Writes Larry Kramer, former dean of Stanford Law School, in one of a collection of essays — "How to Fix the Supreme Court" — in the NYT. The word "fix" presumes the system is broken. Kramer expects us to assume that enlarging the Court to create new seats is equivalent to filling an empty seat whenever you can. It's "tit-for-tat." It's also simply asserted that the fate of the third branch of government is a game to be played by the partisan actors in the 2 political branches of government, and that the game must be played over time so that the "sides" "learn."
Yes, there are studies that show that "tit-for-tat" is the best strategy for games played over time, but that has to do with 2 parties in an ongoing relationship, without regard to the damage done beyond the participants in the game. Here, the damage will be done to the third branch of government! But barge ahead, Kramer tells us, because the Democrats and Republicans need to learn that they can't win unless they stop their political aggression. Let the Supreme Court go to hell as these idiots play their game.
Kramer does offer an alternative to simply adding seats to the Supreme Court. It's complicated, and I think there's no chance that people will like it. With each new Congress — that is, every 2 years — a new Justice is appointed, but the 9 longest-serving Justices continue to be the active Supreme Court. The new Justices just help out, substituting when there are temporary absences and working at the circuit or district level. Whenever one of the 9 dies or resigns, one of these standby Justices moves up to the active Supreme Court seat. This would drain a lot of the importance out of Supreme Court appointments. Kramer calls this "an easy fix."
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It is mind boggling to me that the author can't see that the Republicans are already in the tit for tat phase and have been since at least Bork.
Uh huh. Kramer would have us believe that Democrats have not been involved in escalating confirmation battles since the 1980s. You can make a very strong case that the current "problem" with the Supreme Court is entirely to laid at the feet of folks like Joe Biden, Harry Reid, and Chuck Schumer.
Larry Kramer is gaslighting.
Oh?!? Republicans started it? Tell me, retired law professor, how does someone so unapologetically ignorant become dean or a prestigious law school?
If President Trump wins the election and if the Republicans keep their Senate majority, then nothing in the system of appointing new judges should be changed during the next four years.
I think that the Senate should vote to increase the number of Supreme Court judges, but only in order to compel all the Democrats to speak and vote against the bill. (If the bill does pass Congress, then President Trump should veto it.)
In any number of psychological experiments - as well as real world equivalents - the opposite has been shown. The "prisoner's dilemma" is not restored by "tit-for-tat", but is in fact amplified by it creating an ever increasing escalation of pain and suffering for both parties, and in many cases ending with one party deciding they've had enough, but not before tremendous damage has been done in such a way that potentially restarts a new cycle, separate cycle of antagonism.
So no, "cooperation" is not the end-game in such a scenario, and if you want real-world evidence of this, the world can provide innumerable examples.
Back when he was still funny, P.J. O'Rourke observed that the three co-equal branches of the Federal Government were Money, Television, and Bullshit.
Once you start down the path of "improving" with no objective feedback, the changes never end.
Okay Larry. Are there serious political observers who actually believe, deep down, that Democrats, in exactly this situation but reversed, would not do exactly the same thing *and* tell us why it was good for us?
They’re the ethical ones, you see. Right. That must be it.
If they weren’t full of shit 24x7 they would do a better job of selling the issues they care about, like abortion, so that lawmakers can pass them, and confer legitimacy upon them. Then they would not have to freak out about every Supreme Court appointment like this.
We need a Constitutional amendment to set the number of Supreme Court justices at nine and to set a maximum tenure.
Does Kramer assume the Democraticals provided no tits for the Republicans to finally tat?
Because that would be garbage analysis.
The Democrats can't admit they suck at this game.
Or - how about this crazy idea - the Left can give up its ideological foundation, that it has the authority to rule everyone, and that anything promoting that authority is allowable.
It already works that way. Barrett was confirmed to the 7th Circuit only three years ago. And yet Democrats went nuts when she was nominated to SCOTUS. What about Kramer's proposal would change that?
The Democrats started attack Supreme Court Nominees with Ted Kennedy's and Joe Biden's attack on Robert Bork. Then they attacked Clarence Thomas. Need we mention Dianne Feinstein's late hit on Brett Kavanaugh with her Blasey-Ford's imaginary tail of teenage party in an unknown location at an unknown time. A party that none of the so-called participants remembered.
Yet, it's Republicans who discarded confirmation norms. Not.
I wonder if he would fell the same way about granting tenure to law school professors at Stanford...
If Hillary had won, who doesn't think she would have done the SAME exact thing. Hypocrites. They need to cheat to keep power, because America DOESN"T want (or NEED)them ruling over us....
I find Tony Bobulinski credible. I believe Bobulinski.
It's difficult to cooperate when moronic leaders of the Left deem every win for America to be the "darkest day".
barrett is part of the fix, even kavanaugh and gorsuch have let the court slip too far,
"President Trump and the Republicans are unapologetic about discarding longstanding cooperative rules for making judicial appointments."
Larry Kramer - liar from Stanford.
1. Harry Reid, when he had the Dem majority in the Senate, nuked the filibuster for Circuit Court Justices (thereby squashing the rights of the GOP Mimority. Without the filibuster, Obama and Reid pushed thru 3 Leftwing mediocre justices on the Court of Appeals, DC Circuit (the guys who are currently screwing Flynn).
2. 2014 - GOP wins the Senate.
3. 2016 - GOP says no vote to Garland
4. 2016 - Trump wins presidency; GOP retains Senate. Says Yes to Gorsuch, after abolishing filibuster for all Judges.
5. 2018 - Dems smear Kavanagh. Disgraceful.
6. 2020 - RBG dies, Prez nominates ACB, Senate confirms. Boo-Hoo. Dems threaten court packing.
The legislature has an overwhelming advantage in government powers. Europe doesn’t go apoplectic over abortion. Their elected representative wrote laws to regulate the activity. The ACA is only in the courts because the legislation was rammed through without debate. Debate that would have involved all of the legislature, eliminating most of these lawsuits.
The legislature refuses to make hard decisions and wants the court to do the hard work of legislating.
The people don’t want single payer. Democrats are left with getting SCOTUS to back into it from the bench.
Kramer does offer an alternative to simply adding seats to the Supreme Court. It's complicated, and I think there's no chance that people will like it....
The only reason any of these schemes are floated is that they lost a battle. When they lose the next battle, they'll come up with a different scheme.
The only consistent principle the left has is winning. Their ideal form of democracy is Erdogan's: "Democracy is like a streetcar. When I arrive at my stop, I get off."
Old Grey Whore is predictable...
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/batshitnyt-401x600.jpg
Deans of law schools are no different than other partisan professors except that they cloak their partisanship with a veneer of legal scholarship.
I’m not willing to read the tripe put out by the NYT, but I am willing to bet that the former dean in citing Republican sins failed to disclose the actions of a similar vein perpetrated by Slimy Harry Reid.
The Republicans had to replace RBG.
After all: "no justice, no peace".
Translation? We lost and it’s not fair.
