This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1373058
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1373058
Appropriate a $10 million cash pension payable to every justice upon their retirement. Problem solved.
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There are 20 months left of control of both houses of congress. Drive. It. Like. You. Stole. It.
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The only problem here is that if the Party of Trump gets control of the presidency and the congress in the future they would expand the Court to 21, and make sure that every appointee was a 30-something believer in Q.
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So they can do that anyway.
We might as well beat them to it and get things done.
Word!
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That’s what the Republicans believe already.
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like an MBA exploding offer:
- if retire after 10 years on the bench x
- if retire after 15 years x-y
- if retire after 20 years x-2y
oh and must retire after 20 years
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I was just thinking the other day when Billy Barr essentially got caught doctoring the evidence contained in the Mueller Report that his actions clearly shined a light on the anti-American interests of the Federalist Society. Making any affiliation with that organization a dis-qualifier for appointment to any court in the country would be a good start to rectify the damage that Republicans have caused to this country via their own court-packing activities. I’d anticipate quite a few resignations if current Justices were publicly shamed by their own association with that group. The Federalist Society is not good for this country!
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How about making to illegal to use dark money to fund a countrywide judge creation machine for a start. Pfft.
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You can’t term-limit justices without a constitutional amendment. But it’s perfectly legal for Congress to bribe them into choosing retirement. We’ll have much more regular turnover if we do.
My original proposal was a one-time pension plan: $30 million for the first to retire, $25 million for the second, $20 million for the third, $15 million for the fourth, $10 million for the fifth, and $5 million for everyone else. Watching them scramble for the money would be hilarious, and I bet we’d pick off everybody except Kagan and Justice Handmaid’s tale. But it’s also a bit too obviously crass.
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We are mainstreaming the idea that SCOTUS does not represent the American People.
The actual fact of the misrepresentation was expressed long ago when Roberts declared racism finished in the U.S.
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Let’s get it done!
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SCOTUS isn’t designed to represent the American people.
It’s supposed to represent the US Constitution.
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Yeah, won’t be happening. At this point, most days, I feel perfectly happy for it to just continue to worsen until it gets so bad that the country finally decides it’s time to subjugate the GQP Trump KKKult and its adherents by force.
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My own opinion is that as part of the budget process and applying Republican judge excuse for all sorts of bad decisions, reduce the Supreme Court to the original 6 laying off the 3 most recent appointees.
Before some one says it unconstitutional, if we have learned any thing from Chief Injustice Roberts, what is constitutional is whatever the Supreme Court says is Constitutional and the three facing layoff would not have a vote and 3 to 3 would leave it to the appeals court.
I’d alter your suggestion to state that the SCOTUS does not reflect the demographic composition nor the societal interests of the American people. The SCOTUS was never intended to “represent” us. It is intended to reflect who we are as a nation. In that regard, the SCOTUS is already off the cliff.
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It’s a tricky thing…law and things like demography, ideology, racism, etc. I am extremely disappointed in the activist judges who themselves have blurred the line (like Thomas)
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The Democrats need to concentrate on things they can do, rather than on things that make FantasyLand look pedestrian. Here’s one thing the Democrats can do. They can have the Attorney General give a series of speeches “instructing” the Supreme Court on why the incipient Republican state laws making it harder to vote are unconstitutional, and why Shelby County needs to be reversed. Garland should throw down the judicial gauntlet, not once or twice, but every week until every American knows by heart why these laws are unconstitutional.
My fear is that Garland - as outstanding a person as he is - will consider it unseemly to make the case in the public arena and give these speeches, and that he will turn out to be more Janet Reno than Eric Holder.
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In short, a variation on the Dutch auction. First Justice to retire gets $30 million… $29 million… $28 million… Clock’s ticking!!
[On that note, and in light of TPM’s upcoming commenting policy change, I’ll just take this opportunity to say, “So long, and thanks for all the fish.”]
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I always suspected that if dolphins were posting anywhere on the Internet, it would be here.
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