Though all of Bush's appointments were made during his second term, for which he actually did win a majority.
Bad, bad idea. An even number can result in a tie. If the issue is, say, contention between the executive and legislative branch, a Constitutional crisis with no visible resolution emerges. It would be better to have a bad decision in that case (at least some of the people would be behind it) then a deadlock.
Yeah, that was KINDA the point of having an odd number of justices. There really isn't much wrong with the current system other than the fact that there aren't term limits. Not having the court stacked the way you want isn't a good enough reason to start packing it. By this point the Dems should know that whatever changes they make while in the majority, the Republicans will choke them with once they are back in the minority again. Then we will have two parties adding seats every 8 years and judicial independence is out the window.
So if there was a situation where the US Supreme Court had only 8 sitting members it would be really incompetent of a political party to outright insist it stay that way for close to a year?
Let us hope the handmaid she wants telling her how she is allowed to live her life approves everything she does. Perhaps all these christian women who feel they should not be allowed to have opinions because of jesus and a book get back in the kitchen where they belong. If you think you should be told what to do by men you have no business in the legislature, presidency, or courts as a woman. Let free and intelligent women make their own decisions and get to making a sandwich for your husband. I am sick of religious women telling everyone other women they cannot be anything but a housewife. If they want to be, that is a choice, but if they want to tell others what to be that is fascism.
I haven’t seen one legitimate reason put forward by Republicans as to why the number of SCOTUS justices should remain nine. It could be 17 or 31. Increasing the number of justices would make the Supreme Court more closely reflect the demographic diversity of the US. But to some that idea fills them with rage.
In fairness, the arguments I've seen boil down to tradition!, you wouldn't like it if we did it/slippery slope, and those arguments have some legitimacy. Hypothetically, nothing really is stopping the Republicans from rubber-stamping 50 new justices between now and January, other than they presumably don't think they could get away with it or would face too much blowback if they did. There are procedural aspects to how the committees and the Senate as a whole run confirmation hearings, but I assume most of them could be changed on a majority vote. Would I like it if the Republicans suddenly made the Supreme Court a 56-3 majority for Scalia-like justices? Obviously not.
I see the point you are making, and tend to agree with it, but on this point you are in error. The law is stopping them from doing it. Congress sets the size of SCOTUS, and the Republicans couldn't possibly force through the House of Representatives a law that would increase the size of SCOTUS to 59.
If Trump and co. were willing to try to pack the courts, who would ultimately get to say that adding 50 new justices to the courts was illegal? The Supreme Court. Which could just as easily rule that the law setting the number of justices at 9 is unconstitutional, and that a president can appoint however many justices as he wants.
Ok, you're right on that. (I'll forgive you for being right this time, but just don't make a habit of it...) Which points to a major flaw in our entire system: if you want to get around the constitution, appoint justices to SCOTUS that will rule the way you want about what is "constitutional". That means that, ultimately, SCOTUS is an unelected absolute oligarchy over the whole country.
So if Trump decided to add another eight justices to the court you would be perfectly fine with that? I highly doubt it.
Yes and no. Suppose SCOTUS "made a law" by a ruling that was obviously a change in the intention of the previous law. (IOW, judicial activism.) How can it be changed? Who can tell them that's not right? If SCOTUS says something was the "intention" of the law, even if 99% of the people disagree strongly, how can that be overturned? By a constitutional amendment? If SCOTUS wanted to abuse its power that thoroughly, I'm not sure it would be possible to word an amendment carefully enough that it could be eliminated. Let's look at a thoroughly unrealistic horror-story to illustrate it. Suppose Trump loses the election massively. 40%-60% in the popular vote, 100+ difference in the electoral college. He challenges it, it goes all the way up, and SCOTUS rules (5-4) that mail-in ballots are never valid, that it was never the intention of the framers of the Constitution to have people send their ballots by mail. All mail-in ballots must be invalidated. Which of course would change the results massively, in favor of Republicans. As blatantly partisan as that would be, who could change it? It would amount to "making a law" (one that says mail-in ballots are never valid), and there wouldn't be any good way around it.
There is really no way short of a constitutional amendment to prevent judges/justices from being able to "legislate from the bench."
Completely moot point. The House would never pass it. If Trump wanted to back when his party controlled the House and the Senate he could have attempted it. Given the optics of the Merrick Garland con job it might not have been well received.
"Hey, this other country lobbed a bunch of missiles at us, so we should consider fighting back." "So if they decided to launch even more missiles at you, you'd be perfectly fine with it? I highly doubt it."
Tradition in the Senate is completely shot, thank you Mitch McConnell. The filibuster for lower court judges was intended to prevent unqualified and highly partisan judges from being seated. McConnell decided he wanted to do that for many of Obama’s most qualified nominees. That move was highly partisan, and a strong case can be made that it was racist. So the Democrats got rid of the filibuster for lower court judges. It was a smart move, otherwise our lower courts would be even more out of alignment with the values of everyday Americans.
Also, if you're a person who is often pissed off for being thought of as a teenager, using the word "faggot" isn't doing yourself any favors. Even the bro-iest bros I know stopped using that word by their mid twenties. Maybe it's a Southern thing. But wait, people from the South bring bigoted? Nahh.
