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Finally: Talk of expanding the Supreme Court

Checkerboard Strangler said:
Nonsense, you're pretending to have a crystal ball. Schumer could have made it clear that the sky would be raining streetcars, but that doesn't make it so. No one else died or retired after Bush's picks.

POTUS gets to pick SCOTUS or they don't. PERIOD.
Anything else is partisan hackery.
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So, there was no third opening. What does that have to do with what Schumer said? Or, are we supposed to act as if he never said it, much as we're now supposed to ignore his earlier statements on illegal immigration?
 
Harshaw said:
You said more than that. You said:



And you are FOR this court-packing scheme, because McConnell.

If you're not, say so unequivocally. Not "my default position is XXX, BUT . . . " Unequivocally.
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**** your "unequivocally"...
I said what I said.

I FAVOR a more conservative approach but if Republicans want to play war games, they get a war.
Don't like it? Shove it.
 
Harshaw said:
Indeed not, to both questions. It is not based at all on principle or standards, but on naked partisanship, just like what McConnell did.
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And if you object to expanding the Supreme Court on the basis of it being motivated by naked partisanship, then you you should be equally as opposed to McConnell’s partisan ploy.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
And if you object to expanding the Supreme Court on the basis of it being motivated by naked partisanship, then you you should be equally as opposed to McConnell’s partisan ploy.
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:sigh: Read the thread.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
**** your "unequivocally"...
I said what I said.

I FAVOR a more conservative approach but if Republicans want to play war games, they get a war.
Don't like it? Shove it.
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Dude, I was giving you a chance to state in clear ("unequivocal") terms that what I said isn't true.

But, you ARE for this court-packing scheme, because McConnell. Which makes you no better. If you're fine with that, and obviously you are, then so be it -- but it is what it is.

There. We've taken the whole circle around.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
There was no third opening, glad you finally understand.
That's why we're not watching Republicans proposing a "Schumer Clause".
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You didn't answer as to why we weren't supposed to take Schumer at his word. I mean, I hardly ever do anyway because he has his finger permanently in the wind to know when to pull a 180 but opposing a third Bush appointment was certainly a safe position for him. The fact that he never had to exercise his intention doesn't change his intention.
 
Cordelier said:
You can't counter the Constitution.

Nakedly partisan... absolutely. Welcome to the NFL, rook.

I'm not going to call a man bigoted unless I've got good reason to.... where it comes to President Obama, that distinction comes whether someone was a "birther" or not. I could be wrong, but I don't think McConnell was a "birther".

Being President isn't an easy job. It isn't supposed to be. And it sure to hell wasn't McConnell's job to make it easy. Credit where credit is due.... he read his man, played his cards well and won. It could have turned out very differently. But don't play the game if you can't take the other guy winning every now and again.
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A republic lives according to the traditions of government. It is When traditional practices of governing are hijacked for partisan purposes and political taboos are broken that leads to the failure of republics. The gracchi brothers helped to cause the fall of the Roman republic and paved the way for Julius caeser.


McConnell is undermining the judiciary by engaging in blatent partisan plots: holding judicial hearings during a senate recess without the consent of the minority. Nominating judges that don’t have the support of their home state senators. Ignoring The blue slip rule. Changing the number of hours allowed for debating judicial nominees. All of these traditional judicial checks have been torn to pieces by Mitch McConnell’s partisan attempt to stack the judicial system full of federalist society hacks.
 
Harshaw said:
Dude, I was giving you a chance to state in clear ("unequivocal") terms that what I said isn't true.

But, you ARE for this court-packing scheme, because McConnell. Which makes you no better. If you're fine with that, and obviously you are, then so be it -- but it is what it is.
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Am I being considered as a SCOTUS pick?
What can I do about my unpaid medical bills?
I have unpaid parking tickets, how can I take care of them?
Do I need a lawyer?