Fema have given a lot of it over the years, which the GOP has for the most part ignored with the idea that they were above it all. Bork, anyone? Now that there is a fighter in the white house, it's all sooooooo unfair!!!!
Hello? Seriously?
Muller. Impeachment. Literally Hitler. "Mostly peaceful" riots. Trump killed 200,000 people. Planning for post-election violence.
Perhaps the most infuriating thing about the left is their total disregard for the actions taken on their behalf.
It's always a new day. They weren't doing anything. And whatever happened it's not their fault.
"President Trump and the Republicans are unapologetic about discarding longstanding cooperative rules for making judicial appointments."
Objection. Assumes facts not in evidence.
Objection sustained.
“Cooperation" means that Republicans learn their place and let Democrats rule. And face it, with Roberts, the court is really only 5-4, not to mention that Republicans have appointed some of the most reliably liberal ‘Justices’ and I am not aware of the Democrats appointing even one who later turned out to be conservative.
How about we abolish the position of Chief Justice and force John Roberts to retire as a compromise? Roberts should love the idea because he can then run for Congress and write legislation the legitimate way.
It's the concept of a "living Constitution" that has created this situation. The stakes would be much lower if the Left hadn't decided that the Supreme Court was the perfect place to play Calvin Ball with the law.
Bay Area Guy wins the thread.
Yes, there are studies that show that "tit-for-tat" is the best strategy for games played over time, but that has to do with 2 parties in an ongoing relationship, without regard to the damage done beyond the participants in the game.
Progressives have no use for America.
Collateral damage only gets them to their preferred objectives faster.
Democrats lose via the Electoral College, wisely put into the Constitution. Left screams we have to change, those bastard conservatives!
Trump and Mitch follow the Constitution on judicial appointments. Left screams UNPRECEDENTED! We have to pack the court!
Former Stanford Law School Dean screams We Lost. We must overthrow 150 years of stability in the third branch of government!
For balance?
For science?
For "fairness"
Nope. For power. Raw, naked power.
How's about your political party develops a platform that enough voters on enough of the important places want to vote for so you win elections?
Instead everything is game theory and how to change the rules so you always win...
Which one of the "Justices in waiting" gets appointed to the vacant seat?
If in the future a Democratic president and Democratic senate approve a new justice the month before an election, I'm fine with that.
No changes required.
Fuck off Kramer, you dishonest piece of shit. All of the betrayals have been from the Democratic side. All of the escalations in to ever more aggressive acts of intolerance and hate have come from the left.
The point that Kramer misses, is that the Republicans are involved in tit for tat because of Democratic actions. The Democrats started it first with Bork and Thomas. No Democratic nominee has been treated as disrespectfully as either one of them.
In order for that deal to work, Larry, both actors have to be knowledgeable and above all honest. Guess which side is ever deceitful. It isn't the republicans, Larry.
Hope he reads Althouse.
The central premise, that the USSC needs fixing, is bullshit.
The entire Democrat freakout over a duly elected President appointing a Justice during his term when his party holds the Senate is bullshit too.
The refusal to accept that sometimes your side loses. “Elections have consequences.” Everyone knows elections decide Supreme Court appointments. The refusal to accept the customary and agreed consequences is a refusal to accept that elections are legitimate.
If the Democrats had held the Senate during Obamas last term, Merrick Garland would be on the USSC and no one would have complained about the appointment being made during an election year. In fact, we'd have been treated to articles from the NYT about how ordinary and historical it is for Presidents to make such appointments.
With each new Congress — that is, every 2 years — a new Justice is appointed, but the 9 longest-serving Justices continue to be the active Supreme Court.
What if one party holds Congress for a long time? And then there is a sudden spike in people leaving the Supreme Court such that they're all moved up at once? And what if those people aren't Progressive enough?
The problem with every system you can work out is with Progressive orthodoxy -- that any "inequality" denotes a problem with the underlying system and must be immediacy remedied to create the preferred outcome.
They are not system people, so we should stop trying to pretend they are.
Oh, the devastation, the ravishing of the norms proceeds. It's tough out there for a norm these days.
It's getting to the point that unless I hear somebody credibly day they are willing to fight and die for their principles, I just don't believe fuck all they write or say.
Pick up a fucking long gun, former Dean, or you're just babbling.
If it's existential, it's worth fighting and risking it all.
Democrats only want to "cooperate" when they're losing. When they're winning it's "screw you; elections have consequences."
But their uninformed base-- which includes most of my immediate family-- eats up this kind of crap about the evil, disgusting Republicans, so the Dems keep dishing it out.
"President Trump and the Republicans are unapologetic about discarding longstanding cooperative rules for making judicial appointments.
Not a word about Biden's role during the Bork hearing that destroyed the longstanding concept that a President's nominee deserved a yes vote unless there were substantive issues against
Not a mention of Harry Reid nuking the filibuster in 2013 to fill the DC circuit full of Obama judges and change that most important court.
Ironically, after roughly 30 years of Democrat "tit" beginning with Bork followed by only 4 years of Republican "tat," the best support for Kramer's "learning" thesis would be if the Democrats now showed restraint and signs of cooperation. Instead, he proposes the opposite. The sophistry live large in this one. I'm glad he's the former dean.
Or Ds can stop screwing around w/ judicial nominations. At every step along the way, it has been Ds who have violated long-standing norms and abandoning rational action. Rs have warned them their actions would not be sloughed off, going back as far as Alan Simpson. Blocking votes, fillibusters, sliming nominees, politicizing the process, and now threatening to play "52 Pick-up" w/ the courts because Rs have successfully used Ds words and tactics against them. Here's a suggestion: Return to regular order. It would be less satisfying to the BatShitCrazy wing of the party, but it sure worked well until 1987. The problem isn't the courts or the nominees, it's the process the Ds have substituted.
Waaaaa waaaa waaaaa
I have a radical idea. Let’s change the rules so the senators are chosen to serve for 6 years and maybe one re-election. And then they have to get a real job. Go back to the family business. Same for Congress. Maybe 10-12 years max. Why should these fuckers get permanent status in DC and constantly suckle at the teat?
I’d rather choose 535 people at random from the phone book.
How is it that so many of these “leaders” are over 80 years old?
Forget term limits, we need age limits.
One justice per state, nominated by governors and confirmed by their state legislature. 18 years-to-life appointment.
Have 5 panel initial hearings/rulings - rulings apply nation wide. Then have an option for a full court hearing - all 50 members. Potentially allow the president to appoint a Chief Justice as a tie breaker.
>Here, the damage will be done to the third branch of government!
Or, it's time for the other branches of government to fight back against SCOTUS overreach, as the framers intended ("ambition countering ambition" and all that). SCOTUS has been messing around in politics for 50+ years now.
To be honest, of all the power plays the D's are proposing, I'd place this one as least worrisome, behind: gutting the 1st Amendment, revoking the 2nd Amendment, gutting the 14th amendment, killing the electoral college, and adding new states.
I have some bad news.
The Supreme Court has already been abolished. It happened Tuesday morning.
No matter how many times the left tells you what they are doing, you still don't believe them.
