No. At some point, SCOTUS will step in. The “political question” doctrine only goes so far.
According to 28 USC 1, which sets the current size of the Supreme Court, it takes six members to constitute a quorum. So if we got to a point where there were only five members of the Court then it could not hear cases at all. Congress could change that law if it wanted to, but the system was working well enough so that Congress could pass such a bill and the President would sign it, then presumably they’d be able to confirm some new members instead. (I guess you could have a situation where Congress was so hostile to the President that they could pass it over his/her veto, but that’s a different matter entirely.)
This example in no way reflects Garland’s situation. It’s a false analogy.
First, I’ve never argued that. I just argued against your idea the Chief Justice could/should just unilaterally decide if Garland can be a Justice. Second, if I was to argue as such, I would state that, unlike the Presidency, The power of SCOTUS is not concentrated in one person, but is equally spread among all the Justices. The Chief Justice has important procedural duties, but at the end of the day he only gets one vote out of (normally) 9.
How does that case establish precedence for what you’re proposing the Chief Justice do? In fact, it does the opposite. The Court heard a case with every Justice (not just the Chief Justice) deciding on the issue and then establishing precedent through a judicial opinion. If Roberts wants to intervene, then he has to involve the other 7 Justices.
Optimistically, I would hope that the voters would jump in before SCOTUS would have to, but i essentially agree. If it gets that bad, SCOTUS would step in.
It does. The fact that Garland is a real judge appointed by the President gives him no more right to enter the chambers than anyone else absent confirmation. The judicial branch is under no obligation to defer to the President.
Which only matters if there’s a case to vote on. He is actually the head of the judicial branch, and so in theory, if the judicial branch as a whole had to make an immediate decision, he would have to make it. I’d also note that if the President can unilaterally make novel interpretations of the Constitution as head of the executive branch, the Chief Justice can also do so. Legally, he’s the head of the judicial branch, which normally doesn’t mean much, but can mean plenty if Roberts determines that someone has to be “the decider” due to unprecedented illegal actions by the President towards the branch he is the head of.
It establishes the precedent that the President can’t do what the author of that piece claims he can do. Let’s say that the President appoints someone to an FEC vacancy without Senate confirmation. Does it require another court case? No. The President has already been told he can’t do that, pretty definitively by a unanimous court. Since we kind of assume a President would never openly defy the law so blatantly, there’s no clear remedy in the Constitution short of impeachment. Or, the court could order the immediate removal of all illegally appointed nominees. One appointed to a court is the easiest to be rid of, since it is directly under their jurisdiction.
Not news, per se, but I thought this NPR article on Garland’s prosecution of the Oklahoma City Bombing was really interesting. I especially liked how Garland took pains to make the prosecution go by the book and above board, and how he strove to keep the victims and their families in the loop. Though “Garland has serious chops” isn’t news at this point, the article is still a good read.