A system that appoints supreme constitutional judges for life and without even halfway serious democratic checks and balances seems to me the perfect recipe for disaster and corruption. But hey, I'm from Europe, so what do I know... ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Yes but you fail to consider that some guys wrote on a paper like 250 years ago and we’ve decided that everything needs to be viewed through the lens of either “does this agree with an incredibly pedantic and stilted reading of this document” or “what would those historical dudes think about this” - whichever happens to be more politically expedient for you at the moment, but the second one tends to give you more flexibility.
everything needs to be viewed through the lens of either “does this agree with an incredibly pedantic and stilted reading of this document” or “what would those historical dudes think about this”
To be fair, they did expect us to modify the constitution from generation to generation.
Ultimately the failure is ours.
One of the more interesting things I saw (on this topic) was a historian stating that George Washington (and his contemporaries) would have been able to relate the world of Julius Cesar more than they would our modern world.
I think about that A LOT whenever I hear some idiot spout nonsense about the "vision and ideals" of the founding fathers
Yup, I see. A bit like with the Bible and other holy books then. Even here in Europe, there are many who see the wording of those as the ultimate truth. No need to adjust anything, they say. It's all good. It's god's will or whatever - if it helps their agenda, that is. Jesus, that must be frustrating.
Hey. You can't just use common sense when it comes to our Judicial System. That would be too logical. What next? You gonna ask that our Supreme Court Justices have Ethics Rules!?
What is this world coming to?
It's more a symptom of the FPTP voting system
Europe has viable parties outside the two most popular in any given election cycle, so partisan loyalty is less of a threat to the application of removal proceedings or other punitive measures.
Joe Biden worries that the “extreme” US supreme court, dominated by rightwing justices, cannot be relied upon to uphold the rule of law.
If he really worries about that, and is not just scaring people to vote for him, then he has a responsibility to enlarge the court.
I'd argue this should have been the immediate response to Mitch McConnell blocking nominees half a term away from an election, but if the court can't uphold the rule of law, it should be fixed (and expansion seems like the obvious solution) or replaced.
The procedural question on this one is whether he could shrink the court to boot say... Thomas, then expand it again to replace him with someone less obviously corrupt. Republicans fail to confirm a replacement? We'll shrink the court a little more. Obviously, this won't happen, but I'm interested to know if it's possible.
Shrinking it (through established legal channels) is impeachment and removal which has a high bar. Enlarging it is just passing a law, which is only hard because the senate has a policy (not a law) to effectively not pass laws without supermajorities. The latter could be done with a simple majority of politicians with a spine.
How?
Are you under the assumption Joe Biden is some sort of wizard?
The supreme court is supposed to be based on certain numbers, when those numbers increased the SC could have been increased, but hasn't been.
Basically all it would take is for the president to decide "hey this court is supposed to be bigger, because the rules it wrote for itself say so" and sign a few things and boom. Increased court size.
The reasons he was Obama's VP:
He was "the Republican Senator whisper"
He was supposed to be there to guide Obama
He was supposed to be the one that got that SC pick thru, but I don't remember seeing a single article or interview where he tried.
That 5 years later people forgot and started claiming Joe was "the Senate whisper" again was just fucking ridiculous. The only thing worse was when Biden implied once the Dems had a white man as president, suddenly Republicans would be super cool again.
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With hindsight, given the dirty tricks the GOP played in order to secure Trump two Supreme Court appointments; the Dem’s should have just gone full radical and take the Senates refusal to put the nomination up for a vote as a tacit ‘approval’ (seeing as they didn’t technically vote him down), and sit Garland on the court.
It’s the political equivalent of not negotiating with Terrorists, akin to the Paradox of Tolerance.
It's like playing checkers with a kid who openly cheats...
If you keep following the rules, the kid will always win. If you can't make them stop cheating, your only options are to stop playing or cheat back.
This isn't a game of checkers tho. We can't just stop, and if we keep following the rules then we'll never win.
So literally the only thing we can do is play like they do.