Anything that stands in the way of the left gaining power is invalid. If it can't be co-opted, it must be destroyed. I've always said all of these judges Trump appointed won't add up to hill of beans. Suddenly, without warning, their "rulings" will carry no weight.
Next week you will see the first open salvo in abolishing elections. We'll have an election, but you won't be able to see or even talk about the results until they are damned good and ready.
All roads lead to one thing: If you stop the left from co-opting America, they will destroy it.
They've been saying it out loud for 50 years. Every tenured college professor has a hand in making sure they have the pieces in place they have a legitimate shot at being successful.
Our political system is an adversarial one. Cooperation among the parties is rare.
If we are going to play the who started it game on this topic then I submit the Ted Kennedy led attacks on Robert Bork. When have the Republicans ever done anything even remotely similar? Never is my recollection.
Powerline did a good recounting of the actions of the execrable Chuck Schumer as it relates to judicial nominations.
Chuck Schumer Reaps What He Sowed
Why doesn't Kramer blame the real culprit -- the selfish Ruth Bader Ginsburg?
The republicans haven't done tit for tat on the hatred and intolerance, which is the stuff that drives everything.
Really althouse. I wish you'd push back against this insanity a bit harder. I mean, you're an ex-law professor (haha). Lets look at the history of SCOTUS appointments:
Bush - 1 Liberal 1 Conservative = 2
Clinton - 2 Liberals= 2
Bush-II - 1 Moderate, 1 Conservative = 2
Obama - 2 Liberals = 2
Trump - 3 Moderate/Conservatives
So, every President since Bush-I has gotten at least 2 POTUS picks. In the last 32 years, there have been 5 liberals appointed and 6 Conservative/Moderates. SO, what are the Liberal/Leftists whining about? If Ginsberg had retired in 2015, at the age of 82, Obama would've had 3 picks and Trump 2. The D's real problem is that Ginsberg REFUSED to retire when she was 82 and Anthony Kennedy DID retire when he was 82. That's the entire difference between Trump and Obama.
I want to meet Larry's brother Daryl and his other brother Daryl. They would both make good justices in Larry's new world.
Standard lefty playbook... rules are only good as long as their winning... as soon as they start to lose, they want to change the rules to their advantage... and then cry foul when those same changes are used against them.... boo fucking hoo
Take the ACA as an example. Efforts to make medical insurance available to a broader group of citizens have been attempted since at least Harry Truman's tenure. Finally, when the Democratic Party had control of the House, Senate and the Presidency, the ACA was passed, which, while imperfect, did result in the enrolling millions of previously uninsured people. The representatives (House and Senate members) who voted for that law represented the vast majority of the US citizens, given that the Republican representatives were more likely to be from states with smaller populations that therefore have an outsized representation, as measured by population. Then, a small group of academics came up with some rather convoluted theories as to why the ACA was unconstitutional. Note that this was not like passing a law that required pre-approval from a government agency before printing a news article commenting on the agency. Everyone and his brother can see that such a law directly violates the constitution. It is more difficult to articulate the theory under which the ACA is unconstitutional. In fact, one of the most conservative judges on the federal bench, Judge Laurence Silberman, found that the ACA passed constitutional muster in a short, easy to understand opinion. He is both very conservative, and a true believer in judicial restraint. BTW, ACB clerked for Silberman and has described him as her mentor. He sat behind her when she was appeared at her Senate hearing on her appointment to the 7th Circuit. But now we are in a peculiar position where a law that was passed after more than 50 years of attempts may be binned by 6 judges on a court, the last of whom was approved by a group of senators who represent significantly less than a majority of the citizens of the United States. Putting aside whether the Republicans broke any rules in getting to this juncture (I think they did not), it is a peculiar place to be where people's access to health insurance will be decided in such a way. And, please, you can hate the ACA with all your might, but just consider if leaving its fate to six unelected judges is consistent with living in a democracy.
These crazy leftists don't care about the Constitution and want to use the SCOTUS to hammer down the Center-right so they have zero ability to gain power again. Look at the insane behavior of the District Judges during this election. At the last moment they're rewriting the state election laws to allow fraudulent voting. The only thing stopping it (mostly) are the Republican SCOTUS judges.
People don't realize how crazy the left-wing judges. They ASSUME, without evidence, that a 5-4 liberal/left majority would be sensible and only mildly left. Wrong. If they ever get power they will gut the 2nd amendment, and i wouldn't put it past them to declare the Electoral College unconstitutional. Or that illegal aliens must be given the vote. You laugh, but people never thought Gay marriage was a constitutional right either.
Far from the first to note it here, but he lost me at "President Trump and the Republicans are unapologetic about discarding longstanding cooperative rules for making judicial appointments."
Let the dude start his own nation.
Re: Unknown:
It is mind boggling to me that the author can't see that the Republicans are already in the tit for tat phase and have been since at least Bork.
Is that really true? It's definitely true since 2013, but look at Clinton's nominations in the 1990's. Ginsburg is 96-3. Breyer is
87-9. In other words, even after Democrats voted en masse against Thomas and successfully voted down Bork (although they let Souter through), the Republicans in the Senate were still willing to approve nominees with whom they had strong ideological disagreements. Note also that Ginsburg replaced Byron White, one of the dissenters in Roe v Wade, so she shifted the ideological balance if the court on an issue of great interest to the public.
By early Obama, you can see some Republican senators adopting a harder line on the Supreme Court, although Kagan and Sotomayor are still both 63-37, 68-31 (falling between Roberts' 78-22 and Alito's 58-42). But after Democrats' opened the door to filibustering appellate nominees (Estrada in 2003), Republicans returned the favour. And after that, we've been in tit for tat.
>We need a Constitutional amendment to set the number of Supreme Court justices at nine and to set a maximum tenure.
The simplest fix is to make SCOTUS a randomly chosen panel of federal judges, whose membership changes every term i.e., there are zero permanent SCOTUS justices.
I think you could even do this statutorily (the judges still hold lifetime appointments to their "offices" in the new system)
President Trump and the Republicans are unapologetic about discarding longstanding cooperative rules for making judicial appointments.
These people have the memory of a gnat. Do they all have that short term memory issue that you can only remember back 5 minutes?
It is either that or such a monumental amount of projection that they all should be under a doctor's care.
The Ds resemble the Palestinians in that any action to defend or respond to aggression is seen as justification for both the original attack and any subsequent one. Ds commitment to "norms," free speech, or the Constitution is wholly dependent on whether they serve Ds political needs and policy choices at the moment.
I think that the Senate should vote to increase the number of Supreme Court judges, but only in order to compel all the Democrats to speak and vote against the bill. (If the bill does pass Congress, then President Trump should veto it.)
Subject to Trump winning and the Rs holding the Senate, this is a wonderful idea.
Oh the howls of dismay from the left. Oh the cries of unprecedented, the destruction of comity, the power grab by the bad Orange Man, the rise of the new Hitler! The videos of the left would prove useful for the next cycle when court packing would rear its ugly head again.