Harshaw said:
There. We've taken the whole circle around.
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Wow, thank you so much for that chance.
Now can we get back to talking about why there's talk of expanding the SCOTUS?
Or did you have something else to cross-examine me about?
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
Nothing unconstitutional about the Dems mulling over an expansion then, "rook".
Look, I would much rather leave well enough alone.
The Supreme Court should stay at nine justices, but this crap about election years, or lame duck, that has to stop.
If you want to point out past instances where the Dems "TRIED" (and failed) the same gambit, I have no quarrel with you either, but the fact is, Walkin' Boss from Kentucky "went there" and he succeeded.
And there's going to be consequences.

Now, if the consequences wind up with that kind of crap being curtailed by legal means from now on, I am much more in favor of that CONSERVATIVE approach, rather than court stacking.
Read that again, I am in favor of a more CONSERVATIVE remedy.

But one way or another, McConnell needs and deserves to get thumped over what he did. And it must not ever be allowed to happen again.
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Checkerboard.... Don't get me wrong here, I both like and respect you.... the flip side of that coin is that I respect you too much not to be straight with you. From my perspective, all of this talk about "Walkin' Boss from Kentucky" is about the only bigoted thing I'm seeing in this conversation. Are you saying that President Obama should have been given "special treatment" and treated with kid gloves just because he happened to be the first African-American President?

The same rules existed for every other President. If Justice Scalia died in 2008 instead of 2016 and Harry Reid had tried to pull the same bluff with President Bush.... then the President would have the same options - either hold'em or fold'em.

that being said.... sure, we can go down that road of packing the Supreme Court. Then before we know it, we've got 50 Justices there. Are we going to be better off in the long run?
 
Cordelier said:
Checkerboard.... Don't get me wrong here, I both like and respect you.... the flip side of that coin is that I respect you too much not to be straight with you. From my perspective, all of this talk about "Walkin' Boss from Kentucky" is about the only bigoted thing I'm seeing in this conversation. Are you saying that President Obama should have been given "special treatment" and treated with kid gloves just because he happened to be the first African-American President?

The same rules existed for every other President. If Justice Scalia died in 2008 instead of 2016 and Harry Reid had tried to pull the same bluff with President Bush.... then the President would have the same options - either hold'em or fold'em.

that being said.... sure, we can go down that road of packing the Supreme Court. Then before we know it, we've got 50 Justices there. Are we going to be better off in the long run?
Click to expand...

No, I am not saying Obama should have received special treatment but my objection to McConnell's power grab does not signal that it is exclusive only to McConnell. But McConnell is the Senate Majority Leader right now.
You don't think McConnell is a bigot. I suspect he might be. Oh well, we can't agree on everything. :)

Between you and me, I doubt that this court stacking being discussed today has any more chance of succeeding now than it did when FDR tried it.
I'll boil it back down to stating that I think that the President should be allowed to pick a SCOTUS nominee at any time during their tenure, no ifs, ands or buts. Shall not be abridged.
It is the same logic used for the 2A, yes?

If it was up to me to decide, that is how I would want it.
 
Cordelier said:
Checkerboard.... Don't get me wrong here, I both like and respect you.... the flip side of that coin is that I respect you too much not to be straight with you. From my perspective, all of this talk about "Walkin' Boss from Kentucky" is about the only bigoted thing I'm seeing in this conversation. Are you saying that President Obama should have been given "special treatment" and treated with kid gloves just because he happened to be the first African-American President?

The same rules existed for every other President. If Justice Scalia died in 2008 instead of 2016 and Harry Reid had tried to pull the same bluff with President Bush.... then the President would have the same options - either hold'em or fold'em.

that being said.... sure, we can go down that road of packing the Supreme Court. Then before we know it, we've got 50 Justices there. Are we going to be better off in the long run?
Click to expand...

Every Supreme Court nomination deserves a hearing. The senate can vote for or against the nomination, but no judicial nominee should be denied a hearing or vote.

Obama nominated Merrick Garland: no hearing, no vote, no nothing. McConnell’s partisan ploy was to wait until after the 2016 election was over and the new president was sworn in order to get a conservative judge. Merrick garland was denied a hearing.
 
