That the first point compounds the point you bolded is why I am concerned with first point to begin with. I can easily imagine a circuit split on a reproductive rights (or gun rights) issue allowed to persist in a rule of six system.

That’s a recipe for hyperpartisanship from all directions, and very likely weakening institutional trust in SCOTUS and even the courts in general.

I agree that most people aren't far left liberals.

But also think a guy like Bernie is a center left liberal and most of his policies would be popular across party lines for the simple reason that they're good for the majority of Americans.

But the majority of Americans will never get the chance to consider actual policies. They'll just be told that they're too 'far left' and no one wants them.

So vote for one of the two conservatives we put on the menu.


It's like taking a vegetarian to a steak house. They can order whatever the want but the beef fat is all over it anyway.

Do you believe that most centrist voters (that is, centrist by U.S. standards) believe that Bernie supports policies that he, in fact, does not support?

I'm sure that's true for the least informed voters. But surely the better informed centrists have a reasonable understanding of Bernie's platform. And even among the uninformed, it isn't obvious to me that most of them would be Bernie supporters if only they took the time to understand his policy proposals.

I understand your frustration. If you believe strongly in something, it's tempting to believe that people with contrary views are simply ill-informed. For example, I wish I could believe that most Trump's supporters did not understand his policies and that they would reject Trumpism if only they were better informed. But I'm not at all convinced that's the case.

No, most voters support policies that people like Bernie propose. (I knew I shouldn't have used the 'B' word but he is the most popular example of a non right politician).

But the media doesn't cover policies, they cover gossip and drama and nonsense. On purpose. So what's the average guy to do ? They naturally rely on the media and instead of getting a balanced meal they get birthday cake 3 times a day. With predictable results.

Remember when Faucci and co told us wearing masks wasn't safe during a pandemic ? Remember the media correcting the false statement ?

They're worse than useless.

Seems to me that decades of gridlock is infinitely better than decades of every case being decided in favor of the conservative point of view.

The advantage of this course of action is that it wouldn't bring anywhere near the same outcry and political backlash as packing the court.

What are the other options - do nothing? Simply accept RBG's extreme right replacement and move on? That would be essentially conceding to permanent rule by the Right (well, for decades at least), and from my perspective would be the worst option of all.

Those deadlocks can also go another way.

Imagine this. A bunch of stuff deadlocked, then a lower appellate court, relying on dicta from one of the conservative justices perhaps, rules to uphold a very stringent pro-choice/anti-abortion law.

But lower court actually misinterpreted the dicta, or the conservative justice in question changed his mind, or that justice intended the rule to apply much more narrowly. So much so two conservative justices would vote to strike down the law with liberals 5-4.

But they can't because they can't grant cert.

Don't think this can't happen. Look at the LGBT 6-3 vote with Gorsuch and Roberts in the majority extending equal protection to sexual orientation.

That vote doesn't happen under the rule of 6.

There are also a lot of other issues where the liberal/conservative battle lines are much less clear. There are a lot of issues in criminal justice system where people would be surprised at how the conservative and liberal justices would line up.

And what happens when there is a circuit split on what the federal government can do? They'll try to rely on the less stringent ruling of course and you end up with an unintended expansion of government power. Many of the circuits are majority conservative. Imagine someone like Trump asking to do something dumb. Only one out of 9 circuit courts needs to say yes, at least in some cases. In the alternative, in cases where multiple forums are viable, imagine someone like Trump going straight for the most conservative circuit court that will give him a 3-2 win.

What do you do when circuit splits get bigger? Because once splits happen, if SCOTUS doesn't resolve the splits, the circuits will build on their own decisions and the splits will only get bigger. That's rather detrimental to the court's credibility for obvious reasons.

Now let's think even longer term. The 6-3 conservative court get a bunch of laws you don't want through. A Dem POTUS finally gets to make the court a liberal 5-4 majority. Now you need to wait another 20 years to undo the damage wrought by the 6-3 majority.

The more I think about it, the more problematic the proposal seems to me.

Considering her apathy towards stare decisis, she could be a win for both groups when the quasi-libertarian challenge to the General Welfare Clause precedent inevitably comes up.