No veto necessary. I'd predict zero votes for this from the right because it's a stupid, stupid idea. And zero from the left because they are not in power.
For those unaware it should be pointed out that it's been the left, the Democrats, who are the heavies in all of this. They have been the aggressor throughout. And their ground troops, BLM, Antifa, have been the severe aggressors in all the rioting in Democrat cities.
Given how long people live nowadays, the number of judges on the bench waiting to get into the game would grow and grow.
Writes Larry Kramer, former dean of Stanford Law School, in one of a collection of essays — "How to Fix the Supreme Court" — in the NYT.
The guy's had a tough life - what with everybody confusing him with the AIDS guy and all.
Biden promised us he would tell us his position on court packing after the process was completed.
So what's his position. Do we deserve to know now?
I've long admired Stanford and it's professoriate. Some of the very best in every field teach at that University. So it always throws me when I read or hear statements from one of the 'best and brightest' that make me realize that perhaps, not all of the minds at Stanford are among the best and brightest.
""President Trump and the Republicans are unapologetic about discarding longstanding cooperative rules for making judicial appointments."
1) It was the Democrat Majority Leader, Harry Reid, who unleashed the Nuclear Option on the Senate, much to the dismay of Republicans and anyone else who saw the pandora's box that was opening. Larry Kramer certainly must know this, and chooses to conveniently ignore it. Or, he does as Democrats claim now, that Reid inserted the Nuclear Option for all executive branch nominations, to include Federal judicial nominations, but not the Supreme Court. The damage was done when he opened that box. Of course it was going to be used for a Supreme Court nomination. And it would be done by the first ones in position to do it, which, as it turns out, was the Republicans.
2) I'm so very tired of the specious argument that it's not right to make this nomination and vote for a SC Justice a week or two, or days before the election. President Trump's term is over on January 20, 2021. That is almost 3 months from now. He is still President until January 20. So let's stop this argument that it's too close to the election. There are 3 months left to his term. You don't get to call it over because you want things to go your way.
This, from the former Dean of Stanford Law School? Embarrassing display of putting party over intellect.
"President Trump and the Republicans are unapologetic about discarding longstanding cooperative rules for making judicial appointments."
Would you care to share with the class, Mr. Kramer, who it was who turned "bork" into a verb?
Barrett's an eminently qualified judge; there's no objective reason to oppose her appointment to SCOTUS.
This nomination and confirmation were only "controversial" and "partisan" because the Democrats chose to make it so.
With Trump the republicans started playing tit for tat. Before then they just let the democrats (and the press) get away with whatever attacks they initiated. That is probably one of the reasons Trump's supporters are so enthusiastic - his supporters have put up with the democratic lecturing, name calling, and bullshit for too long. When they got someone who fights back, they went in 100%.
I think that a judge should be added every congress with a lifetime appointment, no waiting period. Judges would retire or die as they see fit. I don't think the number of judges would increase a bit, but I don't think it would grow unwieldy. If judges stay a long time, the size of the court would grow into the teens, but the power of the individual judges would diminish, so there might be less inclination to hold on to very advanced ages. The need to appoint young judges would diminish as well. The influence of the parties would average out, so that oddities like periods of rapid replacement would disappear. I think the Republic can survive the occasional tie vote. At times there would be 7-7 ties, or the like, but prevailing trends would likely cause the courts to go through periods of things like 8-6 dominance by one side or the other.
Whenever the left loses a skirmish it means the "system" is broken and should be fixed so that they can't ever lose again.
They thought Hillary would win and get to pick the RBG replacement. They were not smart.
Of course, "cooperation" in this context is to give Democrats everything they want and Republicans get to feel good about it.
Known Unknown said...
Why doesn't Kramer blame the real culprit -- the selfish Ruth Bader Ginsburg?
10/28/20, 9:25 AM
Ding, ding, ding. She wanted to make a point, and her CANDIDATE of choice (biased) LOST.
" We need a Constitutional amendment to set the number of Supreme Court justices at nine and to set a maximum tenure. "
QFT
Term limits of 12 years total between either house of congress would be a nice addition as well.
Wasn't this a coming-of-age movie called "War Games" starring Matthew Broderick?
.....and now we have to salute it as serious academic discourse.
“Oh?!? Republicans started it? Tell me, retired law professor, how does someone so unapologetically ignorant become dean or a prestigious law school?”
He’s not ignorant. He’s just a liar. How else would he get into the NYT?
Lefties fail to grasp the concept that merely because they believe themselves to hold a monopoly on virtue and superior intelligence, the rest of us may not wish to submit to their tender mercies and to be fucked by them arseways.
Bork. Thomas. Kavanaugh.
- Krumhorn
I'm filling out my ballot this AM - so I can go drop it off in person. (no mail for me)
and I see Kanye West is on the ballot in CO.
WFT? I thought that was a joke.
"President Trump and the Republicans are unapologetic about discarding longstanding cooperative rules for making judicial appointments."
This is what is known in the slang as a "lie."
The Democrats have discarded longstanding cooperative rules for making judicial appointments going back to the Reagan administration and Robert Bork. The Republicans did not respond to this for years, happily providing near unanimous support for Democrat Supreme Court nominees, no matter how extreme, and in response the GOP nominees were treated terribly. This was followed by the Democrats nuking the filibuster for judicial appointments, which they then expected the Republicans to reinstate after they had power because they always rolled over before. So there is tit-for-tat going on, but the Republicans are playing tit-for-tat after years and years of trying to retain longstanding cooperative rules. There is certainly an opportunity here to come up with new rules that both parties can live by, but the Democrats have shown zero interest in anything other than getting their own way. At this point is not clear that a Constitutional amendment would be sufficient to enforce the rules, given that the Democrats think the Supreme Court should treat the Constitution as a nuisance to be ignored whenever inconvenient.
I wonder if Karry Kramier believes his own lies. Probably does. He probably thinks he is always the victim, too.
"tit-for-tat."
So which cities do Republicans get to burn down?
System broken when unbroken Republican majority in third branch for 50 years and size of majority just getting bigger.
Larry Kramer's a complete nut. Always has been. He didn't say that Republicans and Democrats need to learn tit for tat: he lashed out at Republicans alone, claiming that Democrats are the ones always and everywhere victimized by the evil Right.
Kramer's a certain type you find in academia: a megalomaniac living the life of an emperor while pretending to be a man of the people by giving other people's money away. He's so crazy that he spent weeks sending unsolicited advice to the writers of Game of Thrones. His legal history work is bizarre autobiography. He announced he should be on the Supreme Court at an early age and has lived his life resenting other people's failure to give him what he is owed.
If he is to be believed, he doesn't want to be on the Supreme Court anymore. He wants to be King of the Supreme Court. Luckily, there's still no such thing.
Why not have one SC justice for every member of Congress and Senator. If it's good enough for the Electoral College it should be good enough for the SC.
Such a lazy abuse of a trendy concept.
