Republican senator promises not to approve Hillary SC appointments

[Atreus21]

If the majority of people vote against the agenda you voted for, and you want to then see the government do nothing, rather than carry out the agenda of the majority, then yeah, you're basically telling people that their vote is meaningless because you'll just find another way to remove their power.

Bear in mind liberals don't seem to mind doing exactly that when the shoe's on the other foot.

Secondly, I'd be in favor of this even if they were people I supported.

 

[jackstar7]

Bear in mind liberals don't seem to mind doing exactly that when the shoe's on the other foot.

Secondly, I'd be in favor of this even if they were people I supported.

Then you don't want government?

 

[fskimospy]

Bear in mind liberals don't seem to mind doing exactly that when the shoe's on the other foot.

Secondly, I'd be in favor of this even if they were people I supported.

Can you provide examples of liberals behaving in a similar way? I'm sure you can find isolated incidents here and there but let's be real here, this behavior is not in any way symmetric.

 

[ivwshane]

Bear in mind liberals don't seem to mind doing exactly that when the shoe's on the other foot.

Secondly, I'd be in favor of this even if they were people I supported.

Yeah, that's why when the dems were doing health care reform they still tried reaching out to repubs and even took off the table single payer.

Your "both sides are the same" shtick is tired and old.

 

[Atreus21]

Then you don't want government?

Sure I do. I just think that, given the enormous power of the federal government, they are best kept from making changes except when they have an overwhelming commonality of opinion on their side. 5-4 decisions make me nervous.

Can you provide examples of liberals behaving in a similar way? I'm sure you can find isolated incidents here and there but let's be real here, this behavior is not in any way symmetric.

Surely you remember what happened when Scott Walker tried to scale back unions' collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin.

 

[jackstar7]

Surely you remember what happened when Scott Walker tried to scale back unions' collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin.

So WI politics are equivalent to national politics... hmmm. Not sure I can agree with that one.

 

[Atreus21]

So WI politics are equivalent to national politics... hmmm. Not sure I can agree with that one.

Not equivalent, but certainly a reasonable example of what I referenced.

 

[fskimospy]

Sure I do. I just think that, given the enormous power of the federal government, they are best kept from making changes except when they have an overwhelming commonality of opinion on their side. 5-4 decisions make me nervous.

You do understand that changes are already made in those cases anyway, right? A 4-4 tie leaves the lower court ruling in place, which can be much more radical than whatever SCOTUS might decide.

Surely you remember what happened when Scott Walker tried to scale back unions' collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin.

What does people peacefully protesting have to do with elected officials trying to grind the government to a halt because they lost an election?

 

[nakedfrog]

Remember when #DoYourJob was a thing?

 

[jackstar7]

Not equivalent, but certainly a reasonable example of what I referenced.

[Arrested Development Narrator] It wasn't.

 

[Atreus21]

You do understand that changes are already made in those cases anyway, right? A 4-4 tie leaves the lower court ruling in place, which can be much more radical than whatever SCOTUS might decide.

I'd say it cuts both ways.

What does people peacefully protesting have to do with elected officials trying to grind the government to a halt because they lost an election?

Peacefully protesting? They occupied the state capitol and refused to let the legislature convene. Democrat state senators left the state and refused to return.

Sounds to me like they were trying to grind the government to a halt because they lost an election.

 

[Atreus21]

[Arrested Development Narrator] It wasn't.

Why not? Though it was a state government it drew national attention. Seems to me you're splitting hairs.

 

[Atreus21]

Your "both sides are the same" shtick is tired and old.

Pointing out double standards is not saying both sides are the same.

 

[dullard]

Why not? Though it was a state government it drew national attention. Seems to me you're splitting hairs.

1) A temporary 3-week state legislature walkout.

vs

2) 4-years of the US congress promissing to do anything possible to obstruct Obama and a potential 5-year promise to block nominations to the supreme court (castrating it this year and possibly making it impossible to handle the workload in future years if more retire/die).

Yes, seems like that is just splitting hairs. End Sarcasm.

We have a long history of state legislature walkouts. Both parties have done it fairly regularly over the years: http://ncsl.typepad.com/the_thicket/2011/02/legislative-walkouts-are-nothing-new.html

But those state legislature walkouts were all short-term and minor. Purposely putting a wrench into the supreme court for 5 years is not short-term and is not minor.

 

[HomerJS]

SC has been conservative since the 80s. Justice is supposed to be blind so what's wrong with trying it the other way for a while?

 

[fskimospy]

I'd say it cuts both ways.

