Indeed, behold all the Democrats who even had a shot at, let alone won, statewide office in MS. Check out Tom Cotton's Democrat opponent!
Gary Johnson got plenty of visibility in both '12 and '16 We've all discussed before, until ranked choice voting is common there's no point in even analyzing the plight of third party candidates.
Simply untrue. Judiciary Act of 1789 establishes 6. Judiciary Act of 1801 reduced it to 5 after the next resignation or death. Judiciary Act of 1802 repealed it, taking it back to 6. Seventh Circuit Act of 1807 took it to 7. The Eighth and Ninth circuits (and SCOTUS justices to match) were added by Congress in 1837. Tenth Circuit Act in 1863 added the short-lived 10th justice. The Circuit Reorganization Act in 1866 reduced its future maximum to 7 (in the same manner as 1801). The Judiciary Act 1869 increased it back to 9 - then the same number as the number of circuit courts, where it has remained ever since. Roosevelt's court packing plan was in the form of the Judicial Reorganization Act of 1937 that failed to pass. Not that regularly I didn't say sacred, I said Schelling point. Originally its was the number of Circuit Courts + 1, then it was the traditional point of 9.
Biden says that if he's elected, he'll create a bipartisan commission on reforms to the Supreme Court. It is simultaneously interesting and troubling to think that the whole range of options out there might be explored. Would the current SCOTUS accept any new checks, like term limits for justices, as constitutional without getting an amendment passed? https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/22/poli...urce=twcnnbrk&utm_content=2020-10-22T13:04:31
Sounds like an excellent idea. It would be interesting to hear the SCOTUS debate on length of service. Since the constitution doesn't say how long it is (it simply says they serve "during good behavior", which could be interpreted in a lot of ways besides the current "they stay on there for life as long as they don't get impeached"), they would have a hard time arguing either way about "what the constitution actually says". My guess is that a solid majority would say the constitution "implies" life-time membership, simply because it is in their own personal interests for it to be that way.
Goes into the "didn't foresee future tech" angle that also applies to the 2nd amendment. Did the FFs really intend that - if it's a seat for life - we might one day have healthy lifespans of 100+? Or be able to carry pocket nukes?
The first question is: did they intend it to be a seat for life? Does "during good behavior" mean "Nothing but impeachment can remove them from the court" or "They can be removed from the court by impeachment even before they come to the end of whatever period congress sets for their service"?
Guess "didn't foresee future tech" applies to internet services then, so no freedom of expression online. Sorry. Only approved ideas in email, twitter, message boards, etc. As for the Supreme Court, "during good behavior" would certainly seem to imply "for life or until they retire." Regardless of whether life expectancy is 65, 95, or 300. Then again, I am most definitely a fan of term limits, so whether that be for Presidents, congresscritters, or SCOTUS justices matters not. Decide on a term, get the appropriate legislation (or Constitutional amendment) passed, bingo bango jing-a-jong jango.
They ran out of far right ideologues to fill the lower courts. So instead of finding moderate, experienced, and qualified jurists (like Clinton, Bush, and Obama did) they are pulling people out of law school who pledge allegiance to the Federalist Society and have the right political connections (i.e. white, conservative, Republican). As a buddy of mine said, they are putting people on the bench who are receiving on the job training.
You don't have freedom of expression now in any of those areas. You're using a business service to communicate, they can boot you if you break the terms of service.
And fixed within a minute of posting, mate. Wind your fuckin' neck back in, or I'll do something 'orrible to ya ears.
I'm all for the number of Circuit Courts +1. That would be 14, yes? Honestly, we shouldn't be afraid of a larger court. At the very least it will make it harder to manipulate by either side, and have less of an impact if any one Justice dies or retires.
I think there's a nearly inexhaustible supply of far-right ideologues, so it's not really that. It seems like a hard sell that someone who never has tried a case is qualified to be a federal court judge.
See my original point. David Souter and Harriet Myers were so damaging to the conservative movement that Senate Republicans made sure that will never happen again. They are only interested in a very specific kind of far right judge (think Antonin Scalia or William Pryor). In that regard, they are having a difficult time finding those people in existing district and circuit courts. So your next best option is to find young people 1000% loyal to the cause. Now, you run the risk of their ideology changing over 40 or 50 years. But if Amy Coney Barrett is any indication, the only risk (or positive as they see it) is they will become more conservative over time. We’re about to see right wing judicial activism so extreme it will make Scalia look like an altar boy.
To a point. My concern would be a court that had so many justices that it becomes unwieldy. Maybe the court could have a whole pool of justices and any time a case makes it to that level, there's a randomly selected quorum out of that pool?
Balanced on partisan lines or not? What you're proposing is similar to the UK system. We have 12 judges, but on smaller cases usually only 5 will sit, so there's an odd number in case of ties. But we don't let political parties nominate directly.