In game theory, the winning strategy called tit-for-tat starts by offering an act of cooperation. Thus, you display the behavior you're seeking and you encourage the other side to reciprocate. Instead, the Democrats were the first to start defecting, repeatedly, with Bork, Kavanaugh, abolishing the filibuster, etc., etc.
You can't expect cooperation -- and start punishing the other side for defecting -- midway through the game. I mean, you can, but that's a losing strategy.
Is the Democratic Party's threat to pack the Court credible? If the Democrats sweep and retake control of the Senate, will Biden be prepared to follow through on the threat? I don't think so. Biden won't even touch this issue on the campaign trail.
But I think Big Tech is the wild card. Big Tech is clearly threatened by a Conservative super majority on the Court. Can the tech giants and the Democrats re-frame the Court packing issue as one in which Biden sweeps away the dysfunction of partisanship, gridlock and bureaucracy? The Supreme Court as symbolic of the entrenched power that makes so many people's lives miserable?
Not one of my areas of expertise, I think 9 seems to be a good number and I see no reason to change it.
But what would be the biff problem with adding 2 or 4 more Supremes? Especially if it were president Trump doing the adding.
People are running around with their hair on fire. I've seen several people who should know better dating or would be the end of the USA.
I do understand that depending on who does the adding or could unbalance the court and that would be bad. But the should be a workaround. Perhaps let state legs nominate?
So, bad but not nuclear holocaust bad as far as I can see.
John Henry
I am categorically against tats-on-tits.
Just like Feinstein can't hug Lindsey Graham, Larry Kramer cannot afford to tell the truth (Bork, Thomas, abolition of the filibuster, etc.) without earning the lasting hatred from his Leftist brethren. I don't think he's that stupid that he doesn't know this.
it's more the threat like happened in 1938, and it came from the avenatti braintrust, so called,
BothSidesNow said...
(stuff)
10/28/20, 9:32 AM
LOL, that is all pretty darn funny! I know you tried to dress it up in a bunch of fair sounding prose but the truth is it was a bad law passed by using tricks and not in the way laws are normally passed. It was done as nothing more than a power grab by the Democrats and as a thumb in the eye of Republicans and half of America. Did you sleep through it all? Do you really NOT remember how they did this? It is a tax, it is not a tax, it is a mandate, it is not a mandate, you can keep your Doctor, you can keep your plan, people are dying in the streets cause they have no access to health care! It was ALL crap then and it is all crap now.
Larry's gotta learn to grin and Barrett.
(Sorry, I just can't help it.)
Readering meant to type the comment above.
Shim did so on purpose.
I defy anybody to make sense of what Readering typed.
“1. Harry Reid, when he had the Dem majority in the Senate, nuked the filibuster for Circuit Court Justices (thereby squashing the rights of the GOP Mimority. Without the filibuster, Obama and Reid pushed thru 3 Leftwing mediocre justices on the Court of Appeals, DC Circuit (the guys who are currently screwing Flynn).”
Let me suggest that this made some tactical sense, on Reid’s side, but may have been strategically foolish long term. Long term Senate practices essentially gave two Senators, the two from CA, almost total control over the composition of the largest Circuit Court - the 9th. That is because traditionally, the judges on that Court were allocated by state with CA, with the largest population having the most. Home state Senators effectively had a veto over the judges appointed for their states with the Senate’s Blue Slip rules. That meant that at that time, left wing Dem Senators Boxer (later even more radical Harris) and Feinstein controlled who was confirmed for the CA seats in the 9th Circuit. Republican Presidents either nominated very moderate Republicans, even moderate Democrats, or the seats sat empty uti a Dem was elected President.
The other problem was that filibusters ceased to be real filibusters. In the past, a filibuster would require that the filibustering Senators hold the floor until they wore out, or everyone else gave in. They had to keep talking, or they would lose their right to prevent the legislation from advancing to a vote. And while this was going on, nothing else happened in the senate. But at some point, the process was streamlined, where they merely needed to announce a filibuster, and a cloture vote would be taken. If they couldn’t get cloture, the measure was tabled, and the Senate would go on and address other matters. This meant that instead of all Senate business being shut down during a filibuster, dozens of matters could be on the table, filibustered, including judicial nominations, while the Senate was engaged in other matters. In the past, shutting down the Senate for filibusters, and the requirement to keep talking the whole tie, put a lot of pressure on the filibustering Senators. That all disappeared with the rule change, and it became useful for minor matters, such as confirming lower court judges. And it was only then, that filibusters became anything beyond quite rare, during confirmations.
The Democrats have gone from character assassination to killing an institution.
Tried to stop Thomas. Didn't work. Tried to stop Kavanaugh. Didn't work. The earlier failures are making them escalate their tactics. (Character) assassination didn't work, so now it's an attack on a whole branch of government.
There are plenty of problems with the Supreme Court. None of them will be fixed by overt political manipulation and active dishonesty. That will make it worse, shit-for-brains.
"Roe v. Wade is so important we need to destroy the Supreme Court in order to keep it going."
I think that was tried in Vietnam.
Well said, Kevin, @ 9:14am...
Back in the day if there was one kid that always wanted to change the rules of the game to suit them, the other kids wouldn't let them play...
Kramer isn't actually suggesting that the newly appointed justices be the red shirts: they would move immediately to the bench, a new one every two years, and prwsumably an older justice would be moved to "emeritus" status.
I know Calvinball when I see it.
Calvinball has no rules; the players make up their own rules as they go along, making it so that no Calvinball game is like another. Rules cannot be used twice (except for the rule that rules cannot be used twice), and any plays made in one game may not be made again in any future games.
Got it?
Beyond devising ways to rig or game it, the Democrats really don't believe in democracy at all.
"President Trump and the Republicans are unapologetic about discarding longstanding cooperative rules for making judicial appointments."
Of course, the very premise is BS. The rules were discarded long ago by Dems. Ask Bork (well, you know). Ask Thomas.
But the point is not that a prog argues in bad faith. That we take for granted. The striking thing is that he can do it in complete certainty, knowing that no one on his side will raise any obvious empirical objection. Facts and history are irrelevant.
"Yes, there are studies that show that "tit-for-tat" is the best strategy for games played over time..."
Yes, and playing games is what Larry Kramer is good at.
Well spotted, Iman, @ 10:46am...
I also think Rory, @ 10:14am has identified other parts of the game.
Outside of politics, there is something to be said for expanding the size of the supreme court. It is after all an appellate court and there is no reason why it should not operate as one. Right now it hears too few meat and potato cases. If the politics can be worked around - I'd say expand the size of the court to 15 - and have them sit in 5 member panels. They could choose to sit en banc for the big controversial cases.
Just to give the real history.
1987- Democrats "Bork" bork - destroy norm of not opposing judges purely on ideology.
1991 - D's turn Thomas Hearing into a "High-tech lynching"
1994 - Republicans refuse to do the same. Approve Breyer/Ginsberg without a fight.
2002 - D's start to routinely filibuster Appeals judges. Destroy that Norm.
2004 - R's Respond with "Gang of 8" to appease D's.
2004 - D's filibuster Alioto because of Ideology - destroy that norm.
