There’s a disturbing amount of “two wrongs make a right” logic here.
Personally I think it highly unlikely that a 10-member SCOTUS would come to a consensus on additional members. I think the five extra seats would lie vacant, and the 10th seat would be a boon to whichever party got to fill it.
The “gunfight” is using any and every tool that they can get away with to gain a partisan advantage. That’s the game the Republicans in the Senate are playing, and it’d be incredibly foolish of the Democrats to not respond in kind.
And I think this would make the necessary Constitutional amendment that could depoliticize the court more likely, which is the ultimate goal.
I’m sure you’d prefer the Democrats do nothing to oppose an entirely politicized court that favors the Republicans. I don’t see why or how you could expect that the Democrats would prefer this.
There is an excluded middle here between “do nothing” and court-packing.
Responding “in kind” would be blocking a Republican President from filling a vacant seat the next time one opens up and the Dems control the Senate. What is being discussed here, court-packing, is a significant escalation. It’s an escalation that Republicans have not pursued, which exposes the inaccuracy of your claim that they are “using any and every tool”. Court-packing is a chainsaw they have not wielded.
Maybe. That’s certainly consistent with a view that the court is basically already just a tiny broken Senate. If that’s so, then court-packing is probably the correct course for the Democrats. Though it would make more sense to start by mobilizing support for DC and Puerto Rican statehood.
But I don’t think we’re actually all the way there yet. I suspect justices like Roberts and Garland would be consensus picks, for example. Indeed, I imagine that the consensus selections would make most on the left pretty unhappy, which is another reason I find it odd that the idea would be received with such hostility by the right.
This is because the modern right considers Gorsuch acceptable, Roberts liberal (at best), and Garland an extremist/socialist/communist.
I’m sure that accurately describes large swathes of GOP voters. Does it describe Sam Stone and HurricaneDitka? (A question for them, I suppose.)
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It appears some people need to calm down and remember that, as far as I can see, no prominent Democrat is actually advocating that we expand the Court the minute we get full control of government. Whether that gets seriously on the agenda will depend on just how obstructionist the conservative majority decides to be, in the event that public opinion swings to the left. Hopefully the Republican judges will prove more deferential to the popular will than their politician counterparts have, and extreme measures can be averted.
As far as I can tell, partisan court-packing laws have been passed on three occasions in American history; the lame duck Federalist Congress reduced the size of the Court (which happens by attrition, not by immediately unseating sitting Justices, remember) in 1801 to prevent Jefferson from getting to make appointments… This was promptly undone by the Jeffersonians in 1802.
During Reconstruction, the Republican Congress reduced the size of the Court again to prevent Johnson from making appointments, then increased it again once Grant was in office (this act of 1869 established the Court at nine members, where it has remained since).
So it has happened in times of crisis and political realignment, high partisan rancor and mistrust, which certainly describes the present day. And, despite Roosevelt’s experience, it has historically worked out OK for the parties that did it. It’s not a tactic for normal times, when the opposition party may well be back in power at the next election. It’s a tactic for preventing the Court from being dominated indefinitely by a faction which the voters have decisively rejected.
The first priority (politically speaking, in terms of changing the structure of any branches of the government) if the Democrats get the WH and both houses of Congress should be to make PR and DC states. Eliminate the filibuster, if that’s necessary to make that happen. Changes to SCOTUS are important, but not nearly as important as making those two unrepresented citizen-filled territories states.
They can’t make Pr and DC states with just control of both houses. It’s not going to happen and in the case of DC rightfully so.
I’d label Roberts a moderate right-winger and Garland a moderate left-winger.
In my understanding, there’s a legislative path to making new states, that only requires a majority. My understanding could be wrong, of course.
This is a good point. I’m not even sure the Senate Dems have the stomach to nuke the legislative filibuster (which, Whack-a-mole’s assertions aside, would be necessary to pack the court)
Ditto.
I think you’re right, at least about PR but the status of DC is spelled out in the constitution.
Why rightfully so? Why shouldn’t resident of DC have representation in the US legislature? Particularly since said legislature has the power to invalidate local laws. That a voter in Montana has more voting power to affect DC laws than an actual resident being affected by those laws, is absurd IMHO.
Googling suggests a process for DC that, by my reading, would only need a majority: https://wamu.org/story/16/05/02/dc_wants_to_become_the_51st_state_and_heres_how_it_plans_on_going_about_it/
I don’t know if that’s Constitutional. If the Democrats get both Houses and the WH, I suspect we’ll find out.