Then maybe he should have packed the court with some good judges
Would have had to nuke the filibuster to make it where they could pack the court. That required yes votes from all Democratic senators (only because not a single fucking Republican would vote for it), and Manchin and Sinema refused to do it.
Nothing Biden could have done. We needed more Democrats in Senate seats. That's the game though. Republicans do their best to make us feel like voting doesn't matter, then we don't turn up - making it easier for Republicans to say the government doesn't work.
It’s just that easy ™️
I don't think he's exactly even capable of doing so. SCOTUS judges have to retire or die, and then vacant seats have to get confirmed by the Senate, and no self-respecting Republican Supreme Court justice would die while in office. Expanding the number of justices is also extremely unlikely to happen, and also, relevantly, not really in Joe's hands.
I am concerned about the obvious concerning things as well. Y'all should make me your leader.
To me, as a non-American, the most baffling thing is that everyone in the States just assumes, and accepts, that these appointed justices are going to rule according to some political bias.
That's not the way it works in the rest of the free world. Judges are, by definition, trusted to be impartial interpreters of the law/constitution. That's their role.
I live in Canada, and I'm vaguely familiar with some of the names of our Supreme Court justices, but I certainly don't know their political leanings, nor do I care. Nor does any Canadian I know. That's the way it's supposed to be.
So as far as I can see, the problem isn't that SCOTUS is stacked with Republicans, nor that it can be. The problem is that everyone seems to assume that this is the way it should be.
No, we don't. Along with Citizens United, EVERY American with a brain and open eyes is aware these are the absolute most important problems, and they lead to endgame checkmate authoritarianism.
First of all, the Overton Window in America is skewed heavily right. So our centrist Democratic leaders are center right, our Republicans are what most countries would call regressive, extremist, authoritarian right wing, or even fascists.
See, the problem is rightwing extremism has been on a campaign since the civil rights era to take control of the country and undo the progress made since the 1960s.
They installed right wing media. They cut education and tampered with curricula. They gerrymandered. They instituted voter suppression. Their strategy culminated in the Federalist Society influencing the selection of Gorsuch and installation of right wing judges during the Trump administration.
The thing you have to know if you ever want to try and stop extremist, authoritarian, right wing regressives is that they do not hold the same ideals and morals as you and I. They do not play from the same playbook or follow the same rulebook.
They believe that "might makes right," that any ends justify the means, that rules are enacted to protect them and their in group and punish their selected out group. They believe in many cases that their cause is justified by God.
And so any justice who adheres to such zealous principles will see no issue with finding a way to rule in the favor of their side. They may even go so far as to rule with weak or minimal justification. They will be a lot less likely to rule in an unbiased fashion.
My current opinion is that, so far, we have only seen rulings that fall into the "finding a way" category.
I think these justices will incrementally push the envelope on what they can get away with over the upcoming decades.
If only you were in a position to do something about it...
Honest question here ... what would you have him do?
There are a few options available. Pack the court, call for ethics inquiries, draw attention to the unconfirmed justices, or literally anything at all. Go on the attack. Be a leader. Demand justice. Biden is content to shrug and say "Ah, well, you see the GOP controls too much, so only if we have all the power can we make things better."
He's not governing, he's campaigning.
He could introduce a plan to reform the courts, but it would ultimately have to go through Congress.
He's doing one of the only things he can do: using his soapbox to draw attention to the issue.
The only real fix to this would be for Democrats to hold a majority in the house, a fillibuster-proof majority in the Senate (or remove the filibuster with a simple majority), and the presidency.
The last time this was possible was a brief 7-month period from 2009-2010. Prior to that... 1978.
He's not, unless you want a different coup. It's up to Congress and the Senate. Executive, Legislative, Judicial.
Damn, did he just now notice this?
At least they're finally starting to get a clue that "They go low, we go high" is bullshit
In these comments: a shit ton of people who have zero idea how their own country works. Y’all are an embarrassment to yourselves and your countrymen.
Either help solve the problem by telling people what the fuck you're talking about or don't bother commenting at all
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