Cordelier said:
that being said.... sure, we can go down that road of packing the Supreme Court. Then before we know it, we've got 50 Justices there. Are we going to be better off in the long run?
Click to expand...

No, as someone else hinted, we would end up with the equivalent of a "House of Lords" and we don't need or want that.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
Every Supreme Court nomination deserves a hearing. The senate can vote for or against the nomination, but no judicial nominee should be denied a hearing or vote.

Obama nominated Merrick Garland: no hearing, no vote, no nothing. McConnell’s partisan ploy was to wait until after the 2016 election was over and the new president was sworn in order to get a conservative judge. Merrick garland was denied a hearing.
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The standard Republican response to that is to scream "Miguel Estrada!!!" like Dustin Hoffman in "Dog Day Afternoon".

 
Unitedwestand13 said:
A republic lives according to the traditions of government. It is When traditional practices of governing are hijacked for partisan purposes and political taboos are broken that leads to the failure of republics. The gracchi brothers helped to cause the fall of the Roman republic and paved the way for Julius caeser.


McConnell is undermining the judiciary by engaging in blatent partisan plots: holding judicial hearings during a senate recess without the consent of the minority. Nominating judges that don’t have the support of their home state senators. Ignoring The blue slip rule. Changing the number of hours allowed for debating judicial nominees. All of these traditional judicial checks have been torn to pieces by Mitch McConnell’s partisan attempt to stack the judicial system full of federalist society hacks.
Click to expand...

You think all of this is unique to McConnell?? It's called playing hardball.... deal with it.

Let's take the Blue Slip rule.... how many Blue Slips do you figure Eisenhower's or Kennedy's Judicial nominees in the South got from Jim Eastland or Strom Thurmond or Dick Russell? Yet they still got on the bench, despite the strong opposition of their home-state Senators. We still managed to have Judge Frank Johnson (of the Middle District of Alabama) ruling in favor of Rosa Parks.

Do you really think getting those Judges on the court was done by playing "Marquess of Queensberry" rules?
 
Cordelier said:
You think all of this is unique to McConnell?? It's called playing hardball.... deal with it.

Let's take the Blue Slip rule.... how many Blue Slips do you figure Eisenhower's or Kennedy's Judicial nominees in the South got from Jim Eastland or Strom Thurmond or Dick Russell? Yet they still got on the bench, despite the strong opposition of their home-state Senators. We still managed to have Judge Frank Johnson (of the Middle District of Alabama) ruling in favor of Rosa Parks.

Do you really think getting those Judges on the court was done by playing "Marquess of Queensberry" rules?
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And what about the act of holding recess judicial nominations without the consent of the minority party?
 
Cordelier said:
I don't think there's any need to limit future "McConnell Maneuvers", though.... there are checks and balances already in place to counter such moves. Like I keep saying, President Obama could have engineered a recess appointment to counter McConnell if he chose to. The tools were already at his disposal. It's nobody's fault but his own that he didn't use them.

Truman used the powers of the Presidency to counteract Republican intransigence.... he did recess appointments of Judicial nominees (he ended up giving one Federal Judge three separate recess appointments until Congress finally voted to confirm him). Eisenhower and Kennedy gave recess appointments to pro-civil rights Judges whom the Dixiecrat-dominated Judiciary Committee refused to give hearings. That's how Thurgood Marshall and Griffin Bell (among many others) ended up on the Court of Appeals. At the end of the day, it all comes down to the will of the President to either take it lying down, or as President Truman put it, "Give'em hell and make'em like it!"
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I actually am not sure you are crediting Obama with an authority that he had. The Senate has been using pro-forma sessions as opposed to full recesses for years now. But it is not a fullproof plan to stop a President from making recess appointments UNLESS you have the Majority in the Senate and the President has a fairly pliable Majority Leader.

