…so do you think the plan is to expand the court or not?
Can you see an alternative to expanding the court? I’m not arguing for the sake of arguing: its just that I don’t see any other way of rebalancing the SCOTUS other than waiting for people to die and hoping the Dems have a majority when they do. Is there an alternative plan?
Or is waiting the people on the courts to eventually die the actual plan here?
According to Biden, the immediate plan is to try to eliminate/weaken the filibuster and pass federal abortion-protecting legislation (barring the unlikely event that the legislation gets 60 senate votes).
I think it’s very unlikely even that will succeed, and as long as the filibuster is intact the rest of the pack the court plan wouldn’t work anyway so we’d be left with hoping that democrats are in control when Thomas and Alito die as the only option.
Well that’s traditionally been the plan… but I do know that there is an alternative term limit plan (I think staggered 18 year terms). That actually may be far more popular than a quick expansion to 13.
Of course any discussion of that in earnest requires 52+ Democratic Senators and a Democratic House. In which case, I think Biden’s more modest plan focused on abortion (as @DeadTreasSecretaries has noted) may be more palatable in the next few months.
Well it requires 50 willing Democratic senators. Unwilling senators aren’t really relevant to the numbers.
Also I think legislation to term limit the justices would be legally dubious, especially if it applied retroactively, and also wouldn’t necessarily solve the problem.
Y’know, come to think of it…
SCOTUS – even before the last two Trump Justices – had not exactly been doing Og’s work where it comes to voting rights, corporate influence in politics, environmental regulation, privacy, real religious liberty, etc. for years.
But to look at what’s out on the media today, it’s like never mind all that, only the overturn of Roe got everyone running around with their hair on fire crying out “DO SOMETHING!! ANYTHING!!! Throw away the filibuster! Pass a law saying it IS, TOO a right everywhere! Set up clinics in Federal Lands! Pack the Court!”
Even before this, we seldom saw headlines about nominees getting grilled on voting rights, the gerrymander, right-to-work, SOCAS, substantive due process… Even if they did get asked about thse other things. No, the headline was always Roe, Roe, Roe.
I suppose that was because this is something that is literally visceral and people already care in either direction, or will start caring even if not fully understanding after only a minute of explanation rather than 30.
The packing option had been already spoken of in regards to other issues not just this one, but again, this touches a nerve – and of course it has to do with the reality that any red state AG can file a case saying “Show me where in the Constitution it says the Congress can compel us to respect this alleged right” regarding any of the rights we want protected (voting, heath care, safety, labor rights, prvacy, etc.) and this majority will now be able to answer “nowhere” and we’re lucky if they stop there.
There’s got to be a better solution; wish I had the clarity to see what it was.
Those literally are the potential solutions aren’t they? Pass a law protecting the right or change the balance of the court so it goes back to protecting the right.
I mean we haven’t tried trying to warm Alito’s icy heart with a cool island song I guess…
I disagree. the Supreme Court doesn’t make laws. Congress makes laws. R v W was a poorly constructed decision based on shaky ground. I’ve watched a number of Democrat lawyers make similar statements. The basis of the decision rotates around the idea of privacy which doesn’t make sense when it involves human life. It was like saying it was OK to kill someone as long as you did it privately.
When you hear terms of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd trimester abortion from RvW it was the court’s attempt to assign a framework of what constitutes human life. IMO they did a good job at the attempt and that’s what Congress should focus on.
If Congress sets down a quantifiable definition of life using the same framework of the court then it couldn’t be defeated.
…but this isn’t an alternative plan. Not for rebalancing SCOTUS. Term limits should be implemented. But that won’t stop the changes that will happen now every time the court sits.
What is the plan to deal with that? SCOTUS takes up Moore vs Harper. It’s about partisan gerrymanders. It’s this kind of thing that term limits won’t address.
You talk about “palatable.” The OP talks about “bad politics.”
This fixation with taking the “middle ground”, constantly not wanting to do anything that might potentially lose votes has caused paralysis. "Maybe possibly introducing a term limit plan (of staggered 18 year terms) isn’t really a plan. Because it means 18 years of living with a SCOTUS that is just going to change everything every time they sit.
