The SCOTUS Nomination and Confirmation Thread

sturg33 said:
Crazy to me that leftists are going after her for having too many children.

Why does the left hate strong families?

[Tw]1309967547459080194[/tw]
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As an atheist I have serious concerns about a person who wants the country to be a theocracy on the highest court in the land.
 
cajunrevenge said:
Legally he could do it just like Biden could legally expand the supreme court and add Merrick Garland, Hillary Clinton and Obama to the court. It's really time they stopped acting like scared bitches and act like Republicans for once in their lives.
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It was the dems changing the rules to fight dirty that allowed the Repubs to get Kavanaugh and ACB confirmed.

Perhaps they should think long term for once
 
Maybe, but I think the right would have a different opinion of she was a devout Muslim or atheist and said she wanted to build a kingdom of Allah. The problem is a lot of judges rule based on what they want the law to be rather than what the constitution of law actually says.
 
sturg33 said:
It was the dems changing the rules to fight dirty that allowed the Repubs to get Kavanaugh and ACB confirmed.

Perhaps they should think long term for once
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The change Democrats made was an actual legal process and applied to both sides. This magic doctrine of not confirming a supreme court justice in an election year is not a rule in the Senate and apparently only applies to
Democrats.



Adding justices to the court is also not against the rules and well within the rights of the President.
 
I didn't say it wasn't legal... I'm saying Harry Reid nuking the filibuster allowed Kavanaugh and ACB to happen.

If the Dems decide to expand the court, i can assure you Cocaine Mitch will one day make them regret it
 
And we both know that has been ignored throughout US history and will continue to be ignored if an openly devout Muslim or atheist was nominated.
 
BedellBrave said:
Foaming at the mouth, gnashing teeth, and hyperventilating about Trump adding another justice? Rallying for packing the court? Y'all need to go for a walk. Roberts will keep drifting toward you. Gorsuch will throw a curveball ever now and then. You'll keep your sacrament. It won't go away.
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Don’t worry Bedell. The rumors of Roberts’ drift have been greatly exaggerated.
 
striker42 said:
The ACA case is legal nonsense. They'd have to gut the current law on severability and the conservatives have written in favor of severability in the past.

It's possible the individual mandate gets struck down but the penalty is currently zero so that wouldn't really change things.
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The commerce clause argument in the original ACA case was also nonsense. Still ended up getting the votes. SCOTUS will do what it wants to and then figure out the rationale that fits. I assume they will want to punt, but you know what happens when you assume.
 
I think some of you gleeful Reps are missing the point of the “illegitimate” discourse. It is of course obviously true that the reason Garland wasn’t confirmed and the reason ACB will be is that the Reps have the power. They had the political power to block Garland to the point of not even having to go on record as voting against him, and they now have to the political power to ram ACB through without a care for how obviously hypocritical it looks.

But by making the whole shebang about “raw political power” and no respect for norms or whatever, the Reps are giving the Dems a lay up for packing the court (or removing jurisdiction, or one of the other better reform suggestions that are floating around). FDR got flack from his own party because his openly political attempt to “rig” the courts was... a “norm” violation. By setting up the standard of “whatever I have the power to do I should do, norms and civility or whatever be damned,” the Republicans are openly inviting court shenanigans whenever any party controls both Congress and the White House, and simultaneously undercutting the best check on the abuse of power. If nobody care about institutional norms, then there really isn’t a good reason for each side to just pack the courts whenever they can.
 
striker42 said:
Second, a party is almost always going to blindly support anyone their President nominates for the SCOTUS. How many Democrats would have defected from an Obama pick? Obama could have named one of his daughters to the SCOTUS and still gotten nearly all the Democrats to vote for it. I think "blind loyalty" is a problem but it's hardly a problem just for the Republicans. Parties have always fallen in line behind a president from their party, especially for court picks.
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Somewhere Harriet Miers weeps.
 
Metaphysicist said:
I think some of you gleeful Reps are missing the point of the “illegitimate” discourse. It is of course obviously true that the reason Garland wasn’t confirmed and the reason ACB will be is that the Reps have the power. They had the political power to block Garland to the point of not even having to go on record as voting against him, and they now have to the political power to ram ACB through without a care for how obviously hypocritical it looks.