Obama made appointments during a series of pro-forma sessions in 2012. The GOP put up a battle over them but the Dems had the majority in the Senate and simply voted them approved when they were back in full session.

The Dems used pro-forma sessions in 2017 and have used them ever since. In this case McConnell has actually told Trump "there would be no appointments that he would follow through and vote in when back in full session. In other words, the real wall that McConnell has put up to Trump has not been over The Wall or even ACA repeal. It has been "believe it or not" over court appointments. This is McConnell telling the world that this particular baby is mine. Might not be right in either direction. But it is what it is.

So I really don't think Obama had an ability to fight McConnell over Garland. In that case, Obama did not have the Senate Majority to depend on nor the Majority Leader.

This system is pretty frigged up in about a zillion ways. It was and is too dependent on the norms established over time. Without them, its a mess.

McConnell is completely ignoring Senator Blue Cards as well. Also the SC is moving farther and farther away from any link at all to the Circuit Courts. Its a mess and its not just the McConnell heist which should be dealt with through a rule or law that prevents that sort of nonsense.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
No, I am not saying Obama should have received special treatment but my objection to McConnell's power grab does not signal that it is exclusive only to McConnell. But McConnell is the Senate Majority Leader right now.
You don't think McConnell is a bigot. I suspect he might be. Oh well, we can't agree on everything. :)

Between you and me, I doubt that this court stacking being discussed today has any more chance of succeeding now than it did when FDR tried it.
I'll boil it back down to stating that I think that the President should be allowed to pick a SCOTUS nominee at any time during their tenure, no ifs, ands or buts. Shall not be abridged.
It is the same logic used for the 2A, yes?

If it was up to me to decide, that is how I would want it.
Click to expand...

I have no idea what McConnell's personal views on race are one way or the other.... I figure unless he says or does something that clearly marks him out as a bigot, though, then neither one of us has the right to accuse him of it. I do know that he is in an interracial marriage, though, and his wife isn't exactly a shrinking violet... so I'm not inclined to call him racist or a chauvinist, for whatever that's worth.

Sure, the President has the right to make nominations... but the Senate has the right to withhold it's consent. And make it's advice.
 
Harshaw said:
What "voters"? You're talking about something entirely different now.




Sure, there was speculation, but nothing accurate thus far.
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The voters in the 2012 election. We elected a President to serve for four years, not three.

McConnells job was to bring it to a vote. Don’t like the nominee? Then don’t vote for the nominee. I wouldn’t have liked it but that’s how the system is supposed to work.

And then if I complained, well...there’s be legit reason to tell me to “suck it up, buttercup” lol
 
Cordelier said:
Depends on the circumstances. Are you talking about some sort of secret hearings?
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I’m talking about this, which happened in October 2018.

Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley insisted on holding a confirmation hearing for six federal judges on Wednesday, even though he himself — and the majority of the committee — weren’t able to attend. Most senators have now returned home to either campaign for the midterms or take care of other state business. In the course of the hearing, the only lawmakers who were present of the 21-member committee were Republican Sens. John Kennedy (LA), Orrin Hatch (UT), Ben Sasse (ME), and Mike Crapo (ID).

It’s an unprecedented arrangement, all 10 Judiciary Democrats say.

While confirmation hearings have been held during recesses before, they’ve only been done so with the consent of the minority, Democrats wrote in a letter urging Grassley to reschedule. Grassley argues, however, that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) previously agreed to these dates even though she knew recess could have started earlier than expected. He says that the timing for these hearings — which have been set for October 17 and 24 — has already been pushed at least once and he’s simply refusing to do it again.
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Republicans are ramming through more judges — by holding hearings when everyone is out of town - Vox

Here is Feinstein’s letter explaining her objection.


https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/pu...ley-re-nominations-hearings-during-recess.pdf
 
Cordelier said:
I do know that he is in an interracial marriage, though, and his wife isn't exactly a shrinking violet... so I'm not inclined to call him racist or a chauvinist, for whatever that's worth.

