Amok, you are a gentleman and a scholar.
Look, I’m not saying that the next President won’t influence the Supreme Court. What I’m saying is that the amount of influence is not nearly as large as people on either side of the aisle are trying to portray it. It’s a great sound bite and rallying cry to say “If Bush is elected, abortion rights are doomed!” But that’s not true- there would have to be a major turn-around in the Senate, the House, and state legislatures across the country, and even then future legislators could repeal or re-write the laws. The abortion debate will most emphatically not be decided by this Presidential election, and what these “partisans” are trying to create is the image that it will be, in the hopes of giving voters an issue to actually care about.
KSO- I don’t presume to speak for Maeglin, but should a President be elected without winning a plurality of the popular vote, that President will likely not have a good working relationship with Congress. After all, said President will have proven that a plurality/majority of the country doesn’t actually want him in power. Popular presidents can usually turn their popularity into advantages in legislation- “vote for this bill, and I’ll campaign for you”. Unpopular presidents can’t do that, and in fact have the opposite effect- “I’d vote for this bill, but if I look like I’m standing anywhere near you politically, my opponent will have me for lunch next election.” Remember all of the Democrats trying to push off Clinton and keep him from campaigning for them in '94? If Gore gets in without winning the popular vote- and especially if the Republicans still control the House- Gore will be lucky to get anything accomplished.
Hmm…
No. The argument is not a scare tactic on both sides. Robertson is urging people to vote Republican in order to overturn pesky abortion and civil rights judgments. It is a manifestly positive argument on the right.
Perhaps you can tell me why this is not a reasonable argument, since this has been the longest stretch without a new SC appointment since the Madison administration?
MR
Thank you, John. You summarized the likely ineptitude of a plurality administration well.
Which, in all fairness, is most certainly not the democratic party line. What can happen is when a volatile idea such as the next president’s influence on the Supreme Court is transmitted, it can easily be blown up out of proportion. You might hear the somewhat unelightened democrat on the street claiming that abortion is doomed should W be elected, but the official line is not nearly so cut and dried.
You are welcome to lambaste scare tactics and alarmism until the cows come home, but this in no way diminishes the logic of the genuine supreme court argument.
One example, that I have posted before, can be found here.
MR
It isn’t fair to simply take Nader’s numbers and add them to Gore’s total. By no means would all Nader voters otherwise vote Gore.
A good percentage of Nader voters would vote for some other third party candidate if he were not running. A probably even greater percentage would stay home rather than vote for either of the frontrunning bozos.
Once you subtract out those groups, the Nader voters don’t represent nearly the threat to Gore that people imagine. I’d be surprised if Nader makes an actual difference in more than one or two states, if that.
Dr. J
Primarily because I feel he has not even attempted to address any issues of governance outside of his pet concerns. Even so, I strongly urge anyone who thinks he would make a better President than Bush or Gore or Buchannon or Browne to vote for the candidate that best represents your political beliefs.
I recently had a debate/conversation/argument/violent confrontation (well, maybe not “debate”) with a friend who does not vote. His position was, “I hate both parties; neither Gore nor Bush have positions I agree with”.
My position was: then vote for someone else. Hell, given the present system vote for someone else at random. Every vote not for a Republicrat is a voice raised in discontent at the present oligarchy. Speak up. If you aren’t happy – say something.
Staying home also says something – it says you are to apathetic to take meaningful action and need not be accounted for by those who wish to gain or maintain political power.
Voting for a major party candidate also says something, of course. It says, “I don’t know, what do you want to do?”
Yes. I appreciate that there can be real consequences to shifting this particular election toward one party or the other. The same, or similar, consequences will hold next election and the next and the next. You cannot drive change if you are paralyzed by fear.
Forty years later: we have a real close nag/horse race for the Presidency. A few thousand here and a few thousand over there may determine where those electoral college votes go.
Bottomline: vote your conscience but recognize that if you live in a prime target state such as Florida, Washington, Oregon, Iowa, Michigan etc your vote will count twice. You will have voted your conscience and feel good for a short while. Your non-vote for Gore, who is politically closer to Nader than Bush, will bring in Bush.
A Gore vote is an important compromise that will probably be not forgotten. Compromise and negotiation are the prime actors in the democratic process.
Huh? What has been the longest stretch without a new SC appointment? The five years since Breyer? Geez, seems to me that the five years between Kennedy and Ginsburg would kinda qualify as in that range.
