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Abolish the Supreme Court?

Abolish the Supreme Court?

  • Total voters
    59
Harshaw said:
This interviewee at Vox thinks so:

https://www.vox.com/2018/10/12/17950896/supreme-court-brett-kavanaugh-constitution

He's a Harvard law professor.

Personally, I don't see Vox running this article as anything more than "we didn't get our way on Kavanaugh, so get rid of the whole Supreme Court!" Which is ludicrously childish. Destroying the system because it doesn't produce the results you want is asinine.

But that's just me. What do you say?
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No. But I would favor a Term of 10 years and then they are off the Court... or 20... just make it nothing more than 20.
 
LadyMoonlight said:
Please forgive an Aussie's ignorance, but are you stating that the Supreme Court has never, ever had judges appointed by any President based on the politics of any President's political lean? I know very little about American politics, basically what I learn about here, so I am curious because I have read people here who believe the opposite.
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No. He is saying that since it is obviously based off of the Presidents lean and that it is for a life time Term that THIS is what makes it a mockery... it stacks the Court one way or the other. Instead there should not be life time seats... as I kinda stated in my post above.
 
LadyMoonlight said:
Please forgive an Aussie's ignorance, but are you stating that the Supreme Court has never, ever had judges appointed by any President based on the politics of any President's political lean? I know very little about American politics, basically what I learn about here, so I am curious because I have read people here who believe the opposite.
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There is an unsubtle difference between a nominee with a political background and a nominee who has openly and nakedly expressed hatred for one party...during his interview for the job, no less. Although I'm not an expert in history, I would be surprised to learn that there were confirmation hearings in which the nominee threatened revenge against a party once he was confirmed. But then, the 19th century was a crazy time, filled with brawling Senators and duels that ended in death, so who knows.
 
Bodhisattva said:
No. He is saying that since it is obviously based off of the Presidents lean and that it is for a life time Term that THIS is what makes it a mockery... it stacks the Court one way or the other. Instead there should not be life time seats... as I kinda stated in my post above.
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No.

.....
 
Cardinal said:
No.

.....
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Then what does this mean, "However, if we're going to accept that the nomination and confirmation process is to be a completely partisan affair from here on out, then it at least makes sense to end lifetime seats."
 
Bodhisattva said:
Then what does this mean, "However, if we're going to accept that the nomination and confirmation process is to be a completely partisan affair from here on out, then it at least makes sense to end lifetime seats."
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Read the thread.
 
I nominate this threads as the dumbest thread ever! Do I hear a second?
 
Go ahead; set term limits for the SC judges. That GUARANTEES partisan judges.

And you have only two ways to go on the Constitution itself; either take it literally and try to stick close to the original intent.

or

View it as a living, changing document that should always reflect the political climate of the moment. This view makes a written Constitution worthless.
 
nota bene said:
It's a mistake to assume that a Justice, whether Kagan or Kavanaugh, is going to make decisions based on political lean rather than on what the Constitution says.
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Seems like some are projecting again. Projecting that Justices would do what they'd do, given the opportunity.

Not completely without precedent, if you consider the ruling coming out of the 9th circus.
 
Mithros said:
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that if 92% of cases result in a unanimous decision, than all of the useful data will be found in the 8% where one or more of the judges dissented. And likewise its' obviously unfair to judge trends by examining individual cases. (unless we have two cases on the same subject decided on different grounds with litigants of differing political views) These are almost always judgement cases, and it's possible for different people to come to different conclusions. It's only when you zoom out and look at a judges cumulative record and compare it to their peers that the true picture can be be seen.
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If you want to show that he is partisan because he dissented, you need to get into the substance of his dissents and show that they are partisan.

It's not "unfair"; it's what you need to do. It's how it works. Just because it doesn't work in your favor doesn't mean it's unfair.

Your "measure" of partisanship is not a measure at all.

And please, don't hold up lawyers as the gold standard to judge objectivity. Humans are bad at objectivity (and statistics). I'd put far more faith in a behavioral scientist's objective measures of subjectivity than I would a subjective lawyers highly subjective view.

We're all subject to biases and we we all underestimate how much our biases affect our decisions. But that doesn't mean we're all equal. Every federal judge will swear that they are entirely objective. And every federal judge will tend to dissent more in election years and less during times of war. But some are far better than others. Kavanaugh stands out as a particularly egregious example.
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I didn't "hold lawyers up" to anything. This is a nonsense non-sequitur.
 
I would like to see it de-politicized, but that ain't happening.

Here's a good quote from the OP link:
Mark Tushnet
Whether the Court is competently pursuing it depends on a couple of things. One is your assessment of the legal quality of the work they do. And another is, of course, your assessment of the merits of the limits that they are placing on political choice.

As to the latter, it’s just going to depend on your politics. For a while, liberals liked what the Court was doing, and then they didn’t. For a while, conservatives didn’t like what the Court was doing, and now they do.
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Cardinal said:
There is an unsubtle difference between a nominee with a political background and a nominee who has openly and nakedly expressed hatred for one party...during his interview for the job, no less. Although I'm not an expert in history, I would be surprised to learn that there were confirmation hearings in which the nominee threatened revenge against a party once he was confirmed. But then, the 19th century was a crazy time, filled with brawling Senators and duels that ended in death, so who knows.
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:roll:

Where did Kavanaugh "threaten revenge" against anyone? Really. Quote that.

(He didn't even "nakedly expressed hatred for one party," but contempt for what they were trying to do to him.)
 
Bodhisattva said:
Then what does this mean, "However, if we're going to accept that the nomination and confirmation process is to be a completely partisan affair from here on out, then it at least makes sense to end lifetime seats."
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Cardinal said:
Read the thread.
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Cardinal somehow never says what he plainly said.
 
distraff said:
Republicans were talking this general way in 2015 when the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare and established gay marriage.
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They were talking about abolishing the Supreme Court? Do demonstrate this.
 
Harshaw said:
This interviewee at Vox thinks so:

https://www.vox.com/2018/10/12/17950896/supreme-court-brett-kavanaugh-constitution

He's a Harvard law professor.

Personally, I don't see Vox running this article as anything more than "we didn't get our way on Kavanaugh, so get rid of the whole Supreme Court!" Which is ludicrously childish. Destroying the system because it doesn't produce the results you want is asinine.

But that's just me. What do you say?
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Of all the dumb polls seen in DP, this one wins the award.
 
distraff said:
Thats why I said "general way".
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They didn't "generally" call for the abolition of anything.

Criticizing or disagreeing with a decision doesn't even HINT at abolishing the court.
 
Harshaw said:
Cardinal somehow never says what he plainly said.
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I essentially paraphrased what he said and he tells me I am wrong... not sure why but I was not about to bother with it after that.
 
nota bene said:
It's a mistake to assume that a Justice, whether Kagan or Kavanaugh, is going to make decisions based on political lean rather than on what the Constitution says.
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Hardly a mistake. That is why all of Trumps potential SC nominees, including Kavanaugh, are lifelong members of the Federalist Society.
 
Rogue Valley said:
Hardly a mistake. That is why all of Trumps potential SC nominees, including Kavanaugh, are lifelong members of the Federalist Society.
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Which means what, exactly?
 
jimbo said:
I agree that's the ideal. I don't think it's the reality. Fact is the majority of the cases are settled along party lines.
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Less than 1 in 5 cases the court garners a 5-4 decision. Over a third are unanimous and most of the rest are 8-1 or 7-2. So no the fact is that political lines play little if any role in Supreme Court decisions.
 
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