And if you commit to nothing, then your party stands for nothing. And I really think that there will be nothing more demoralising, more damaging to the vote than if for the next five months people have to watch SCOTUS strip them of their basic rights and the Democrats choosing to do nothing about it, choose to commit to zero actions to fix it.
Democrat inaction is infinitely more damaging IMHO than the two people giving their opinions on a video that prompted this thread. If they aren’t going to commit to expanding the courts, then they need to commit to putting legislation in place ready to go for when they win power at the mid-terms. The Republicans have bill mills. The Democrats should be doing the same. Tell everyone what they are doing. Give people something to vote for.
The President has literally said he wants to codify Roe (and go around the filibuster). He wants the Build Back Better Plan. He wants national background checks in regards to gun violence. And has expressed constantly annoyance that there are 2 Democratic Senators who won’t jump on board and he needs more Democrats in the Senate.
I’m not entirely sure what more you want to know.
…what is the plan to codify Roe? What does “go around the filibuster” mean in practice? How does either of these things address the imbalance of SCOTUS?
Are we waiting until after the mid-terms before they do anything? What is the plan? What is the agenda?
They knew this was coming for months. They had every opportunity to be ready for this moment. But a “desire to codify” isn’t a plan of action.
Senate Democrats literally introduced a bill, The Women’s Health Protection Act, back in May. It failed, obviously, because 50 Republicans and Joe Manchin voted against it. This also meant there was not enough votes to break the filibuster.
So yes… we are waiting until after the mid-terms.
(I may also note, which may be beneficial to the OP’s question, the Women’s Health Protection Act has been brought forward 6 times since 2013 - in 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021, and 2022 - it failed it make it to the floor the first 3 times because Republicans controlled one or the other House, the 2021 passed the House but failed in the Senate 46-48, and the 2022 I just mentioned, not sure what happened with the 2019 one)
Also, Biden has also been specific on the filibuster carve-out he wants:
…so there is no plan to do anything right now. Gotcha. And they don’t really have a plan on how to win the midterms, nor what they will do if they win. Just a lot of “maybes.”
You don’t appear to be disputing anything that I have said.
Was it, though? I thought that, under Roe, someone could publicly announce that they’re getting an abortion, and then publicly announce that they’d gotten an abortion — and, in between, publicly get an abortion, in some kind of contrived-hypothetical live-streaming scenario, possibly right after giving a tell-all interview on the front steps of an abortion clinic while helpfully waving a “Yes I Am Getting An Abortion Today” sign around for the cameras or whatever.
Was “as long as you did it privately” a requirement?
So, you demand action. What action do you demand?
Be specific, and explain what you would do to get Manchin to vote ending the filibuster and then voting for it.
…I’m not sure if you are reading my posts correctly?
I’ve quoted people who have demanded action. Feel free to scroll up and read what action they have demanded.
I don’t believe I have called for Manchin to end the filibuster and then voting for it?
I’m rolling my eyes so hard right now.
So it’s not a plan unless Schumer says we’ll pass this law if the Democrats get more Senators? Which of course was the entire point of having a vote that he knew the Democrats would lose (As Klobuchar said, it was important to know where everyone stands). Which is the entire point of Biden saying he wants a filibuster carve out for this?
So you have no plan to do anything right now. Gotcha.
I didn’t ask what you quoted, I asked what you think should be done.
You complain that
Or
You are demanding action now. What action do you think that they should take. What route do you see to codifying Roe v. Wade that they don’t that can be done before the mid-terms.
If you know, then by all means, enlighten us, and everyone else.
…roll your eyes as much as you want. There isn’t a plan. They are all working off different playbooks right now.
I mean: I don’t live in America. I’m not even American. I’m not the President of the United States. I wasn’t elected by the American people.
That I don’t have a plan shouldn’t surprise anyone. But people aren’t going to die because of my lack of forward thinking.
Counterexample - passed the House of Representatives last September. Still pending before the Senate.
Bills like this are commonplace. They are so dead in the water that the media doesn’t even bother reporting them.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3755/text
SEC. 4. PERMITTED SERVICES.
(a) General Rule.—A health care provider has a statutory right under this Act to provide abortion services, and may provide abortion services, and that provider’s patient has a corresponding right to receive such services, without any of the following limitations or requirements: […]
~Max