Alright, to restate my argument for the third time (or maybe fourth, I lose count):
1.) The “four Justices” assumes the following: Every justice who hits 72 by the year 2004 retires, and Ginsberg retires/passes on due to cancer. This is ignoring that the average retirement/death age for recent justices is in the mid-80’s.
2.) Of the “four justices”, two are liberal (Stevens and Ginsburg), two are conservative (Rehnquist and O’Connor). So at most (assuming no letter-bombs or such), the next President might change the votes of two SC Justices.
3.) For those who say “Yes, but that still means swinging two votes!” keep in mind that it’s extremely likely that the next President will also see the two like-minded-as-he Justices step down, and the nominees appointed to replace them mayt well be much more moderate than their predecessor.
4.) Every nominee still has to make it through the Senate. While the Republicans will control the Senate after this election, it’s quite possible that the Democrats will re-take control following '02. In either case, the opposition will have enough seats to fillibuster a confirmation hearing.
So what this comes down to is: if one of the two opposing-minded Justices step down and if the nominee selected is actually strongly conservative/liberal instead of moderate or of opposite views (see: Souter) and if the balance hasn’t already been swung by a moderate/opposite voice replacing a conservative/liberal who stepped down because their seat was “safe” and if the new nominee manages to make it through Senate hearings without major fallout due to scandal or ideology (which is inversely proportional to how conservative/liberal they are) then the SC will swing, at least until the next President takes over and swings it back the other way.
That’s four big ifs.
So saying that the next President will produce a major shift in the Supreme Court seems to me specious at best; with all the stars in the correct alignment, a lap-dog Senate, great favor in the destiny of sitting Justices on the bench, and a list of unknown, unassailable yet somehow stoutly conservative/liberal jusges to choose from, the next President might shift the bench to the right or left by two seats (again, and only until the next President takes over). It seems to me quite possible (say, 40-50%) that the next President doesn’t shift a single seat in the SC, or inadvertantly shifts it in the opposite direction (see: Eisenhower and the Warren Court). Those who say that this election will shift the SC by three or four seats are either misinformed, lying, or exaggerating (by, say, assuming that the next President will automatically serve eight years and have a friendly Senate the entire time).
Those who point to the SC as the main reason to vote are using fuzzy math (to borrow a phrase) to rally their base (“We must vote for Gore because Bush will destroy abortion rights!” “We must vote for Bush because Gore will uphold abortion rights!”). Certainly it’s being used more as a scare tactic from the left, but both sides are using it as a scare tactic. Just because Robertson presents it in a single argument as a positive light doesn’t mean other politicians aren’t out there using it as a scare tactic. Hell, Bush tried to use it as a scare tactic regarding “liberal activist judges” in one of the debates.
[I’m editing to include this note: I had not seen Maeglin’s message of 12:24 PM when I wrote this message. All is in reply to his previous message. My apologies for any conclusions I jumped to therefore. -JMCJ]
[Edited by John Corrado on 10-24-2000 at 12:45 PM]
No one here has mentioned the fact that Thomas and Scalia, the justices the democrats use to scare us into voting for Gore, could have been blocked by, you guessed it, the democrats. No way am I going to buy that argument.
As far as ‘gonadal politics’ goes, Nader has long since adopted a comprehensive platform on gay and women’s rights. He is the only candidate who is for gay marriage. The only one. check his website: http://www.votenader.org
try not to treat this as a horse race you’re betting on, but a question: “who do you think would make the best president?” and answer accordingly.
Oh, I forgot. Everyone takes a Republican Senate as a foregone conclusion. No matter what, Nader is going to bring a lot of people to the voting booth who wouldn’t have voted otherwise; some part of the 50% of the eligible population who didn’t vote in '96. While these people are in the booths, which senate candidates you think they’re going to vote for? Certainly not the Republicans. Nader’s candidacy could turn out to be very good for the Democratic party in the Senate.
John - I’m just going to say I disagree with you on the SC issue and leave it. For the last time, ONE VOTE will change things on the court for abortion rights. That is a chance I, and many other pro-choice people, are unwilling to take.
Fine, four votes may not change. I don’t disagree with your logic. I’m only saying that even one vote change is a risk I’m unwilling to take.
Damn, I am jealous of your mod editing priveleges. 
Kinda, but not quite.
Blackmun stepped down in 1994, and was replaced by Breyer. Barring a mailbomb, it is unlikely that any justice will step down during the remaining presidential administration. The earliest any justice would likely retire (one cannot make such guesses about sudden death) would be in 2001. I didn’t go to college for math, but it seems to me that there is a serious difference between five-odd and seven-odd years.