You make some good points...I definitely don't know what the answer is. Doing nothing feels like giving up...this option could make things worse...packing the court could cause a severe backlash and end up making things worse. Pretty demoralizing really.

The Republicans are right when they say elections have consequences.

It’s not just 2016. If Dems had a slightly broader (especially geographic) coalition a few more senate seats would be blue and White House wouldn’t be orange.

I am open to more ideas but I think we’re left with finding ways to win local/state/federal elections.

It probably won’t even take long to pay off at the federal level. Thomas is 72. Get Trump out of office, win the Senate, with Roberts as Chief Justice, you will have a little time to return the court back to something resembling the RBG court before Thomas and Barret (even if she’s as bad as feared) can do their thing.

Ignoring precedent and making random rulings probably isn't a win for the nation.

Conservatives love the past, except for when they don't.

I would tell her to do things.......


Seriously, this is the old don't elect a Catholic because they'll listen to The Pope argument and it's actually based on bigotry.

Her putting her religion before her duty would be a reason to reject the nomination of course, but it would have to be a case made to the senate.

I'm sure I won't like her but that's not the reason.

She did write a paper saying Catholic judges that can’t set their personal beliefs aside should recuse themselves when their beliefs and the law are in conflict.

And she testified that she’d apply the law independent of her personal beliefs.

We can only hope she is sincere because she’s getting in.

There is hope she is sincere because we have examples of Catholics in court. Sotomayor for example is Catholic and it’s almost a certainty some of her votes were contrary to her own private religious beliefs. Another example is John Roberts, a Catholic himself, repeatedly disappointing conservatives on his refusal to outright overturn Roe v Wade. Anthony Kennedy was a Catholic appointed for his conservative views that ended up being an unlikely champion of gay rights, at least in some key cases where he was the swing vote.

C'mon man, Sotomayor and Roberts didn't join fundamentalist cults. There is zero chance Barrett is going to defend abortion rights.

In case it wasn’t obvious, I made my last post with a big dose of wishful thinking. I didn’t omit Thomas out of negligence.

The problem with this solution is that it effectively shifts power from the SCOTUS to the federal circuit courts, many of which are now packed with Trump appointees.

we're going to see a lot of moderates saying "well atleast ACB is qualified for the bench"..

she has THREE years experience as a judge and was the editor of the law review in school..

thats equivalent to saying im qualified to be the attorney general of my state right now because i spent 3 years as a prosecutor and was on law review...

she's not at all qualified for what you would want in a supreme court justice.

She was also an extremely highly regarded law school professor at a good school.

Really think she has a very good range of diverse legal experience:
1. Clerked at federal circuit court and Supreme Court (3 years)
2. Practiced law (4 years)
3. Taught law (15 years)
4. Circuit Judge (3 years)

While acknowledging "lol conservatives having principles" from the start, it's pretty funny to note that Josh Hawley said a couple months ago he would not vote to confirm any nominee who hasn't explicitly said they thought Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided:

Since Barrett was nominated, he's said:

Looking at ACB's record it very much seems no such statement exists? She's said she believes life begins at conception. That is not saying she thinks RvW was wrongly decided or that she'd overturn it!

Just a minor "lol Hawley", doing all this virtue-signaling grandstanding and then meekly submitting to Dear Leader to rubber stamp his choice

Prove him wrong, Marco Rubio:



lolololol

Yeah I love the Marco Rubio stupidity.

Unprecedented assault on Catholics by the democrats as they nominate the first catholic president since JFK.

What’s he supposed to say? I would like another Souter?

ACB is massive favorite to let Roe stand if a case comes before her.

No one is overturning roe. That’s just semantics that people use as talking points. They don’t need to overturn it. You just let states do what they want with regards to putting undue hardships on clinics.

Stuff like the ridiculous **** we’ve been seeing where they try to force “clinics must have a doctor with admitting privilege at the closest hospital”...

Plus everyone know these fake religious conservatives don’t actually want it to be outlawed completely. They absolutely want to be able to rely on abortions for their girlfriends/maids/secretaries/daughters...

Casey was the best gift SDO gave the GOP.

"What's he supposed to say?" is a very strange response when he chose to make this big speech on the Senate floor and a viable alternative was to simply not do that.