“The first official shot”
Grammar is your friend, although I guess the ambiguity has its usefulness.
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First off if the Supreme Court Chief Injustice Roberts has proved anything it is that what is constitutional is whatever the Supreme Court says is constitutional and the actual Constitution itself be damned.
If the 2020 elections are at all honest it is obvious the Democrats will then be in control of the House, Senate and Presidency. That said, in regard to Trump appointees to the judiciary including the Supreme Court, I have called on Democrats as a budgetary matter to reduce the size of all courts including the Supreme Court by 2/9th laying off the most recent appointees.
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As i noted yesterday, SCOTUS issued a unanimous ruling on this question in 2016—stating unequivocally that it cannot be done.
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There is already a call for the courts to be increased in size, due to the case load…that means more judges to appoint. There’s a report about it out there somewhere. McConnell would probably try to force through new appointments, but I don’t think it can be done without an act of Congress…the Senate by itself cannot increase the number of judges in a court. So, this is the avenue the Democrats should take, it’s totally legal and apparently necessary; even without expanding the SC it would make a big difference, especially if some judges also retire who have been holding on because they didn’t want to be replaced by Trump.
The bigger difference is to hold the presidency and Senate for at least a decade, that will swing the courts away from the nonsense appointments and back towards judicial normalcy.
Ah, but you are forgetting that was while Obama was president, and any ruling against Obama is not a real precedent the Roberts SC has to follow if it gets in the way of ruling how they please.
ETA: For those not picking it up, this is sarcasm.
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Someone said the other day that the count won’t start until next year.
Trump and Barr will be gone next year.
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It wasn’t a ruling against Obama—and it was unanimous. It is also the case that SCOTUS doesn’t “rule as they please.” We often disagree with assorted interpretations of the law and the constitution, but that doesn’t equate to what you suggest.
In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court clarified in its April 4 Evenwel v. Abbott ruling that legislative districts should be drawn inclusive of all the people living within them, as has been the standard for at least the past five decades. Texas resident Sue Evenwel challenged that standard with the help of Voting Rights Act-foe Ed Blum, the director of the Project on Fair Representation, charging that districts should be drawn based on eligible voters, not total population. This would effectively exclude the interests of children, immigrants, the incarcerated, and many Latinos and African Americans who’ve been disenfranchised. It would also shift considerable political advantage to older, rural, white voters, who tend to vote Republican.
SCOTUS rejected Evenwel’s challenge by a unanimous vote. Wrote Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg:
Nonvoters have an important stake in many policy debates—children, their parents, even their grandparents, for example, have a stake in a strong public-education system—and in receiving constituent services, such as help navigating public-benefits bureaucracies. By ensuring that each representative is subject to requests and suggestions from the same number of constituents, total population apportionment promotes equitable and effective representation.
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Nothing off limits. No holds barred. Power CANNOT be permitted to change hands. END. GAME.
Where Things Stand: It’s Not Hard To Predict What This Will Be About
Yes, martial law is coming to a liberal city near you, no matter whether they call it that or not. IFTYS
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Indeed. Judge Fascistpants: “Those words don’t mean what they seem to say or you think they mean.”
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“Ambiguity has its usefulness”
Sun Tzu
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The problem with increasing the size of the courts is you still have all the Trump appointees who will have power over people. That is well the Supreme Court is most important for issues involving everyone, most federal cases do not involve everyone and therefore for everyone to get justice you must have competent trial (district) judges or for many people justice will still be denied as few can afford the cost of fighting a case to the Supreme Court.
Remembering that federal judges are appointed for life, reducing the size of the courts in the short term will clean out all the incompetent (I am being polite) judges Trump has appointed at all levels. Also, as the budget cannot be filibustered, you do not need 60 senators. If necessary, two years from now if the courts are overloaded you can then increase the size of the courts without calling back the judges affected by contraction.
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This is a plan to discriminate against American Citizens, based on who their neighbors are.
Call it ZIP code discrimination against Americans.
Uh, that was a joke…I guess the sarcasm wasn’t as clear as I thought it was.
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Trump’s culture war and “law and order” bullshit might have been effective if it weren’t for the pandemic he wasn’t expecting and didn’t respond to. Hey Donald, life is what happens while you’re making other plans. But feel free to stick with the plan you had. Good luck with that.
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And there’s nothing that can be done about that, those judges are on the bench until they retire, die or are impeached. And, they can’t be impeached for bad decisions…I wish that were true, but they have to do something corrupt to be impeached. With Republicans in the Senate, it’s unlikely they would be removed in any case. We’re stuck with them.
The courts are already overloaded, so cutting the size of the courts will deny justice to many people. And, there is no guarantee that the Trump judges will be the ones kicked off the courts, they could just as easily remove the senior judges, or all the emeritus ones, who lean more liberal. The best course is to increase the number of judges and dilute the effect of the Trump judges…at least some of them will probably retire if they aren’t able to create the conservative utopia through judicial manipulation that they want.
Your last paragraph is incorrect.
That is when congress votes to reduce the size of the courts included in the bill will be the procedures specifying who (least senior) will be removed. So there will absolutely be a guarantee that Trump judges are kicked off the courts.
And, that then goes into a court battle, because those judges will definitely sue over losing their lifetime appointments under the Constitution. There’s no lawsuit for expanding the courts, no one can against it as there’s no legal theory that says Congress can’t expand the courts, and no one is injured by doing it so there is no standing to sue.
Look, the Trump judges just aren’t going away, that’s how judicial appointments work…and, messing with the system to eliminate them is just as bad as what Republicans have done to install them. Leave them there, appoint new judges to outnumber them, and let them rail against it in their judicial opinions…each time they get an opinion through it will look so far out of step with the rest of the judiciary and America it will only reinforce how wrong this episode of American history was. Play it smart, not at their level.
The problem here is you are thinking the Robert’s Court will rule in favor of the Constitution.