Democrats want to dodge filibuster rules

[JacksBratt]

So you're saying Republicans' stacking the courts is evil?
Did Kavanaugh, Barrett or Gorsuch get 60 votes?
The filibuster is not in the Constitution. It began after the Civil War to enact laws restricting blacks from full participation in our society.

The Fiibuster.... You love it when it benefits you... You want to abolish it when it stands in your way...

Both sides..........GUILTY.

 

[JacksBratt]

And discard them when they have outlived their usefulness, or when polarization and obstructionism become paralyzing.

I think that the fillibuster should be a constant standard in any political decision.

 

[JacksBratt]

That is a

Let's be logical. A majority is 51 votes.

The scales are already tilted towards small red states. In SD there are two Senators for 700,000 people. On California, there are 2 senators for over 20 million.
So you take a legislature where the deck is already stacked against progressives and say there needs to be a 3/5 majority...
TBT, the 50 blue state senators probably represent 3/5 of the population already.
Progressives are fed up with the rules and budgets foisted on them by farm states.

That is a true majority.. 51votes out of 100.

However... on history making and life changing laws.... that's still barely 1/2 of the people who agree with it.

On huge changes and laws... I'd even say that 60% is not enough.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

This is not exclusive to Democrats.
Republicans changed the filibuster rules all the time, and Mitch McConnell singlehandedly changed the number on the supreme court from 9 to 8 for more than a year.

I guess it's only OK when Republicans do it?

Yup, it's the politics involved. This time, it's the democrats because
of the SCOTUS Roe V Wade decision.

 

[parousia70]

Yup, it's the politics involved. This time, it's the democrats because
of the SCOTUS Roe V Wade decision.

Well I think a 13 member Supreme Court is a fine idea.

it makes the death or retirement of one judge much less significant to the balance of power and makes it less likely that someone such as Mitch McConnell could single-handedly change the balance of power by reducing the number by one, and it makes it less likely that one president‘s Nominations would change that balance as well.

When Congress settled on 9 members 150 years ago, The population was 38 million people. Now we have more than 300 million more than that. and we have 13 district courts in the country. A 13 Member Supreme Court seems a reasonable and logical modern step, but I wouldn’t have a problem with a 33 member Supreme Court. The more the merrier I say.

I did think FDRs idea was brilliant, that every member over 70 had to vote separately and their cumulative outcome represented one vote in the final outcome of a decision.

I could roll with something like that too.

 

[Fantine]

Apparently there are now 13 federal district court jurisdictions as well, so 13 would make sense.

 

[Arcangl86]

Personally I would increase the SCOTUS to 14 people and change the composition. Have it be made up of the CJ of the US, appointed to that position by the President, and then have the other 13 members be the chief judge of the respective circuits. That's a position that already turns over every 5-7 years and is appointed based on simple seniority, which should reduce the amount of political interference in the process. The 13 chief judges will do what the current circuit justices do. To ensure there are no deadlocks and to reduce conflicts, the chief judges would not sit on any cases that come from their circuit. But of course this will never happen.

 

[tz620q]

Well I think a 13 member Supreme Court is a fine idea.

While this is an interesting idea, to allow a President to nominate justices without a vacancy would go against our current checks and balances and place one man with complete power over the judiciary. Do you really want to live in a system that unbalanced? My thought is that such a system would be doomed to failure and would lead to dictatorial control. Now maybe if they voted this through Congress with the President having veto powers, it would be acceptable; but I think that this sweeping of a change would have to have a 60 person majority in the Senate. I would prefer a constitutional amendment.

 

[Arcangl86]

While this is an interesting idea, to allow a President to nominate justices without a vacancy would go against our current checks and balances and place one man with complete power over the judiciary. Do you really want to live in a system that unbalanced? My thought is that such a system would be doomed to failure and would lead to dictatorial control. Now maybe if they voted this through Congress with the President having veto powers, it would be acceptable; but I think that this sweeping of a change would have to have a 60 person majority in the Senate. I would prefer a constitutional amendment.

Why would you prefer a constitutional amendment when the Constitution says nothing about the Supreme Court besides it exists to begin with?

 

[tz620q]

Why would you prefer a constitutional amendment when the Constitution says nothing about the Supreme Court besides it exists to begin with?

It would codify the number and have the will of the people be heard. It would also put to bed this idea of court packing by one party or another and the amendment could actually designate a certain amount of time between when a justice is nominated and when his confirmation hearings would have to be held. For me this would be a better system that would reduce the influence of the politics.

 

[Fantine]

While this is an interesting idea, to allow a President to nominate justices without a vacancy would go against our current checks and balances and place one man with complete power over the judiciary. Do you really want to live in a system that unbalanced?

You don't think the court is unbalanced now? It became unbalanced because one significant vacancy was left unfilled (along with numerous unfilled district and appeals court positions). Then it became more unbalanced when another significant vacancy was hurriedly filled weeks before Election Day. What's good for the elephant should be good for the donkey, don't you agree?