Peacefully protesting? They occupied the state capitol and refused to let the legislature convene. Democrat state senators left the state and refused to return.

Sounds to me like they were trying to grind the government to a halt because they lost an election.

They did not refuse to let the legislature convene, in fact the legislature convened and passed the bill they were protesting about during the protests. Also, the protests were impressively peaceful considering the number of people and the duration, wouldn't you agree?

You are right that Democratic state senators left the state to deny them a quorum, which did grind the government to a halt very briefly, so that's fair. It's also not even remotely close to the level of obstruction Republicans have been engaging in on a federal level and I think you know that.

 

[thraashman]

If the majority of people vote against the agenda you voted for, and you want to then see the government do nothing, rather than carry out the agenda of the majority, then yeah, you're basically telling people that their vote is meaningless because you'll just find another way to remove their power.

I don't think that the majority should automatically get to carry out their agenda. If 50.1% of people voted in representatives, those representatives should not get to make dictatorial changes that affect the 49.9% of people who voted against them. There needs to be compromise. However, the GOP has decided in recent years that they will not compromise under any circumstances and it's caused a huge governing problem. More than a third of all filibusters done in US history were done by the GOP in Obama's first 6 years for example. I agree we can't have the government do nothing like that, but we certainly also can't allow the majority to be tyrannical.

Assuming Hillary is elected and people like McCain do stonewall nominees like he claimed and like the GOP is doing now to Garland, I'd support the President issuing warrants to force Congress to do it's fucking job. Honestly, there's 47 Senators who could legitimately be charged with treason already.

 

[Atreus21]

NRO's got an interesting column on this:

http://www.nationalreview.com/artic...2016-election-fewer-justices-would-curb-power

EXCERPT:

Congress should pass a law reducing the Court’s membership to six Justices rather than nine — a return to its original size — and in so doing both take the question of Supreme Court appointments off the table for this election cycle and also thereby reduce the capability of the Court to engage in judicial activism harmful to the Constitution. And if the president vetoed such a bill, the Senate should accomplish the same thing by acting on its own, as an exercise of its “advice and consent” power.

The first rule of medicine, they say, is “do no harm.” The present Supreme Court has done a substantial amount of harm. Democrats and Republicans disagree about what that harm is, of course. Hillary Clinton decries the Court’s decision in Citizens United, which upheld the free-speech rights of a group to broadcast a campaign documentary critical of . . . Hillary Clinton. She promises to appoint justices who will overturn that case, but preserve decisions creating same-sex marriage and abortion rights. Donald Trump wants justices “very much in the mold” of the late Antonin Scalia — judges who he says will save Second Amendment gun rights from “people like Hillary Clinton.”

And so liberals and conservatives fight to the death over judicial nominations in order to inflict more of their preferred harm on the other side and to fend off the enemy’s aggressions. No one much seems to think about ways to reform the way the Court as an institution is constituted so that it is less able to inflict harm and so that the stakes of confirmation battles are less enormous. And no one seems to think about ways to keep either of these bad candidates from making appointments to the Court.

It is time to shrink the stakes by shrinking the Court itself. Bluntly put, the Supreme Court should be smaller so that it can do less harm. There are two routes to this goal. First, Congress could pass a simple bill to allow the Supreme Court’s membership to gradually decrease to six justices as justices retire or die — returning the Court to its original size when established by the first Judiciary Act of 1789. Alternatively, in the event of a veto, the Senate could adopt a standing rule concerning its own “advice and consent” power that achieves the same thing: no more confirmations until the Court dips below six.

A statute (or Senate rule) shrinking the Court’s size over time would accomplish two enormously valuable outcomes. First, and most immediately, it would remove from the political realm the debate over appointment of Supreme Court justices for this election cycle and likely for the next several years — quite possibly for the entire next presidential administration. This would be a good thing. Neither of the two major parties’ candidates should be permitted to appoint Supreme Court justices. Hillary Clinton would appoint reliably dangerous judicial activists. Donald Trump is himself a dangerous man, and should not be permitted to exercise power in any respect. Taking Supreme Court appointments off the table would take away the only plausible argument — though in the end still not a persuasive one — for voting for the most unthinkably unqualified, ignorant, irresponsible major-party presidential nominee of all time. True, Hillary Clinton might break the Supreme Court. But Donald Trump might break the presidency, the nation, and the world — and couldn’t be trusted to make good judicial appointments in any event.

...

