Posted on 10/18/2020 5:42:37 PM PDT by RandFan
A progressive push to expand the Supreme Court is running into an unusual buzzsaw: fellow Democrats.
Calls for Democrats to remake the judiciary are ramping up as Republicans appear poised to put Amy Coney Barrett, a sixth conservative justice, on the bench.
It’s a decision that will have decades-long reverberations, progressives warn, unless Democrats make systemic changes to the judiciary next year if they win back the Senate majority and White House in November, something they are feeling increasingly bullish about.
“If Republicans proceed as expected, Democrats will have every right to consider Barrett illegitimate and pursue structural reform to restore ideological balance to the court,” said Brian Fallon, the executive director of the progressive group Demand Justice.
But supporters of court reforms face an uphill climb even if Democrats find themselves with a trifecta next year for the first time since 2010, when they lost the House in a Tea Party wave.
Top Democrats ranging from Democratic nominee Joe Biden to congressional leadership have been noncommittal while at the same time, with an eye on keeping the party united heading into Nov. 3, not ruling it out.
And several rank-and-file Democrats and hopefuls in key races have been cool to the idea even while accusing Republicans of driving the Senate and courts to institutional breaking points by refusing to give Merrick Garland, former President Obama’s final Supreme Court nominee, a hearing or a vote but moving to quickly confirm Barrett.
“There is no active conversation or deliberation about any changes in court composition,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
If the Democrats win and get to change the rules,,,does this mean that when the Republicans win,, do they get to change the rules? I am thinking of the rule that a President can only serve two terms...I am wondering if they need to be considering this.
They’ve found out that other than their rabid base, this isn’t polling well with independent voters, so they’re talking it down, but you can bet if they get in a position to make it happen, it will.
3 solid conservatives: Alito, Thomas, Barrett
3 generally right-of-center squishy judges can be swayed individually or collectively to join the leftist bloc: Roberts, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh
3 hard core reliable socialists: Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan
Looking at it objectively, the current Roberts court is FAR closer ideologically to the old Burger court in the 1970s ("Republican majority" on paper, though the CJ has no control over the court and leftists still routinely win "groundbreaking" cases that establish new "precedents" that move this country further and further left), than it is to the Rehnquist court of the late 90s and early 2000s (strongly conservative CJ and generally reliable conservative decisions, with the occasionally once-in-a-blue-moon awful 5-4 liberal ruling)
But, I think Trump fans and Trump haters BOTH live in some alternate reality fantasy where Trump was widely "successful" in putting tons of staunch conservatives in power, and will "cement a conservative majority for decades" just by adding one more judge.
I seriously doubt this "fact".
3:1:2:2
Hopefully soon to be 3:1:2:3
If Barrett roughly equals Scalia
Kav clearly better than Kennedy
Gorsuch MUCHHHHHHH better than Ginsberg
Court=improved
It was a similar issue when FReepers used to have orgasms over Zig Zag Zell Miller's tenure in the US Senate. Had Zig Zag been appointed to replace a Chuck Schumer type RAT, their orgasms and gloating would have been justified, as THAT would have been a VAST improvement.
But Zig Zag wasn't filling Schumner's seat. He filled the seat of Paul Coverdell, who had an 100% ACU rating and been one of the BEST conservatives in the entire U.S. Senate. That meant that Zig Zag, regardless of how "conservative" he was by RAT standards, moved the seat (and susequently, the entire U.S. Senate) to the LEFT. Had Coverdell not dropped dead, the voting record would have been much MORE conservative than what we got out of Zig Zag.
Let's look at the net overall gain/loss in each seat:
- Gorsuch replaced Scalia. Now we have a Sandra Day O'Connor type judge in place of the most conservative justices of all time. This has a net effect of moving that seat, and the court itself, drastically to the LEFT overall.
- Kav replaced Kennedy. I held my nose and endorsed Kav, thinking he might be a slight improvement over Kennedy, but he certainly was nowhere near on the level of Scalia (interestingly enough, a lot of Trump fans came to the same conclusion about him). My one hope was the insane RAT crusade to demonize 24/7 would piss off Kav so much that he WOULD indeed vote FAR more conservative than Kennedy, just to spite the RATS. Unfortunately, that turned out NOT to be the case. Kav has been pretty Kennedy-like (votes the "right" way about 70-80% of the time but turns traitor now and then and can be easily swayed). Might be a milimeter to the right of Kennedy, though overall I'd say its a wash with stuff like this: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/10/supreme-court-planned-parenthood-defunding-case-845056
- Barrett replaces Darth Bader. Again, BEST case scenario would be she IS confirmed and IS a 100% across-the-board conservative. I'll go with the assumption both "best case" scenarios do in fact happen. VAST improvement over Ginsburg. Moves that seat, and the court overall, drastically to the RIGHT.
So that's ONE seat with a CLEAR improvement during the Trump presidency, ASSUMING BEST CASE-SCENARIO. In the post Rehnquist era, the REMAINING seats are:
Roberts replaces Rehnquist. Solidly conservative seat moves LEFT.
Alito replaces O'Connor. Moderately conservative seat moves solidly conservative.
Sotomayor replaces Souter. Commie seat remains commie. Kagan replaces Stevens. Commie seat remains commie. Gorsuch replaces Scalia. Solid conservative seat moves LEFT.
Kavanaugh replaces Kennedy. Moderately conservative seat remains moderately conservative.
That's 1 out of 5 times the court became more conservative, post-Rehnquist. 2 times it became more liberal, 3 times it remained the same.
Adding Barrett to the mix in the "best case scenario" would make it 2 times it became more conservative, which would be a wash overall.
If that's "cementing a conservative majority for decades to come", then President Eisenhower had about the same level of "accomplishment" with the half dozen or so SCOTUS judges he named. 1 or 2 them actually turned out to be good conservatives. I guess we can ignore the fact the rest of that era was filled with rabid marxist activists on the court.
I'm not in the Senate. I talk about how we can win the election. We have to offset whatever this court may do. And the House, the Congress of the United States can overturn these bad decisions. For example the court, on the census, the census is a disagreement we have. This is very important, who we are as a nation, and the court just agreed with the president to stop the census.'We'll See': Pelosi Dodges Question About Democrats Having 'Arrows In Our Quiver' To Block Barrett Confirmation
And I think looking at stuff like this, I would clearly dispute the “Kav much better than Kennedy” premise. At best, I would say he might be a milimeter to Kennedy’s right. Both turned out to be “disappointments for conservatives” and “emerged as unlikely liberal hopes for a swing vote”:
https://www.newsweek.com/fox-news-brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-liberal-justices-1424286
https://www.denverpost.com/2019/05/14/tuesday-may-14-letters/
https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/04/empirical-scotus-is-kavanaugh-as-conservative-as-expected/
And I give Reagan less flask for his guy because Kennedy was Reagan’s THIRD choice for that seat.
We have no idea how reliable Amy Barrett will be.
She certainly more reliable than Ruth bader Ginsburg.
I would hope so, but I remain nervous. Conservatives have been fooled many times before.
Yup.
End result is the same no matter which replaces which.
You have some good points but you are really neg, lol.
Kav and Gors were good boys today (PA voting case)
Roberts was a little bitch once again. 4-4
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