I'd say the "senior" justices would work like they do now, with appointment by the President with advice and consent of the Senate. Then the "regular" justices could be appointed by the states? One for each? That'd loosen things up, by golly. Or maybe just whichever judges on the district courts had seniority would form the pool?
Random selection would amount to deciding cases by rolling the dice, since it is no secret that the "independent" judiciary is about as independent as Bernie Sanders. If you happen to hit on a majority of Republican justices, you get one ruling and if you happen to hit on a majority of Democratic justices you get a different ruling. Since SCOTUS "has the final say", that would be disastrous. No thanks.
Hey, we're just spitballin' here. Supreme Court justices are still people, after all, and bias or partisanship can be minimized but not eliminated. Unless you want to turn the court over to an AI, of course . . . "I'm sorry, Dave, but I can't allow that evidence. I think you know why. Perhaps you should take a stress pill."
What I would like to see is a much less partisan way of naming the SCOTUS justices, for starters. As long as they're chosen for ideological purity (by both sides, this is not just a Republican thing), having the White House and the Senate both on your side means you can basically make the law say what you want it to say, for years to come. How about having them chosen by a special congressional commission, rather than by the president? I could see such a commisson having about 20 or 30 members, and rules that mean that no party's ideology can fully dominate it. For example: 1) All members of the commission have to have been in Congress for at least one year, and all must have passed the bar exam in their state. 2) The number of members of the commission from each party is proportional to the number of people thay have in Congress (House and Senate combined). Any party with at least 20 people in Congress must be represented. 3) The members of Congress who identify with (not just "caucus with") a party get to choose their own representatives on the commission. 4) Any confirmation of a justice must include at least one "yes" vote from every party represented in the commission, and at least 2 "yes" votes from any party that has at least 100 people in Congress. That gives all parties ("both", in the current state of affairs), even minority parties, a veto power over potential justices that they see as being advanced for ideological reasons, rather than for judicial competence. That might make it hard to get justices named, but when I see what is happening right now, I'm not necessarily seeing that as a bad thing. And then, while we're at it, set it so that a justice must retire after 20 years or at the age of 75, whichever comes first, and cannot ever, ever, ever be part of SCOTUS again. That, combined with a vastly increased number of SCOTUS judges (why not double, or triple, the current size?), might help a lot to keep SCOTUS from becoming even more the "supreme house of Congress" that it has become.
Come to think of it, I also don't like the idea of an odd number of justices on the court, or deciding a case. It makes it too easy for 1 single person to make what is an almost impossible-to-change law for a third of a billion people. If there are 20 or 30 justices on the court and it isn't handy to have all of them involved in every case, let each party that is reprented in the congressional commission choose 4 justices to sit on the case. That way, if it ends up evenly split along ideological lines, it is a "non decision", rather than set in stone (even though almost 45% of the supposed "experts" on constitutional law think it is the wrong interpretation, as happens so often now).
It's fairer than the system now, where out of the nine Justice six will have been appointed by Presidents that lost the popular vote. And moving it to the legislature would require a Constitutional Amendment. As to "both sides bad," the last person the Dems put forward was Merrick Garland, a moderate and supremely qualified. The last person the GOP put forward has never even sat as a trial lawyer, and is part of a fringe far right sect.
Even within the parameters of white, Christina, conservative, Federalist members who worship the ground Scalia walked on, there are still presumably plenty of people that you can skip ones who have never tried a case is all I'm saying. I mean, people (including me) have tried cases while still in law school.
Given technology, there really isn't a number where it would be unwieldy, other than there is only so much space in the physical SCOTUS. Nothing inherent would stop, say, 100 justices from participating simultaneously iif for some reason that was thought to be desreable, other than oral arguments might have to be restructured to give every justice who wanted to ask a question a chance to chime in. Decisions made at the appellate court level generally have a panel of judges representing the whole circuit.
Not an expert in Con Law, but the President under the Constitution has unilateral power to appoint judges with the advice and consent of the Senate, although I suppose it's open to interpretation what form that advice and consent might take, and whether the Senate could bring in input from the House or members of the public. I think most fair readings of the Constitution would support the notion that federral judges have positions for life. Of course, the ultimate arbiters would be SCOTUS and they are unlikely to interpret some of these changes as being Constitutional. Putting aside the need for a constitutional amendment to implement the more meaningful version of these suggestions, I don't know how this is better or less partisan than the current setup. Effectively, the minority party could unilaterally block any potential nominee to SCOTUS. Given the nature of today's politics, this wouldn't lead to Merrick Garland middle-of-the-road types who both sides could live with. Rather, it would still lead to the naming of ideologues and complaints that the other side is blocking perfectly wonderful judges or nominating disasters.
Republicans advanced the nomination while the democrats took their ball and went home. https://news.yahoo.com/amphtml/repu...nomination-democrats-stay-away-140518113.html
And? The GOP had the votes to advance no matter what, so why NOT make a political statement if you're the Dems? It's like Chad making you suck his balls even though you've still succeeded in your agenda of being a complete hopeless cunt on WF.