2009 - R's respond by filibustering Sotomayor
2013 - D's get rid of filibuster for district/Appeals judges - destroy that norm
2017 - R's respond by getting rid of filibuster for ALL judges
2017 - D's trash Kavanaugh with 30 year-old fake sex allegations, vote 47-1 against.
2020 - D's vote against ACB 47-0, boycott judiciary vote.
Center right people need to stop appeasing the D's and reasoning with them. They've been escalating and destroying every Senate tradition and norm regarding judges and they'll pack the court in 2021 if they can.
Stop with "lets be friends". They want absolute power and they need to be stopped.
The fundamental flaw in this entire arblegarble is that the out-of-power party this cycle the last two times an election was a factor are crowing about the will of the people through their soon to be elected (or not) officials. The SCOTUS isn't about the will of the people, or, at least, shouldn't be. The will of the people should be felt through their elected officials and the rules that govern the legislative and executive branches, but the will of the people (or put another, the tyranny of the majority) should not be a consideration for SCOTUS outcomes. That's basically what all of this is. The Democracts are assuming, quite rightly, that another Trump appointee would swing the court into a 6-3 situation, something we haven't had in a long time. You could also argue that they are in such a tizzy over this because the more Scalia-type originalists on SCOTUS, the less activism they will be able to push through. Regardless, the will of the people was reflected in their Congressional and Presidential elections. The rules were abided by and the outcomes are binding. Only losers want to change the rules.
Of course they easily "forget" that schumer started all of this crap.
>Why not have one SC justice for every member of Congress and Senator. If it's good enough for the Electoral College it should be good enough for the SC.
Nah, one selected by every State. That is, re-recreate an institution fills the role of the original Senate. Justification: Federalism/Separation-of-Powers.
The excuse for every alanine, childish, thing the Democrats have done over the years: The Republicans made us do it!
"President Trump and the Republicans are unapologetic about discarding longstanding cooperative rules for making judicial appointments."
Gosh, what "longstanding cooperative rules" are those?
Every qualified judge gets confirmed?
Nope, the Democrats nuked that in 1987
You can't filibuster a judge just because you don't like his /her judicial philosophy?
Nope, the Democrats nuked that in 2003, with Miguel Estrada.
Heck, then-Senator Obama joined over 20 other Democrat Senators to try to filibuster SC Justice Alito's confirmation. Where the only "crime" was that he's a conservative.
Every SC nominee deserves hearings?
Biden announced in 1992 that no more Bush nominees would get hearings before the 1992 elections.
Schumer announced in 2007, 18 months before the end of Bush's term, that no more Bush SC nominees would get hearings
Did this pathetic lying garbage creature provide any examples of this "Republican perfidy"? Or does he just assume it, since both he and his editors know he can't prove it?
Paradoxical as it sounds, tit-for-tat, hard ball for hard ball, would set the stage for, for constructing a judiciary we can once again respect.
Which is what the GOP has been doing in response to Democrat rule changing. The power of projection is strong in this one
no thanks
Classic Progressive projection: "He started it. He hit me back."
Finally, when the Democratic Party had control of the House, Senate and the Presidency, the ACA was passed, which, while imperfect, did result in the enrolling millions of previously uninsured people.
"Todd" has already pointed out "Bothsidesnow"'s logical fallacy. The Obamacare bill was NOT passed under the rules. Scott Brown was elected to the Senate and his swearing in was delayed to allow the Obamacare bill, which had zero input from the GOP, to be enacted as law. As Nancy Pelosi memorably said, "We have to pass it it to find out what's in it."
The "millions of uninsured people" had a large number who had been previously been insured under individual or small group plans added to the total while millions of others were herded into programs that have high, very high, deductibles and very high premiums so many cannot afford them.
Why do you think Biden is touting his mystery plan if Obamacare is so successful?
Finally, when the Democratic Party had control of the House, Senate and the Presidency, the ACA was passed, which, while imperfect, did result in the enrolling millions of previously uninsured people.
"Todd" has already pointed out "Bothsidesnow"'s logical fallacy. The Obamacare bill was NOT passed under the rules. Scott Brown was elected to the Senate and his swearing in was delayed to allow the Obamacare bill, which had zero input from the GOP, to be enacted as law. As Nancy Pelosi memorably said, "We have to pass it it to find out what's in it."
The "millions of uninsured people" had a large number who had been previously been insured under individual or small group plans added to the total while millions of others were herded into programs that have high, very high, deductibles and very high premiums so many cannot afford them.
Why do you think Biden is touting his mystery plan if Obamacare is so successful?
Lucid-Ideas said...
In any number of psychological experiments - as well as real world equivalents - the opposite has been shown. The "prisoner's dilemma" is not restored by "tit-for-tat", but is in fact amplified by it creating an ever increasing escalation of pain and suffering for both parties
Life isn't a "prisoner's dilemma". It is an "iterated prisoner's dilemma". And, sorry, but you are entirely wrong. "tit for tat", starting with "cooperate", and then giving each person back what they gave you, is pretty much the optimal strategy.
Turn it around: The Democrats announced in 1987 that they would not let anything get in the way of their domination of teh "judicial system". The GOP had two choices:
1: Give up
2: Fight back
In what possible way are they worse off by fighting back?
The Democrats aren't escalating because "the GOP violated the rules." The Democrats are escalating because they refuse to accept that the GOP should be allowed to ever keep them from using the "Judicial" system to advance their policy goals.
Until the Democrats accept that they're bound by the written US Constitution, and written laws, and that to change the laws they must win elections with politicians who've told the voters ahead of time what they're going to do, and they must remain within the bounds of the US Constitution while doing so not matter how unhappy that makes them, we're going to be at war.
Surrender to the Left, or tit-for-tat (or something more aggressive than that).
Those are the only options
30 years of GOP turning the other cheek (Bork, Thomas, Kavenaugh, Harry Reid breaking the filibuster to pack the DC Circuit) got them nothing.
McConnell warned Reid he would regret breaking Senate norms "and maybe sooner than you think". Reid did it anyway. In fact he said "it had to be done"
The decision by McConnell to give them back a bitter taste of their own medicine is the only way Dems will ever stop their bullshit. In this sense Kramer might be right but he never got back to the root cause...
For any GOP antecedent, like Garland, there is a prior Dem provocation, like Reid nuking the filibuster..
The howls of Dem outrage are from people that never thought turnaround would be fair play or that what was good for the goose was good for the gander... Well McConnell cooked their bird.
The whole systems of credit and law are based on the premise that it is fair. If Dems pack the Supreme Court, I will go on record saying that they will regret it... and likely sooner than they think.
The Supreme Court should not be a vehicle for granting wishes Dems cannot win legislatively. It's not a way to cram unpopular bullcrap down people's throats that could never pass..
America is close to saying ENOUGH
Gilligan: The suggestion was made w/ my tongue firmly in my cheek. But I have noticed that my sarcasm doesn't translate well in print. But, by including Congress we can achieve "equity," as every D representative seems to have an opinion on SC nominees anyway. Besides, Ds want to make the Senate proportionate representative like the House. So what's the difference?