But by making the whole shebang about “raw political power” and no respect for norms or whatever, the Reps are giving the Dems a lay up for packing the court (or removing jurisdiction, or one of the other better reform suggestions that are floating around). FDR got flack from his own party because his openly political attempt to “rig” the courts was... a “norm” violation. By setting up the standard of “whatever I have the power to do I should do, norms and civility or whatever be damned,” the Republicans are openly inviting court shenanigans whenever any party controls both Congress and the White House, and simultaneously undercutting the best check on the abuse of power. If nobody care about institutional norms, then there really isn’t a good reason for each side to just pack the courts whenever they can.
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Woohoo! SCOTUS with 25 judges coming our way. What fun that will be.
 
goldfly said:
You’re free to think that

I believe the tweets show an argument that easily disagrees with your stance of liking her while overlooking the lies and hypocrisy
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Question isn't about whether you like her or not or even about hypocrisy. Your point was one about "legitimacy." To nominate someone and to consider that nominee to SCOTUS right now is legitimate.
 
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Metaphysicist said:
I think some of you gleeful Reps are missing the point of the “illegitimate” discourse. It is of course obviously true that the reason Garland wasn’t confirmed and the reason ACB will be is that the Reps have the power. They had the political power to block Garland to the point of not even having to go on record as voting against him, and they now have to the political power to ram ACB through without a care for how obviously hypocritical it looks.

But by making the whole shebang about “raw political power” and no respect for norms or whatever, the Reps are giving the Dems a lay up for packing the court (or removing jurisdiction, or one of the other better reform suggestions that are floating around). FDR got flack from his own party because his openly political attempt to “rig” the courts was... a “norm” violation. By setting up the standard of “whatever I have the power to do I should do, norms and civility or whatever be damned,” the Republicans are openly inviting court shenanigans whenever any party controls both Congress and the White House, and simultaneously undercutting the best check on the abuse of power. If nobody care about institutional norms, then there really isn’t a good reason for each side to just pack the courts whenever they can.
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I fully agree that the treatment of Garland was wrong. But it's a non sequitur to say that therefore going through the nomination process now is illegitimate. Hypocritical? Sure. Call it that all you'd like and I'll join you, while still being happy that ACB is going through the process. But it's not illegitimate.

The Thurmond Rule isn't an actual rule. Before 1968, Presidents brought nominees forward 19 times in a presidential election year. 10 came before the election and 9 of the 10 were successful (the unsuccessful one being Fortas -- Thurmond). And when there is no dispute between branches -- executive and legislative -- there's no need to "let the voters decide."

Sure I get the Ds being all up-in-arms, though the histrionics are a bit much.

Also, I think Graham makes a worthy point. When Ds do what they've often done with nominees from a R POTUS, it's a bit rich to talk about "respecting norms" and optics. If you go on character destroy missions like they do, then don't whine about decorum and rule following and optics.

And finally, it's worth noting, that it's not like ACB is an unknown -- she's already been through, famously ("the dogma is strong in you" or whatever bigoted quip Feinstein used against her) the confirmation process for the circuit seat. "Ramming" her through, is a bit hyperbolic.
 
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Metaphysicist said:
The commerce clause argument in the original ACA case was also nonsense. Still ended up getting the votes. SCOTUS will do what it wants to and then figure out the rationale that fits. I assume they will want to punt, but you know what happens when you assume.
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I actually think the commerce clause argument in the original ACA case was the strongest given other commerce clause cases. The interpretations of the commerce clause have been expansive and upholding the ACA would not have been the craziest commerce clause decision. If Roberts had upheld it under the commerce clause I'd have probably found his reasoning mundane and expected. But he didn't do that. He's not a fan of expanding the commerce clause so he wasn't going to let it be done that way.

Roberts' reasoning was crazy. Congress cannot pass a tax with a punitive intent. If a law has a punitive intent, Congress has to have used a power other than their taxing power. In spite of the fact that Congress specifically called the penalty in the ACA a penalty (showing punitive intent), Roberts said they could have called it a tax and used the taxing power so the court will read it as a tax. It was a terribly reasoned decision. Upholding it as an exercise of the commerce clause would have been infinitely better.

The current ACA case is ridiculous. Basically, the argument is that when Congress reduced the penalty to $0, it no longer qualifies as a tax. You can't have a tax of $0 so it must be a penalty. Since it has to be a penalty and Congress has no power to institute that penalty, it's unconstitutional. Assuming that is correct, the big issue is severability.

There's currently a strong presumption in the law that if part of a law is invalid, that part of the law should be severed leaving the rest of the law intact. Only if the invalid portion is so integral to the law that severing it would completely distort or destroy the rest of the law will an entire law be struck down. For the entire ACA to be struck down, the SCOTUS would have to rule that the penalty cannot be severed without crippling the ACA.

Considering the current penalty is $0, it's very difficult to make a rational argument that doing away with it would impair the rest of the ACA. The penalty has no effect right now so erasing it wouldn't really impact the way the law is currently functioning. The SCOTUS would have to gut the severability doctrine to strike down the ACA in this case. Not even the conservatives want that.
 
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