Shrinking the Court would also thwart the possibility of politically motivated activist retirements. Justice Ginsburg, a hard-left activist, plainly is now just waiting for the next Democratic administration to retire. Kennedy and Breyer also might time retirement decisions to further their ideological goals. They should be denied the opportunity to try to game the system. Congress should tell the Justices to retire when they’re ready to retire — period — because their seats won’t be filled in any event.

...

Can Congress (or simply the Senate) constitutionally do this? Absolutely. Nothing in the Constitution specifies the size of the Supreme Court. The power to structure the composition and jurisdiction of the federal judiciary is in large measure a power held by Congress. There is nothing magical about the number nine for Justices. Historically, as noted, the Court started with six. The number of justices has bounced around from six to seven to nine to ten, back down to seven, and back up to nine again.

Moreover, it is entirely proper for Congress to adjust the size of the Court either to check judicial power or to check executive appointments. History shows that Congress has done both. In 1863, Congress increased the Court’s size to ten in order to give President Abraham Lincoln the opportunity to appoint more pro-Union judges likely to uphold Union war measures. Equally plainly, Congress voted to reduce the Court’s size to seven justices in 1866, in order to deny Lincoln’s successor, the aggressively incompetent and pigheaded Andrew Johnson (sound familiar?) any opportunity to appoint justices who might vote to invalidate Congress’s Reconstruction acts.

 

[fskimospy]

NRO's got an interesting column on this:

http://www.nationalreview.com/artic...2016-election-fewer-justices-would-curb-power

That is some hilariously self-serving bullshit. Absolutely nothing about the size of the Supreme Court that limits the amount of harm it can do as it has the same powers regardless of size.

Here's the National Review in March on the Supreme Court:

http://www.nationalreview.com/artic...ate-should-reject-president-obamas-nomination

They should hold the line until the next president is elected. One hopes that he or she will choose a nominee who, like Justice Scalia, will be faithful, first and foremost, to the Constitution.

In the meantime, Republicans should do everything in their power to make sure that it is President Cruz, not President Clinton or Trump, who gets to make that choice.

Odd, they wanted the next president to appoint someone when it wasn't so likely that the president was going to be a Democrat. What ridiculous, transparent hackery.

 

[Atreus21]

That is some hilariously self-serving bullshit. Absolutely nothing about the size of the Supreme Court that limits the amount of harm it can do as it has the same powers regardless of size.

Same powers, but its size affects its ability to use that power.

Here's the National Review in March on the Supreme Court:

http://www.nationalreview.com/artic...ate-should-reject-president-obamas-nomination

Odd, they wanted the next president to appoint someone when it wasn't so likely that the president was going to be a Democrat. What ridiculous, transparent hackery.

In fairness, they hadn't counted on a Trump candidacy either, and generally have been opposed to Trump from the jump.

I remembered that article. Still think the argument in the first one is plausible.

 

[Jhhnn]

Yeh, the SCOTUS should be smaller so that they can do less harm to the agenda of the right wing plutocracy. If the power of the govt of the people is reduced they'll fill the power vacuum left behind in a heartbeat.

Tear down your democratic institutions! Let the benevolence of naked capitalism wash over you all!

 

[MrPickins]

Same powers, but its size affects its ability to use that power.

How exactly?

 

[fskimospy]

Same powers, but its size affects its ability to use that power.

In fairness, they hadn't counted on a Trump candidacy either.

I remembered that article. Still think the argument in the first one is plausible.

Exactly, their view on the size of the Supreme Court is a direct function of how likely they think the court is to advance their policy goals. They simply alter their argument to whatever is most convenient for that because they are transparent hacks. If Cruz was the likely next president they would be arguing that the president and his choices should be confirmed quickly, based solely on qualifications.

The National Review's lack of ethics aside an even numbered Supreme Court is a stupid idea. The primary function of the Supreme Court is to resolve differences between the lower courts so that we have one uniform set of laws that govern the whole country. When you have an even numbered Court confronted with a circuit split what happens is that both decisions stand, meaning that now federal law works one way in Texas and the exact same federal law works another way in California. Surely you can see why that's a big problem.

 

[Atreus21]

How exactly?

Well, the excerpt I linked explains it pretty clearly. Getting a 5/9ths majority is a lot easier than getting a 2/3rds majority on any rule-making body.

 

[dank69]

Same powers, but its size affects its ability to use that power.



In fairness, they hadn't counted on a Trump candidacy either, and generally have been opposed to Trump from the jump.

I remembered that article. Still think the argument in the first one is plausible.

I look forward to their article telling us why it's important to add more justices the next time a Republican occupies the WH.