Kramer's a certain type you find in academia: a megalomaniac living the life of an emperor while pretending to be a man of the people by giving other people's money away.
Tina Trent for the win!
Let’s condense this thread: when Republicans are in power do what the Democrats want because collegiality. When Democrats are in power do what the Democrats want because power.
Harry Reid on nuking the filibuster for SC nominees one week before the 2016 election: “I really do believe that I have set the Senate so when I leave, we’re going to be able to get judges done with a majority. It takes only a simple majority anymore. And, it’s clear to me that if the Republicans try to filibuster another circuit court judge, but especially a Supreme Court justice, I’ve told ’em how and I’ve done it, not just talking about it. I did it in changing the rules of the Senate. It’ll have to be done again,”
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/harry-reid-if-gop-blocks-scotus-in-2017-dems-should-go-nuclear-again
Harry Reid on D controlled Senate refusing to vote on George W Bush's judicial nominees in 2005: “The duties of the Senate are set forth in the U.S. Constitution. Nowhere in that document does it say the Senate has a duty to give Presidential nominees a vote. It says appointments shall be made with the advice and consent of the Senate. That is very different than saying every nominee receives a vote.” So what exactly are the "norms" Ds so sentimental about?
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4581302/user-clip-reid-duty-give-nominees-vote
Accusations of rape trains aside, was a pretty civil relationship.
>You can't filibuster a judge just because you don't like his /her judicial philosophy?
Nope, the Democrats nuked that in 2003, with Miguel Estrada.
To be fair, The D's filibustered Estrada because they didn't like his race.
Tit for tat is no way to run a country. The fact that Democrats are advocating for it is a good reason to keep them out of power until they learn the lesson that it doesn't pay.
The reason I would never vote for Biden is that he turned judicial nominations into partisan goat rodeos when he was head of the judiciary committee breaking the norms going back to early history of the Senate.
BothSidesNow babbled...
Take the ACA as an example. Efforts to make medical insurance available to a broader group of citizens have been attempted since at least Harry Truman's tenure. Finally, when the Democratic Party had control of the House, Senate and the Presidency, the ACA was passed, which, while imperfect, did result in the enrolling millions of previously uninsured people. The representatives (House and Senate members) who voted for that law represented the vast majority of the US citizens, given that the Republican representatives were more likely to be from states with smaller populations that therefore have an outsized representation, as measured by population. Then, a small group of academics came up with some rather convoluted theories as to why the ACA was unconstitutional.
I stopped here. because you have to be a total moron not to understand the problem
The Federal Government has limited powers. It says so, right there in the US Constitution, and in every civics class worth a damn.
The US Federal Government does NOT have the power to force you to buy anything as a condition of being an American.
Therefore the "individual Mandate" is obviously and entirely unconstitutional.
It might be possible for a State government to force you to buy something as a condition for living there. Might.
But it can not possibly be Constitutional for the Federal Gov't to do that.
"But that means we can't have what we want!!1!"
Yes, it does. So what?
There's a lot of people who want laws against abortions. You claim to believe that the US Constitution stops them from getting what they want.
Having established that possibility, there can be no legitimate grounds for you to claim that "I want this" means "therefore it's not legitimate for the Constitution to block it, or for the Supreme Court to strike it down."
If you want to move from a "culture war" to a "civil war", you're welcome to do so. If not, you're going to be bound by the written US Constitution, and you're going to suck it up and take it
News from 2036, "Supreme Court rules on Eminent Domain, agreeing with plaintiff in a close 17-16 decision."
Isn't Barrett the response for Kavanugh, which was the response for nuking the filibuster?
Basically... isn't this how Democrats always do something, then complain when Republicans punch back twice as hard?
Honest broker bullshit.
Since the President is a Republican and the Republicans have the majority in the Senate, it would be very helpful if someone could point out to me just what exactly the Republicans did that was wrong. Or unprecedented. Or whatever the left is screaming about.
rcocean : "2009 - R's respond by filibustering Sotomayor"
According to the media they thought about it, but they didn't actually do it.
There are a couple of details absent from your timeline :
1987 - the Dems regained control of the Senate in 1987 and immediately started slow walking Reagan and Bush 41 nominations
1994 - the GOP regained control of the Senate in 1995 and returned the favor, using their majority to slow walk Clinton nominees - this included Garlanding poor old Garland for his DC Appeals Court seat before letting him through afer Clinton was re-elected in 1996
2001 - when they gained back Senate control on Jim Jeffords defection, the Dems reverted to the slow walking thing, including Garlanding Miguel Estrada, until in 2003 when they lost the Senate, they ramped it up and filibustered him
So below SCOTUS level there's a tit for tat pattern starting in the mid 1980s, with the majority party running blocking patterns against opposing party nominees. This was tit for tat (initiated by the Dems) but with each succeeding tit being a bit more ruthless than the preceding tat.
The next escalation was the filibuster in 2003 - running blocking patterns even when in the minority. The Dems justification for the filibuster was that it was a tit for the GOP's tat on Clinton. Overlooking the fact that the GOP's tat on Clinton was in response to the Dems tit on Reagan and Bush 41.
2013 - I think you've understated this one - the nuclear option. The "nuclear" aspect was not eliminating the filibuster on inferior court judges and executive branch positions. The nuclear aspect was the fact that they did this by changing a Senate rule with a simple majority, when the Senate rules require a two thirds majority.
Roe vs. Wade is a political question that needed to be settled by politicians, not judges. The SC took RvW out of the political arena and created 50-years of rancor. A political settlement would have resulted in a settlement of the abortion question with a solution all sides could have lived with.
This is a state question that the states would settle. Washington State already had an abortion law when RvW was proclaimed. Overturning RvW and its subsequent revisions would result in Washington going back to that law. Other states would come up with their own laws.
With each new Congress — that is, every 2 years — a new Justice is appointed
Unless, of course, the House flips back to the GOP.
Re: Tit for Tat. There was a lot of Tit related accusations during the Kavanaugh hearings.
The Professor's rejection of tit for tat is not persuasive. The tit for tat theory depends on the game players having a particular payoff structure for their decision to cooperate or defect, depending on whether the other side decides to cooperate or defect. A defection in this case would be the violation of a non-constitutional norm--whether it's a norm about Supreme Court nominations in an election year or a norm about the size of the court. Cooperation would be sticking with norms.
The insight of tit for tat is than in repeated games with a particular payoff structure, the best strategy is to make clear that you will respond to defections with defections and to cooperation with cooperation, because it protects the person adopting the strategy from being exploited and provides a basis for the parties to cooperate.
Althouse's claim that tit for tIt does not apply here is wrong, at least if we assume that both actors benefit from a Supreme Court that is not simply a political football.
That doesn't seem like an unreasonable assumption. Indeed, it seems almost axiomatic. If that's true, though, then the costs of norm violations for the court's ability to deliver for all will be priced into the payoffs for the parties from cooperation or defection.
