The SC will be increased. It is past time for it to happen. Dems. will dither around and then when Republicons regain the senate and WH, they will shamelessly increase the SC to 13 and fill all the seats with Republicon puppets. Control of the Court is the only way Republicons can continue to rule given demographic changes, so as soon as they get a chance they will use the Dems. argument to take control of the Court for themselves.
1 Like
This is a real danger, I agree.
It should be obvious.
2 Likes
I understand Hunter Biden is actually spearheading this effort. Will someone please look into the undue influence Sleepy Joe’s kid has in this government?!?
4 Likes
The more I’m thinking about this on the merits, the more I’m not convinced that you’re right about the messaging. Though I could be persuaded otherwise.
Your preferred message appears to be that this is just a technical fix to a long-running issue with the Court:
Except I don’t think you CAN sell that as more than political hackery. It just looks like a clumsy attempt to conceal your hackery.
What we need to do instead - and what it strikes me that Sens. Markey & Nadler are trying to do - is to admit that this is an extreme move (it will definitely be viewed that way), but that it is justified.
To oversimplify this to the level of a playground dispute, Republicans told the teacher that we’re going to hit them. Should we say that we just want to stretch, and their face happens to be in the way? Or should we say that they hit us first and are going to have their six friends tie us up so we can’t fight back unless we do something?
2 Likes
Both are prime ideas.
3 Likes
The smallest possible prime idea!
1 Like
This piss-addled redneck scumbag Cotton really manages to stand out in a room full of them.
3 Likes
Exactly. And I don’t get the pushback here. Republicans were never NOT going to cast expanding the court as a partisan move. John Roberts himself could propose it, claim it’s necessary for the functioning of the court, and not at all partisan, and Republicans would still attack expanding the court as if it were. It does not matter what the Dems say or do anymore, the GOP is going to viciously and bitterly attack it as if it’s the very worst thing that has ever happened. My God, Mike Lee said the voting rights bill was written by Satan himself. How much more dramatic can it get? And let’s not kid ourselves, it IS a partisan move. My only issue is that if they’re going to do it then they should do it this year or in the lame duck next year.
9 Likes
The courts have already been packed.
By shameless, desperate, Republican hypocrites who can’t win any other way.
Dem messaging needs to include a narrative to unpack the courts.
11 Likes
They are tying themselves in knots attacking us and corporations that support voting. Of course they are going to fight us on the SCOTUS. And of course we should ignore them - they ignored the fuck out of us with Kavanaugh and Gorsuch.
Fuck the GOP and their complaining.
9 Likes
I’ve had enough of your sensible and easy-to-follow advice!
7 Likes
Maddening, isn’t it?
5 Likes
WORD! I mean, I’m old enough to remember when Mitch McConnell refused to even speak to an Obama SCOTUS nominee because April was too close to a presidential election. (Wonder whatever happened to the guy he nominated? Oh, yeah, he’s AG now.) I also remember when that same Mitch McConnell confirmed a SCOTUS justice two weeks before an election WHILE Americans were voting in a presidential election.
Yep, Mitch McConnell and the rest of his caucus ignored us at every damn turn. Had Jeb or somebody reasonably near to sane been president instead of Trump, it wouldn’t have cost the GOP a damn thing. Does anybody think the election last year was won or lost on fears of the GOP getting another SCOTUS justice? Also, I’m increasingly of the mind that unless it affects them personally, most Americans aren’t paying a lick of attention. Dems should pass H.R. 1 and include the SCOTUS expansion as well as D.C. statehood. Just roll it all up into one package and let them cry about it.
7 Likes
O yes please! I would love to see us do that. And we should - there is just no reason why we shouldn’t.
4 Likes
5 Likes
Someone (Charles Pierce, I think) christened him “The bobble-throated slapdick from Arkansas.”
Sound perfect to me.
9 Likes
Aw, geez… this will be the next attempt in Wisconsin, if the move in AR is in any way successful. I can see Vos (the House Speaker) giving it a shot.
Except of course that the SC is firmly controlled by Conservatives. Maybe not this session, but after the next election or appointment (after all, the CJ is 80 something) when the court inevitably goes liberal.
2 Likes
My preferred message is one that addresses the reasons structural change is needed—and it is—and gives us time to make the case. Then, when the partisan issue is raised, you acknowledge that the Republicans have been stacking the court alongside their stacking the Federal judiciary, and make the case that that kind of court-packing is part of why it’s so important to get the structural reform.
Having the number of Justices pegged to the number of Federal circuits doesn’t just address the issues with the Court now, it builds in a degree of future-proofing that allows Congress and the President the flexibility to meet the needs of the nation without relying on partisan politics.
See, if we just pack the Court, they can just do the exact same thing by taking the number of Justices to 21. If we link it to the number of Federal Appeals Court Circuits, then they have to change the number of circuits—massively expanding the judiciary in a way that can’t be easily justified unless we’ve seen a 25%+ increase in population—in order to do it.
To use the schoolyard analogy, we tell the teacher the Republicans have been hitting us, and we’re taking away the roll of pennies they’ve been holding in their fist while they did it.
1 Like
So long ago, in fact, it has dinner reservations at The Restaraunt at the End of the Universe.
2 Likes
Not sure where this partial quotation is from. About expanding the Court Pelosi did say all of it … but also a little bit more:
"It’s not out of the question. It has been done before in the history of our country a long time ago. And the growth of our country, the size of our country, the growth of our challenges in terms of the economy, etc., might necessitate such a thing.”
That’s about the substance.
Whereas part of her political message was that people should understand the Democrats are focused:
No. I support the president’s commission to study such a proposal, but frankly I’m not — right now, we’re back, our members, our committees are working. We’re putting together the infrastructure bill and the rest."
2 Likes