How could it be worse? And why on Earth would you expect that there are things McConnell could do to gain an advantage that he wouldn’t be willing to do now, should he think it would gain him an advantage?
No, of course they could. If Republicans acted now to pack the Supreme Court with additional justices in favor of the GOP, that would, by definition, be worse now than merely filling Ginsburg’s seat. Do you not see the contradiction in your statement?
The Democrats’ actions will have nothing to do with whether McConnell tries to pack the court. If the court had been 5-4 liberal, I have little doubt McConnell would have tried to pack it long ago. He doesn’t need to when it’s 5-4 GOP, or especially 6-3 GOP.
Doesn’t make sense. A 5-4 Republican majority is hardly ‘safe’ (one defector could sink a case) while a 15-4 Republican majority on the Court would be ironclad.
You can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can’t on the one hand say that McConnell is such an amoral monster that he’s already done every single bad thing in his power that he can, and also say, “Well, he’s refrained from doing Bad Things X, Y and Z because (reasons.)”
McConnell is a skilled and ruthless operator. If he hasn’t expanded the courts, it’s not because of decency, or principle, or some other nonsense. It’s because he doesn’t think he needs to right now.
It’s ridiculous that any of this awful unAmerican bullshit can be blamed on the Democrats. It’s McConnell, Trump, and the GOP. It’s clear as day. Your excuses and rationalizations are nothing but wishful thinking.
And I’ll note that all I’m asking for is that the Democrats behave like McConnell would – use anything they can get away with to get an advantage.
You’re acting like this is a functional, working system. It’s not – it’s a failed system, and it’s been failing for years. All that’s left is to try and prevent the GOP from destroying it forever, and leave some chance for it to be rebuilt in a fair way.
There’s no “bad things” that would result from expanding the courts that aren’t already inevitable. The Senate is tilted 6 points or more towards the Republicans, and rural voters are 2 to 3 times as powerful as urban voters. So the Democrats could get majorities of votes for Senator and still lose the Senate most of the time (and this is what usually happens!). There’s very little the Democrats can do about that – even adding new states only helps them by a few points. So the Republicans will usually control the Senate, and thus usually control SCOTUS nominations. As long as each SCOTUS vacancy is so critically important, the Democrats need to do absolutely ANYTHING within the letter of the law that they can in order to get a SCOTUS advantage. Otherwise, every ACA and such they pass will be struck down, forever. Hopefully, in the long term, the system will be fixed such that SCOTUS vacancies are no big deal (i.e. term limits and maybe a larger court). But until then, it’s an all out knife fight, with the only rule being what one can get away with. It’s nuts to suggest that the Democrats refrain from trying to gain an advantage if they can.
No sour grapes involved. If Democrats win, they get to do whatever they want within the bounds of the constitution. We cannot have a world where Democrats are bound by unwritten rules but the republicans are not. Political retaliation is a necessary element of a functioning government. if one side can flout the unwritten rules without consequence while the other side adheres to them, you no longer have a functioning government. It is the consequences of breaking unwritten rules that makes them rules.
I undersold my argument here. According to the data journalist at The Economist:
https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1308061505636700160
“If all Senate seats were up at the same time and we assume D pres states go D down-ballot, Dems would have to win a national landslide of ~19 points to control a supermajority. Reps would just need to win by just 2(!) for 67 seats.”
That’s an insane tilt towards the GOP. No wonder Democrats are considering expanding the court, adding states, and other actions that would benefit them politically.
That sounds like a personal opinion. There is no constitutional requirement for timely consideration of a presidential nominee. Elections have consequences. Nothing in the constitution require the opposition party to cooperate with the party in power.
At best it delegitimizes it in your eyes and the eyes of people that agree with you. AFAICT the rest of the government thinks the court is legitimate.
Some might say it started to fail when Reagan’s nominee got Borked.
They can pack the court and then admit the 5 US territories as states. Split California into 2 states, maybe more. This will get you an almost permanent senate majority for a left of center party. Of course if you move to far left and the republicans chase the votes in the center, you could lose everything and then they split Utah into 50 states and make every resident a supreme court justice.
Election have consequences. And if the democrats win, they should not show more constraint than mcconnell has. If anything, less.
Or they could try appealing to more states and fewer cities.
You mean when the Democratic Senate held hearings, and considered and voted on a legitimate nominee? How is that related to McConnell refusing to hold hearings or consider a legitimate nominee?
So far, I think there has been this implicit assumption that House and Senate Democrats would vote as a united bloc to pack the courts if Democratic leadership decided that was the route to go. That assumption is questionable.
Red-state Democrats may be reluctant to go along with it. Even if Democrats capture both houses of Congress, if just 5-10% of such Congressional D’s balk at the plan, it would likely fail to pass.
Because that is when the bitteness over judicial appointments in the modern era really got kicked off. Or don’t you remember how Bork was treated during those hearings?
McConnell runs the senate, if you want the senate to do things favorable to democrats then try winning elections in more states. If you can’t do that consistent with your ideology then your ideology has a built in disadvantage in our form of government. There is no rule that every ideology has to have the same chance of achieving a majority in the senate.
This is indeed possible. I hope they try anyway.
I think that red state democrats lose either way. If they don’[t vote for it, their liberal base fades away. That is the political price democrats have to pay for packing the court. Republicans oddly enough were rewarded for balking on the merrick garland nomination by voters who understood that a scotus seat was immediately at stake.
If I were the democrats, I would couple packing the court with admitting all the US territories and splitting california into a northern and southern california.
And it’s even funnier how an institution is “full of Democrats” when it has any Democrats in it.
Nonsense. Republicans were rewarded for pandering to white power in a political system that gives white voters disproportionate representation.
The majority of Americans voted for Hillary Clinton. The majority of white people voted for Donald Trump. And Donald Trump won the election. The Republicans are just the American equivalent of South Africa’s National Party.
Counterproposal: Impeach Kavanaugh for unfitness. Impeach Gorsuch just because. Add 4 Democrat nominations and zero Republican nominations. Abolish lifetime appointments and institute an 18-year term limit.
In an era where Republicans have demonstrated there is no law but the raw exercise of power, this is the right and proper thing to do. This is where we’re already headed and there’s no stopping it. If Democrats hesitate and pump the brakes, they’ll be roadkill, because the Republicans surely have not and will not do so.
Rubbish, there was more turnout for republicans because there was a scotus seat at stake. Pandering to white power is not mutually exclusive with this.
The majority of white people vote for the republican in every election. Is every republican pandering to white power? Or is it possible that the democrats are actively turning off white voters.
Hillary won the popular vote by 3 million. 5 million of those 3 million votes came from california. Popular vote is irrelevant. We don’t know how many popular votes trump would have gotten if he didn’t spend all his time in swing states with lower population concentrations.
God I hate this argument. People in California are just as American as anyone else. When we talk about the electoral college, then which states voters reside in matters. When talking about the popular vote, it doesn’t. Face it, more voters voted for Hillary Clinton. She won the popular vote. She lost the election but won the popular vote. That she got more in some states than others is irrelevant when discussing the popular vote.