Gorsuch It Is

striker42 said:
I wonder what the Dems would do if the Republicans threatened to raise the number of justices to 15 or something. That would be crazy.
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FDR tried this at the height of his popularity, but even his own party turned against him. If Trump tried this... it would hopefully be entertaining, at least.
 
Jaw said:
I guess it's all in how you look at the Constitution and it's amendments. I see it as the tenth amendment exists just to remind us that the federal government is supposed to be limited. This isn't one of those long, drawn out legalese essays. It's a simple, one sentence rule, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution or any of the amendments, so I don't know how it is possible to read that sentence and then think that the federal government, or it's court system, has any say on the matter of abortion.

If you disagree then I would be interested in hearing where you feel that the power to rule on abortion is delegated to the federal government, or prohibited to the states, by the Constitution.
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I think you misunderstand the ruling in Roe. It did not address any federal powers re: abortion. The basic issue was that citizens have rights both implicit and explicit, the one in question being a right to personal privacy, and the constitution protects those rights by limiting State power. The Roe decision was essentially a discussion of the balance between that personal right and the the States' interests.

Now, one can disagree about how to weight that right against State interests, or whether "personal privacy" is a even a right at all; but that is the fundamental issue, not "is legislating abortion a state or federal power under the Constitution?"
 
striker42 said:
I tend to be an originalist in my views on the Constitution. It was a contract between sovereign entities and I don't like the idea that the changing of meanings of words can change the nature of the agreement. Words are ephemeral. They shift over time. However the ideas of power and rights that lie at the heart of the Constitution do not change. Add to that the fact that we have a mechanism to change the Constitution to meet the changing needs of society (amendment process) and I feel that trying to warp the original agreement with new interpretations of words isn't right.

That being said, I have absolutely no problem with a constitutional right to privacy. I think that you having the right to be left alone from unreasonable government intervention in yourself, your property, and your affairs is one of the cornerstone ideas the Constitution was based on. You absolutely see the respect for this in the Constitution/Bill of Rights.

That being said, applying the right to privacy to ensure a right to an abortion is flawed logic. As I was saying before, this doesn't get to the root of the issue. The key question is what is the legal status of a fetus. Is a fetus a legal person with all the rights and privileges of any other legal person? If the answer is no, then applying the right to privacy makes sense. If the fetus has no legal rights then the mother's right to be left alone from government interference in her affairs prevents prohibiting an abortion. However, if the fetus is a legal person then the right to privacy is not so easily applied. Your right to privacy does not extend to cover the intentional taking of the right to life of another legal person. You can't murder someone in your basement and claim a right to privacy.

So all the argument over privacy rights is largely irrelevant to me. It's a secondary step. One you can only take after deciding the first question. There is little guidance in the Constitution for determining if a human fetus is legal person or not.
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The idea that the writers of the constitution intended "person" to refer to a human fetus is... highly unlikely. If you are going full "originalist," that should be the end of the story.
 
Metaphysicist said:
FDR tried this at the height of his popularity, but even his own party turned against him. If Trump tried this... it would hopefully be entertaining, at least.
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The Switch in Time tha Saved Nine was probably the most interesting political drama involving the court since Marbury v Madison. But with the political atmosphere now who knows how such a gambit would play out.

Metaphysicist said:
The idea that the writer's of the constitution intended "person" to refer to a human fetus is... highly unlikely. If you going full "originalist," that should be the end of the story.
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Hence my comment that the Constitution provides little direction as to the legal status of a fetus. It's a question the framers almost certainly never thought about. This lack of guidance would probably lead a full on originalist to defer to the States. Whether that's the right answer is something I don't know.

That being said, the lack of a Constitutional basis for determining the legal status of a fetus means to me that the court should be very constrained in their decisions and resist the urge to be the ultimate word in the debate. Alas it is too late for that.
 
Oklahomahawk said:
It certainly could happen, huh?
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I think its been angling that way for quite some time. I believe that America finds her to be genuine/smart/able. She will also have at least the next 4 years to be in the spotlight and get more 'known' to America. I don't think it happens in the next 8 years but starting in 2024 I could absolutely see her throw her name into the mix. If Trump is successful then it only increases her chances.
 
Gorsuch it is, indeed.

Hate that it came to the nuclear option. Makes the next several cycles that more much crucially important for both parties.
 
I understand the emotional case for the filibuster, but not the political one, nor the basic "norms and good government" case for it.

I didn't support the filibuster and I hated watching it happen, both sides' public statements being notably disingenuous and hypocritical.

Merrick Garland should have had that seat, and it sucks to see the Senate Republicans rewarded for their bad behavior. I think that should be part of any discussion of the subject, but I'm with the simplistic crowd that says "two wrongs don't make a right."

The short-term Senate math makes this look even worse for democrats, though this obviously is going to have implications far beyond that.
 
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