Sure, the President has the right to make nominations... but the Senate has the right to withhold it's consent. And make it's advice.
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Just give them the hearing, that's all...and if the Senate doesn't like em, don't vote to confirm them.

Cordelier said:
I have no idea what McConnell's personal views on race are one way or the other.... I figure unless he says or does something that clearly marks him out as a bigot, though, then neither one of us has the right to accuse him of it.
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He did do something that clearly marked him as a bigot, in my humble opinion. We just happen to disagree on whether or not there were racial overtones in his actions. You don't think there were, I think there might have been. But I could be wrong.
PS: Elaine Chao isn't black. :)

Hey, maybe the solution to all this is to instead end the lifetime appointments? Twelve year terms? Eighteen year terms?
What do you think?
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
Every Supreme Court nomination deserves a hearing. The senate can vote for or against the nomination, but no judicial nominee should be denied a hearing or vote.

Obama nominated Merrick Garland: no hearing, no vote, no nothing. McConnell’s partisan ploy was to wait until after the 2016 election was over and the new president was sworn in order to get a conservative judge. Merrick garland was denied a hearing.
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Don't forget that he abandoned his former "no lame duck appointments" in favor of "NO DEMOCRAT APPOINTMENTS" after Hillary announced. He was then joined by three or four other Republicans who echoed that. I can't remember who they were right at the moment.
So it became a rotating list of foul and lame excuses...the No Lame Duck Rule became the No Democratic President Rule.
Naked partisan hackery, and an act of war.

This is constitutional rot.
 
jnug said:
I actually am not sure you are crediting Obama with an authority that he had. The Senate has been using pro-forma sessions as opposed to full recesses for years now. But it is not a fullproof plan to stop a President from making recess appointments UNLESS you have the Majority in the Senate and the President has a fairly pliable Majority Leader.

Obama made appointments during a series of pro-forma sessions in 2012. The GOP put up a battle over them but the Dems had the majority in the Senate and simply voted them approved when they were back in full session.

The Dems used pro-forma sessions in 2017 and have used them ever since. In this case McConnell has actually told Trump "there would be no appointments that he would follow through and vote in when back in full session. In other words, the real wall that McConnell has put up to Trump has not been over The Wall or even ACA repeal. It has been "believe it or not" over court appointments. This is McConnell telling the world that this particular baby is mine. Might not be right in either direction. But it is what it is.

So I really don't think Obama had an ability to fight McConnell over Garland. In that case, Obama did not have the Senate Majority to depend on nor the Majority Leader.

This system is pretty frigged up in about a zillion ways. It was and is too dependent on the norms established over time. Without them, its a mess.

McConnell is completely ignoring Senator Blue Cards as well. Also the SC is moving farther and farther away from any link at all to the Circuit Courts. Its a mess and its not just the McConnell heist which should be dealt with through a rule or law that prevents that sort of nonsense.
Click to expand...

Where it comes to Garland, Obama could have had Vice President Biden walk into the first pro forma session on October 3, take the gavel from Senator Cassidy (who was presiding) and the Vice President could have recognized Senator Reid's point of order that a quorum wasn't present. Only two Senators (Cassidy and Reid) would have answered the quorum call, and so the Senate would have no option but to recess until the next pro forma session (Oct. 6). According to Senate rules, the first order of business at that session would have been to establish the presence of a quorum.... that means pretty much every Republican would have had to have been in attendance. Even the ones who had to come off the campaign trail. If they managed to get a quorum, then the cycle could have been started again... every three days until the election. If they couldn't muster a quorum for any 10 consecutive days, then Obama could have issued recess appointments whatever vacancies he wanted... including the Supreme Court.

That's what he could have done... that's what he should have done. And he would have been perfectly within his rights to do so. Even if the Republicans had managed to still block the nomination, the odds are pretty good the repeated disruptions to the Senate elections involved might have turned the results in the close elections in Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Wisconsin and given the Democrats a majority. Obama had them in a damned if you do/damned if you don't position.... and he didn't play it!
 
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