The Supreme Court, in the last week, has declared war on America.
They must be stopped.
A simple majority vote of both houses of Congress can add four, or six, or twelve, new Supreme Court justices and restore a Court committed to Constitutional democracy, not fascist theocracy. Many members of Congress, including Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff, are prepared to act to save our country from destruction. Why is our President dragging his feet?
Now come the usual chorus of idiots and assholes in rebuttal, exemplified by this recent editorial from The Hill:
But have Democrats really thought this thing through? Because let’s say four justices are added while Democrats control the House, Senate and White House. What does anyone think would happen when Republicans take back the House and likely the Senate after the midterms? The GOP would likely expand the 13-seat court to 17 seats, thus reestablishing a three-seat majority with a 10-7 court. Perhaps down the road Democrats will counter by expanding the court to 21 seats. And before you know it, the Supreme Court will resemble an NFL roster.
No, snowflake, let me fix that for you.
What does anyone think would happen when Republicans take back the House and likely the Senate after the midterms?
Assuming the Supreme Court allows them to do so, they will refuse to certify Biden’s re-election in 2025 and install Trump or DeSantis or whoever as President. Then they will ruthlessly gerrymander and pass racist voter suppression laws in order to ensure they will never lose an election again. American democracy will be dead, replaced by a regime of white supremacist State terrorism.
We are at war with enemies who hate us and will stop at nothing to kill us and enslave our children. Let’s start acting like it.
Expanding the Supreme Court now would require an act of Congress, which would mean a filibuster carve-out, and Manchin and Sinema will never agree to such a thing.
It’s unfortunately a non-starter unless Democrats can pick up two seats in the Senate this November.
Unfortunately the GOP has already passed a slate of voter suppression laws and gerrymandered maps and the democrats can’t even unite around stopping that part (which really was the easier part of what they likely need to do)
Probably, but Biden could at least be acting like a leader and demanding that Manchin and Sinema get in line rather than standing in the corner mumbling about “bipartisanship”.
Pressuring Sinema on something she’s not going to budge on sounds like a good way to get her to switch parties out of spite and give Republicans a majority. (Manchin won’t flip because he hates McConnell too much to willingly give him power.) She’s a lame duck as it is - only thing to do with her is wait for her to get primaried in 2024 and hope the Democrats nominate someone who doesn’t sell out the instant they get a taste of corporate moolah.
It’s not going to get through the Senate now, but the point is the Democrats need to unite behind a manifesto to expand the court going into the November elections. And people need to get out and vote for it and give them a mandate to do it with a Manchin-proof majority.
I don’t see much value in the President loudly associating himself with an unpopular proposal that likely won’t have the necessary legislative majorities any time soon (and I’m not just talking about this year, unfortunately). Neither side of that association will be helped. If a President, especially an unpopular president, loudly declaims for something, that makes it less likely. There’s this wistful idea of the President having a “bully pulpit” for this kind of thing, but there sadly isn’t much evidence for it actually working.
SCOTUS should be expanded, but IMO it’s the kind of policy that Democrats should keep quiet about right now. IMO the best path forward is to campaign on making a national law protecting abortion rights, saying that if Democrats keep congress and get two more seats in the senate then they will pass this law immediately.
If that law is then struck down, then it’s time to expand SCOTUS, as the political outrage will be even greater than it is now.
As I’ve said elsewhere, I have absolutely no doubt that this far-right activist Supreme Court would strike down such a law. The only question is whether the vote would be 6-3 or, if Roberts has one of his moments of sanity, 5-4. Their SOP is selectively finding (or not finding) in the Constitution whatever it is they need to support their preconceived conclusion, which by amazing coincidence always sides with right-wing, racist, and theocratic ideology. In this case, they would undoubtedly find, upon a careful search of the Constitution, that nowhere does it grant the federal government the power to regulate abortion rights. Of course, nowhere does the Constitution grant the federal government the power, say, to create a Federal Communications Commission and regulate the radio frequency spectrum, but they’re OK with that because it doesn’t offend Christian theocracy.
Fox News are already telling Republicans voters that the Democrats are planning to pack the court. There’s nothing to keep quiet about. What we need to do is to motivate Democratic voters to get out and vote by telling them that we will do something about this.
There is no way we’ll stop this without packing the court. It’s better to lay out a clear plan to do this before the elections, then if you get the votes you’re getting a mandate from the electorate to do it.
I think it’s best to go step-by-step. First step – Nov elections; hold the House and expand the Senate, with the promise that an abortion-rights bill will be passed first thing if this is achieved. Then see if that law survives the challenge. If not, I believe SCOTUS expansion will suddenly gain a lot in popularity, and then that will be the next step.
How much of Biden’s unpopularity is because he won’t stand up for dramatic plans to make things better?
He’ll never appeal to the Trumpers, because he’s not Trump. But he’s also not appealing to anyone else, because he’s giving them very little to like. If he takes a stand on this, there’s at least a chance that some on the pro-choice side will change their minds about him.
We are. This is our best hope. Any other plan requires winning more elections in the future, which means that we need to start by ensuring that there are still elections to win.
I really don’t see what there is to finesse. It’s not just the abortion issue. If we leave this court in place in its current incarnation, it will continue to act to undermine democracy, and then it’s all over. We need to motivate people to get out and vote NOW by showing them there’s a clear plan to stop these fuckers that’s worth voting for.
Who is it currently unpopular with? Biden and Manchin? Fuck that. If Biden can’t get behind this he should resign. It might be a good plan to do that now - with the abortion issue front and center, maybe Harris will do a better job of motivating people to get out and vote. What are the Republicans going to say - that someone who wasn’t elected has no legitimacy?
I think my plan (which is really Josh Marshall’s plan from TPM) is more likely to succeed, since Senators rely on public opinion at least partially as a guide.
Until SCOTUS agreed to hear the North Carolina case, I would have said no to adding more justices. The way to undo what’s being done is the way the GOP did it in the first place – winning enough elections over several decades to tilt the court back and reverse the damage.
But if SCOTUS rules that state legislatures can essentially dictate (or ignore) election outcomes, that plan obviously won’t work.
So, if ever there was a time for a president to say, “We’re facing an existential threat to American democracy, which requires the unprecedented action of adding seats to the Supreme Court,” now would be it. And screw whatever the GOP would do if they regained power.
Unfortunately, as others have noted, Biden can’t make it happen with this Congress, and it’s entirely possible that even floating the idea (let alone making it a dominant campaign theme) would hurt Dems’ chances of holding either house, let alone growing their majorities.