You really didn’t have to, but I shall respond nevertheless, since I respect your effort. I was only arguing that it would be more useful to discuss the rational and official claims than those espoused by the scaremongers.
It is extremely unlikely that the next administration will appoint four justices. Furthermore, it is signally unneccessary. In the past ten years, 28% of all SC decisions have been 5-4. It is only necessary for one justice to step down and be replaced by a jurist with a directly opposing ideology. If Stevens steps down and is replaced by Easterbrook or Ludig, the court’s balance would already be significantly shifted.
Which, of course, would be enough to alter the balance of the court dramatically, especially if Bush were president and a liberal justice left the court before a conservative one. These are not two glaring ifs, they are real possibilities.
Well, the nominees may also be fanatic ideologues. That is not a rigorous argument. It all depends on the setting for the nomination and on how much political capital the president is willing to use to pass his nominations through. For example, if Reagan had nominated Bork instead of Scalia, at the height of his power and popularity, he probably would have gotten him passed. Scalia would have been a much better candidate for more difficult times.
My point is that if W prosecutes a moderately successful little police action in the Middle East, the economy has not suffered a reversal, and his candidate has no skeletons in the closet, then he will probably be able to pass whomever he wants. The same, of course, would be true with Al Gore. There is absolutely no way to predict that our next president will appoint more moderate justices.
This is, as always, a rather specious argument.
First, would you mind citing some examples of successful filibuster during a supreme court confirmation hearing? To my knowledge, and to the knowledge of the activist lawyers I asked, no one has ever been able to pull this off.
The split in the Senate may be less important than you might realize. It took a smear campaign of monumental proportions to reject Bork. The Senate in 1987 was Democratic (with a capital D) and the president’s power was at its lowest. Nevertheless, only when partisans were able to whip up the electorate into a frenzy was Bork rejected.
The bottom line is that the Senate’s confirmatory power is viewed in different ways. Most senators, including Al Gore, who helped confirm Scalia, believe the appointment of Supreme Court justices is a presidential prerogative. Justices ought only be rejected if they are deemed grossly incompetent, and not for purely political or ideological reasons. In fact, the testimony of the nominee wasn’t a regular feature of the confirmation process until 1955. Hell, referral to the Judiciary Committee has only been a procedure since 1949.
A lot of senators take Article 2 Section 2 of the Constitution pretty literally: the President…by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint…judges of the Supreme Court.
Advice and consent? No one really knows what that means, anyway.
Even a moderate can tip the balance, depending on the issue. Souter stands a bit to the left of moderate, and votes with Breyer, Ginsburg, and Stevens virtually all of the time. O’Connor, much more of a moderate, is the usual swing voter.
The state of mind of each justice of the Supreme Court is not easy to estimate. It is convenient to assume that some may step down when their seats are “safe”. Yet this remains an unqualified assumption all the same. Surely they take many other considerations into account, many of which may be more important to them than who is currently president.
To repeat again, just because it is being used as a scare tactic in no way invalidates the real argument. I realize that you are not dismissing it outright, but your objections that the president will not have a serious influence on the next Supreme Court are utterly unconvincing.
MR
Michael Moore has a reply for those who use the abortion
rights will die if Bush is elected argument.
I looked around one of Robertson’s sites a bit, and no, I did not see blatant scare-mongering, but when these organizations use hyperbole to describe what is at stake in an election, even if it’s just to describe what they can accomplish, one implication is that the “other side” will be able to accomplish much as well, if people do not go out and vote for the proper canidates.
From Robertson’s site:
Firstly, he presents the number of justices and federal judges who will be appointed in the next presidential term as a foregone conclusion, when it certainly isn’t that. In addition, there is a real implication here that not just will voters who agree with Robertson stand to gain much if the right canidates win (and it is never spelled out on this page who the right canidates are, but I think the implication is pretty clear there as well), but that they stand to lose much if those canidates don’t win. For instance, consider his use of the phrase ‘the stakes are incredibly high’, implying there is the potential both to win or lose a lot in the upcoming election.
