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But Joe Biden isn't going to not push someone through. We're just going to get more Kavanaughs, but nominated by a Democrat. Because they will hold over us the fear of even worse.
Biden is not going to sit by and let the SC remain with open seats, because that is a bad look for the president. So they will find someone they think the SC will approve, and it will likely be literally no better than someone the GOP would choose. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if Biden goes directly to the Heritage Foundation to pick his justice nominee(s).
Merick Garland WAS another Kavanaugh, possibly minus the rape. They don't care about the politics of the judge that's put up- if they're put up by a Dem and the GOP controls the Senate, they're not getting through
I mean technically, but only in the most tepid "harm reduction" way. IMO, people need to come to terms with the fact that the judiciary branch is the least democratic, oligarchic institution in what is already a sham bourgeois democracy. The whole thing is rigged, and removed by so many layers from the needs of the people to be practically meaningless.
The only role the Supreme Court serves is to legitimate the Constitution. They rubber stamp all the evils of the empire, only to make an occasional "landmark decision" once or twice a decade to save people from losing faith completely. At best, the Supreme Court represents the long view of oligarchy, as opposed to the short term interests of Congress.
I’m not trying to have an electoral argument but Dems aren’t winning the Senate right?
They're currently expected to take 51.
Let's not hold our breath for that what with all the election rigging that's blatantly in store for us, but it's nice that it's at least a possibility.
if they win Coloroda Arizona Maine and North Carolina senate seats which they are forecast to win and then doug jones loses alabama which probably will happen then we have a 50-50 senate and the VP is the tie breaker, so I think Biden is probably going to win and then the senate will be tied with kamala breaking ties
They wil probably win Maine. Though I am really hoping that the debate on 9/11 helps the Independent/Green candidate, Lisa Savage, get some recognition.
She's not amazing, but with ranked choice rolled out in Maine for the senate election, it would be interesting to see how quickly the polls could swing. Sarah Gideon, Collins' Dem rival, is some shitty neolib, so I really would love a socdem to take it instead.
That was my first thought, too. "the silver lining is that at least whoever he appoints won't be president"
Flipping the Senate matters more than the presidency. So does state and local in most cases. But this country pathologically fixated on the president.
Though if we are going to end up with ghouls on the SCOTUS, it's better if it's done in such a way that radicalizes libs to feel that the SCOTUS is illegitimate. Then they will be more open to a nuclear option on the courts in the future.
So they’d just do the thing they did under Obama where they just refuse to take anyone Joe puts up.
There's a big difference between stonewalling nominations for one year and stonewalling nominations for an entire term. I think you're right that Republicans would try it, but it doesn't make sense to treat it as a done deal.
Plus, if there's any sort of challenge to this sort of stonewalling it's the Supreme Court itself that will ultimately decide on the issue, and they can get touchy about other branches trying to fuck with their operations.
Other than saying “we need to vote these senators out” how would the Democrats respond to a terms worth of stonewalling by the Republican senate?
There's an argument that still fits with a lib-brained loyalty to the rules of government:
- If Congress refuses to even vote on a nominee for years at a time, that's reducing the size of the Supreme Court.
- There's already a process for setting the size of the Supreme Court and Congress can't change that through inaction.
- Congress also can't eliminate the Supreme Court without passing a constitutional amendment, and if they have the power to indefinitely stonewall nominees they have the power to eliminate the Supreme Court.
How would this work procedurally? I could see the nominee being named, Republicans stating their intention to stonewall, after some time the Attorney General writing a letter to the Court stating the above and saying the President considers the Senate to have approved the nominee by not voting them down (maybe this gets framed as a recess appointment somehow), then the Court deciding what to do.
What would stop Republicans from voting on the nominee, rejecting them, and then similarly rejecting every nominee Biden puts forward? I think after enough of that you could make a similar argument to the above, and I also think Republicans wouldn't like the optics of that/wouldn't be able to get the votes for that (because otherwise they would have done it in 2016).
if the Courts were to rule on this process why would we assume party objectives wouldn’t come into consideration?
Although every member of the judiciary is partisan, not every member is equally partisan. At least some of them (up to and including at least some members of the Supreme Court) give at least somewhat of a shit about maintaining the integrity of the courts as an institution. It's a type of small-c conservatism that cares about maintaining the status quo over doing everything possible to protect the interests of capital. "The President gets to pick Supreme Court justices" is about as status quo as it gets, so it's believable that they would protect that. The Supreme Court in particular is aware of FDR's court-packing scheme back in the 1930s and the resurgence of similar ideas in the past few years. They could also view indefinite stonewalling as a fast track to that, which they would want to avoid for a number of reasons.
It's plausible to spin one year as a political tactic, especially if your opposition is so incompetent/overconfident that they don't bother to fight it.
But an entire term? Even the least-competent Democrats would fight that, and they'd probably win because at that point it's really hard to argue that you aren't fucking with the constitutional powers of the executive and judiciary.
No one with the surname "Cotton" should be discussing racial issues in America. Just saying.
Oh but don’t worry, we can never use the same reasoning like they did with the 2000 election. Like that’s law
Joe Biden:
I'll put Tom Cottons as a Federal Appellate Judge.
We're playing hangman and at this point I'm all the way to writing in "Jo_e_h Robi_ette Bide_"
For point of reference, if Trump puts me on the Kill List then I will make calls for Biden. "Uh yeah actually did you know he is the most *cough* prgrsv prsdnt snc FDR..."
Ooh yeah. An ivy leaguer (Harvard Law) and a war hero?
If he attained high office, we’re fucked. He’s significantly more evil than Trump, who doesn’t have a coherent ideology,and he’s vastly more competent.
Trump doesn’t even have the support of the military. He tried to send soldiers into US cities to quell BLM and the army just said no. I don’t think they would say no to President Cotton.
America is just done. Get out while you can. This is 1933 all over again. Trump isn't Hitler, but whoever comes after Trump, riding Trump's politics, will be.
Nope, still not voting for Biden.
I don't care if he wanted to give Hitler's corpse or Satan a seat.