So to reject Kramer's suggestion you need to argue either that the failure to vote on Garland (a law and order moderate) 8 months before an election and the insistence on voting for Barrett (a hard core conservative) the week before an election were not individually or collectively defections, or, if they were, that they simply canceled out other norm violations by the Democrats, so that the Dems should regard the end result as fair. If they really were defections, then tit for tat theory would point to defection as the right response, both to counter the risk of exploitation and to establish a basis for future cooperation.
The problem at the Democrats are having with the supreme Court is an own goal. Barack Hussein Obama shoulda coulda woulda recess appointed a metric shit ton of federal judges and Merrick "Judy Judy Judy" Garland.
The founders were a group of very wise people with a vast array of experiences. Young and old. Such a group doesn't exist today. It's wisest to shore up their meaning instead of altering it.
After the election we should amend the constitution to designate the numbers of justices on the supreme court.
Roe vs Wade. Let each state set the point in weeks of gestation at which point the fetus is considered a viable human. That's a compromise. It's not 0. It's not 36.
I seem to currently hear that it is about 19-22. Let people control their bodies and make their choices within that framework.
People at 0 are unrealistic about their broader community. People at 36 are bat guano insane.
Stephen said...
So to reject Kramer's suggestion you need to argue either that the failure to vote on Garland (a law and order moderate) 8 months before an election and the insistence on voting for Barrett (a hard core conservative) the week before an election were not individually or collectively defections, or, if they were, that they simply canceled out other norm violations by the Democrats, so that the Dems should regard the end result as fair. If they really were defections, then tit for tat theory would point to defection as the right response, both to counter the risk of exploitation and to establish a basis for future cooperation.
The last time the Senate confirmed a SC nominee from a President of the other Party, starting a year before the President's current term was set to end, was 1888
The last time a President and Senate of the same Party failed to fill an SC seat that came open within a year of the President's current term coming to an end is, um, never.
So in both cases the GOP followed the norms. Not a defection
"...so that the Dems should regard the end result as fair."
This is where it fails. Dems will NEVER regard an end result that favors Republican policy choices as 'fair'. It doesn't matter what the policy, what the situation, how popular it is with citizens. This is the root of why we are heading for a shooting civil war - Dems have decided that the norm of a peaceful transition of power to anyone other than them is illegitimate regardless of how it is arrived at. This plays out in myriads of ways at myriads of governmental levels, but the root is the same: Dems believe only they have a right to rule and all other claims to that right are de facto illegitimate.
Let’s condense this thread: when Republicans are in power do what the Democrats want because collegiality. When Democrats are in power do what the Democrats want because power.
Almost. When the Democrats are in power, do what the Democrats want because "elections have consequences".
Tit for tat...
Punch back twice as hard....
If they bring a knife, we bring a gun...
In their fever dreams, larping revolutionists may think they want this to end up in an armed mob vigilante shooting war but I don't think they've done the math.
there be trolls here,
California's Larry Kramer claimed to be in on court-fixing when he said:
"Paradoxical as it sounds, tit-for-tat, hard ball for hard ball, would set the stage for, for constructing a judiciary we can once again respect. Adding two to four new justices is one way to do this, but there are others that are less disruptive and just as effective."
Yeah, the fix is in, alright. Respect, huh? Does that mean only the decisions you agree with?
So, seeing his tit-for-tat (insert Hunter Biden joke here) comment made me think of Sean Connery as Malone the cop in The Untouchables: "They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue." Mutually-assured destruction may keep enemies honest, but they're still enemies.
"I defy anybody to make sense of what Readering typed."
I'm sure that it made perfect, profound sense in his head. Unfortunately he typed it.
Marshall Rose: Exactly, no one really wants to give up bread and circuses... or wifi and grid power. They haven't done the PT either.
Three things about Kramer's quote disturb me. 1) His assertion that Republicans are the ones who have become uncooperative in judicial appointments, when Rs have been far more willing to approve Democratic SCOTUS nominees than the other way around. 2) His belief that a court with conservative judges who interpret the law does not deserve his respect. 3) The NYT trying to persuade that the Supreme Court is somehow illegitimate.
It is disturbing to me the way progressives feel that if the Electoral College or the Supreme Court isn't producing the results they want, they must abolish or fundamentally change it.
I would be seriously interested for Professor Kramer if he could game the Constitutional Convention of 1787 for how to avoid the compromise on admitting Slave States - serious alt-history stuff
You people have such short memories.
Abe Fortas got torpedoed by conservatives when he was nominated for Chief Justice because it became clear that he was taking money from for speaking fees far disproportionate to others. He later resigned from SCOTUS after being on the take from the Wolfson Foundation.
Two of Nixon's appointments, Clement Haynsworth and Harold Carswell, also got sunk. Haynsworth's failure was in retaliation for Fortas. Carswell did not play well based on his service on the bench.
Gerald Ford put JP Stevens on the SCOTUS replacing William O. Douglas. Ford had tried to get Douglas impeached when Ford was in Congress.
The Bork fight did heat things up, but tit-for-tat went way back before Bork was nominated.
I suppose that what you see depends on where you stand, but given that Democatic/liberal appointments always toe their party and ideological lines, whereas about 1/3 to 1/2 of Republican/conservative appointments consistently do not, but become "swing votes" (Kennedy, O'Connor, Roberts) or just vote like liberals (Warren, Brennan, Souter), imho the Left really doesn't have much to complain about with the current system.
Howard said...
The problem at the Democrats are having with the supreme Court is an own goal. Barack Hussein Obama shoulda coulda woulda recess appointed a metric shit ton of federal judges and Merrick "Judy Judy Judy" Garland.
I don't remember the name of the case off the top of my head, but Obama lost 9-0 when he tried to end-run Congress and do recess appointments when Congress adjusted their calendar to block them
So, no
Amadeus 48 said...
You people have such short memories.
Abe Fortas got torpedoed by conservatives when he was nominated for Chief Justice because it became clear that he was taking money from for speaking fees far disproportionate to others. He later resigned from SCOTUS after being on the take from the Wolfson Foundation.
Posited and destroyed in two sentences.
Fortas resigned from the SC because he was a corrupt scum bag. "How dare those conservatives oppose a corrupt Leftist scum bag?!?" THAT'S what you're going to go with?
The defeat of Fortas was an example of WHY the Constitution requires the President to get the "advise and consent" of the Senate for his appointments.
The fact that lefties carry around butthurt over it is merely an indication that the Left has been clinically insane for a long time.
Note that there was no "In Abe Fortas' America" attacks. There was a committed group of opponents who made honest arguments about why he shouldn't be moved up to Chief Justice, arguments that turned out to be true, which is why he resigned.
If the opponents of Bork had done that, "Borking" wouldn't have become a verb. And Bork would have been confirmed, because the one "valid" charge "he carried out the Saturday Night Massacre", was such weak tea that it wouldn't have justified keeping him off the Court.
Which is why the Dems, starting with Senate Judiciary Chair Joe Biden went to the lies.
Which is why the Dems should be completely kept from power
Democrats only cooperate with other Democrats.
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