The NY Times did an amazingly comprehensive study on this issue last fall. I learned, for example, that the number of district court judges has not been increased for decades, when our population was much smaller, and there is a huge backlog of pending federal cases. (Of course, with the extremely unbalanced Supreme Court we have now, the longer it takes for cases to move up, the better...)

I also learned that the way to keep a court from being overly political is to have a lot of justices. One historian even suggested 25. With that number, the loss of a justice wouldn't even cause a blip.

Most suggested term limits for judges. So many good ideas.

 

[Ray Glenn]

Imagine that .....The filibuster of 60 votes created by Democrats to prevent Civil Rights voting bills are now declared toxic by the same party that created the system.

I love it when Democrats stand and shout "Jim Crow!"

Like yelling at yourself.

 

[Ray Glenn]

Exactly, parousia. Both parties, if they are truly interested in keeping the filibuster, need to cooperate on committees and negotiate with one another in good faith. It's in their hands.

And not faux cooperation--like when five or six Republicans collaborated on the Infrastructure bill, making it worse and whittling it down by holding out the carrot that they might actually support it--but when the vote came up, wouldn't even vote "yes" on the bill they had helped write (by downsizing it and making it worse.)

Give it a rest. When the Democrats used nuclear options to ignore the filibuster the Republicans squealed as well. It becomes a bigger scene today when the Democrats want absolute power. Win the Senate and move the needle. Otherwise, learn to operate within the framework of what was created. Especially when the Democrat Party created it.

 

[hedrick]

The most interestng suggestion for the Court is moderately long but finite terms, with things set so that one justice is elected every couple of years. In the current court we have 3 from one president and likely none from the current one.

 

[Ray Glenn]

The current President just seated a Supreme Court Justice. Apparently "SHE" doesn't know what a woman is. Oh, that's right ......because "SHE" is not a biologist.

Hard to imagine what her opinions will look like. Hope she writes legalese better than her stated lack of science education skills.

Maybe you are right and "SHE" doesn't count as a "Female" Justice. Joe wanted one of those ... LOL!

 

[hedrick]

The current President just seated a Supreme Court Justice. Apparently "SHE" doesn't know what a woman is. Oh, that's right ......because "SHE" is not a biologist.

Hard to imagine what her opinions will look like. Hope she writes legalese better than her stated lack of science education skills.

Maybe you are right and "SHE" doesn't count as a "Female" Justice. Joe wanted one of those ... LOL!

My count was off by one. But this is one of several suggestions to reduce the politics with the Supreme Court. I think that’s worth doing.

 

[Ray Glenn]

My count was off by one. But this is one of several suggestions to reduce the politics with the Supreme Court. I think that’s worth doing.

Ha ha! Notice I tried to help. After all Joe wanted a woman and she doesn't know what one is. So does she actually count?

 

[Aldebaran]

This is not exclusive to Democrats.
Republicans changed the filibuster rules all the time, and Mitch McConnell singlehandedly changed the number on the supreme court from 9 to 8 for more than a year.

I guess it's only OK when Republicans do it?

Actually, it was Justice Scalia who technically changed the number on the Supreme Court from 9 to 8. It happened when hhe died. Mitch McConnell had nothing to do with that.

 

[Arcangl86]

Actually, it was Justice Scalia who technically changed the number on the Supreme Court from 9 to 8. It happened when hhe died. Mitch McConnell had nothing to do with that.

No, but Mitch McConnell is the one who declared before Scalia's body was cold that he wasn't going to approve anybody nominated by President Obama.

 

[tz620q]

The most interestng suggestion for the Court is moderately long but finite terms, with things set so that one justice is elected every couple of years. In the current court we have 3 from one president and likely none from the current one.

I think this is an idea worth exploring; but I am pessimistic that it will reduce the politics. Let's take two current examples. Ruth Bader Ginsburg had two bouts of cancer around 2013, 2014. At that time she was 80 years old. From a jurist's point of view, she was as sharp as ever; but the Democrats pressured her to resign so that Obama could choose her successor. She chose not to and died of metastatic pancreatic cancer in 2020, giving Trump his third nominee and swinging the court from 5-4 conservative to 6-3. Likewise Stephen Breyer was 5 years younger than Ginsburg and received the same pressure from Democrats even though his health was good and he seemed as competent as ever. He yielded to the political pressure (maybe using the example of Ginsburg) and retired. Health and competency are not necessarily linear with age. So some of the limits I have heard of 75 seem to set an arbitrary standard. Perhaps it should be like some driving license restrictions in certain states where after a certain age, the Justice has to show that his or her competency is undiminished.

There is one other aspect to this that seems obvious to me. If we set an age limit on Supreme Court Justices, the job of President is even more demanding and should have a similar limit on it. I doubt if the people pushing for term limits on justices would like this idea.

As you can see, the political heat that exists now exists because of politicians putting political power ahead of what is good for the country. This was the case in 2016 when McConnell delayed Merrick Garland's confirmation and it is the case today with Democrats pushing for changes to the Court because they don't like the current makeup. The Court has only been able to rise above partisanship when it operates outside the political miasma. Having more justices would mean more confirmations and the last few confirmations have been political sideshows. It would also mean more pressure placed on justices to retire early just to secure more partisan nominations.