And that is just one site. I believe there are other sites who are a bit more blatant. For instance, I found the following blurb on the opening page of the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action:
The most important election since the Civil War (I assume he means the 1860 election, not the 1864 election, which was the only one that actually took place during the Civil War)? Well, he’s certainly entitled to his opinion, but to make such a claim without the benefit of historical perspective, and in the absences of the extreme internal tensions that were present in the 1850s, strikes me as hyperbole. And it’s not a manifestly positive argument in the case of the NRA, as their argument mostly centers around voting for Bush so that Gore won’t enact restrictive gun legislation, as I understand it. For instance, from the site they urge you to visit:
So I would say there are scare tactics being used on the right (and undoubtedly the left as well, but I didn’t look at any of their sites).
Michael Moore’s skilled writing conceals his poor arguments. Responses to his manifesto have been all over the internet for months. Does anyone really need to address these issues here?
If so, just say the word. I can always kill another half hour.
MR
Fair enough, but does the fact that partisans are engaging in scare tactics really invalidate the argument when it is rationally presented? With no foregone conclusions?
MR
Just to make things Nixonially clear:
I am not saying- and never have said, and never will say- that there is no chance the next President will be able to affect the SC. What I am saying is that the phrase “three Supreme Court Justices” is being bandied around as if the Court was going to swing hard-right or hard-left with long-lasting results, and that this is exceedingly unlikely. I am also saying that there is a signifigant chance that the next President may not move the court in any specific direction or the next President may move the court in the opposite direction.
I am not dismissing Maeglin or Falcon’s belief that a Bush presidency may result in swinging the SC against Roe v. Wade. I am saying that Bush’s election does not make a guarantee that Roe v. Wade will be overturned. And I stand by my original argument here, which in effect is that Roe v. Wade does not rest upon the single vote of a Nader supporter for Gore.
John,
Thanks for your response. I don’t think that I agree with your analysis, though. It seems to me that if Bush wins the popular vote but loses in the electoral college, the bigger problem will be the outcry for abolishing the electoral college or reforming it so that votes are allocated proportionally rather than “winner take all.” Also, I don’t agree that a president who wins with less than 50% of the popular vote will be inefficient. Bubba is the poster child for this proposition: Clinton won in 1992 with only 43% of the popular vote. Bush won 37% and Perot won 18%. In other words, 55% of voters in 1992 did not support Clinton. Similarly, in 1996, Clinton won 49% of the popular vote, Dole won 40% and Perot took 8%, so the voters were pretty evenly split. In 1968, Nixon took 43%, Humphrey took 42% and Wallace took 13%, so, again, 55% of voters did not support Nixon–whether he was “efficient” or not is for another thread.
No, but what I commented on was your quote that “The fact that partisans on both sides of the political spectrum are using [the potential to influence the Supreme Court] as a rallying point should tell you something.”, and it was (and is) my position that that does not necessarily make something important. Organizations who wish to turn out voters who will be sympathetic to their causes purposely overplay the importance of elections or issues in the hopes that it will generate more votes. An argument should stand or fall on its own merits, not whether it whips partisans into a frenzy.
I do think the importance of this presidental election and specifically the ability of the eventual president to influence an issue such as abortion through Court nominees is being overstated (my reasoning as to why is fairly similar to John Corrado’s), but that is tangential to my original point.
Voting according to my conscience is the highest priority I can think of at election time. According to some around here, I am “throwing away” my vote most of the time. I have always voted for the most conservative candidate among the list of those running for office. In fact, in many primaries, I knew going in my candidate had the same chance as the proverbial snowball.
How is voting one’s conscience equivalent to trusting the fate of the country to polls? I say, ignore what other people say they are going to do. Or what they say you ought to do, and vote for the person you support! If the level of your support is “Gee, I sure hope Bush doesn’t win,” then by all means vote for the lesser of your two evils. I’m not speaking to these people.
However, if your level of support is “You know, I really like Nader. I think he’s got the right vision for this country,” then I can hardly respect a decesion not to cast your vote for him because of what looks like a national trend, which may or may not be true anyway.
The fact that one can “safely” cast a vote for Nader in several states should be seen as encouragement that one can assert one’s individuality without bowing to the scare tactics of a candidate one really doesn’t want to support. I suspect this could be a liberating experience. I know I feel much better about myself when I am true to my beliefs.
Again, I am only talking about the potential vote of “Pro-Nader” folks; not “Anyone-but-Bush” folks. I can certainly see how the latter would rather vote Gore, even if they weren’t precisely thrilled with him.
divemaster, I was addressing people who live in “lockec up states” who would only vote for a third party candidate because they don’t think it would actually diminish a primary party candidate’s chances of winning.
If you are a pro-Nader, or worse, a pro-Buchanan voter, then by all means exercise your vote in the manner that best suits you.
MR