrat president and thus only a democratic president should be allowed to replace RBG. And, no matter how long that might take for a democrat president to come along to do that nominating.

Say Biden loses in 2020 but in 2024 a democrat is elected president, then that democrat president elected in 2024 would be allowed to replace that still vacant seat of RBG and not a second termed Donald Trump. However, should a republican president be elected again in 2024 then that seat vacated by RBG would remain open for even longer until a democrat president came along. And, if we did have 12 justices on the court, it would be less of an issue to hold open a seat for an extended period of time until a democrat president did come along. And the same applies for republican appointed justices, where after the death of Scalia that seat would have remained open until a republican president came along to fill that vacancy.

The downside would be if we had a long stretch of 10 - 20 years where every elected president was of the same party, and thus a vacant court seat would continue to be vacant for 20+ years. Or better yet in that case.... how about a system devised where the house and or senate minority leader(s) of the opposite party from the sitting president would chose the nominee? Where the sitting president of the opposite party thus not qualified to fill that vacancy who was originally appointed by the opposite party. Does that make sense?

Expand the court to 12, allow the next elected democrat president and only a democrat president to fill those 3 vacancy's, thus giving the court a 50/50 balance. And should Biden lose, have Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer get together and nominate the next 3 justices to the court. And if the senate or house or both happen to be in republican control then that republican controlled house and senate would be lawfully bound to go through the process of approving the nominees from the democratic house and senate minority leaders. After all, with the new rules a republican controlled senate would not be allowed to process a justice to replace a dead or retired justice originally appointed from the opposite party, so for Mitch McConnell no more funny business.

In other words, Mitch McConnell and a republican controlled senate would not be allowed to replace a justice appointed by a democrat president, PERIOD. Mitch would be bound to a fair and full senate hearing for whomever the democrat minority leader chose to nominate in replacing that dead or retired democrat appointed justice. Surely I could have said this better.... sorry.
 
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ch33zw1z

Lifer
Nov 4, 2004
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Expand the court to reflect the majority opinions. No reason to just sit back and let the conservatives pack it with extremists and do nothing, especially when they're the minority of the population.
 
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HomerJS

Lifer
Feb 6, 2002
35,956
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Because that way unethical politicians can pack the court with toadies and lickspittles to push a leftist/socialist agenda. It's long been the way for authoritarian/totalitarian governments to get rid of a troublesome court.
Like the Republicans packed it by another means. Remember what your boy Mitch said, elections have consequences and it's fine as long as the Constitution doesn't forbid it.

List of unethical Presidents in the past by your definition.

George Washington
Abe Lincoln
John Adams
Ulysses S. Grant
Thomas Jefferson