There's been a lot of court packing talk from the left after the GOP flipped a seat during the Garland debacle. There was even some talk on the right of introducing an Amendment to set the number at 9 in stone to protect against that.

Assuming the Dems take the Senate, which is not a given, it would still take a ton of political capital to pull off. Purple state Dems might not support it and it could prove to be super unpopular with the public. GOP would also doubtless filibuster it to death and try to challenge it legally if it passed (although I can't really see on what grounds). They would also just pack the court right back once they regained power and set off an arms race.

I guess the (nonpartisan) arguments for it are that it is infinitely easier to pass a court packing law than to amend the Constitution to put in term limits for Justices. Personally I would be against it. It would just make SCOTUS into a kangaroo court for whoever is in power and seriously diminish the prestige and the sense that the Court is a neutral arbiter. I like the idea that Justices are not answerable to politicians and you can get guys like Earl Warren who just do whatever the **** they think is best after getting appointment (see also, Roberts, J).

A few counterpoints. The arms race has already started but only side is racing so far. SCOTUS is already a kangaroo court for the right with severely diminished prestige. Any sense that it has been left as a neutral arbiter is already gone.

I remember listening to some constitutional scholar on a podcast point out that the system is just designed to give you bad judges. Naturally, the judges that get nominated by the party in power are the ones that tend to be inflexible in their political views, not malleable. I would say Sotomayor and Thomas are probably equally terrible in the same way, just from opposite sides of the spectrum. It's crazy that we know how they will vote on a case even before readings the facts.

However, just because it's bad, does not mean it cant get worse. Severely undermining the institution in favor of some short term political gains seems very short sighted. The justices are still neutral now in the sense that they are not beholden to the political powers that be, especially after many years on the bench, not that they do not hold political views themselves.

I don't think Thomas/Alito/Roberts give a **** how Trump wants them to vote. Even Gorsuch has shown he's going to vote how he feels is appropriate, not along party lines. We may not agree with them, but I think the conservatives on the court are ultimately just voting their conscience. Also, to be completely fair, it's usually the liberals on the court who are twisting the law into knots in order to arrive at predetermined conclusions.

Counterpoint - it has already been severely undermined in favor of some short term political gains.

Trying to convince dems at large to follow political norms is likely going to work, unfortunately, and they will continue to get wrecked with all tit and no tat.

I absolutely agree that if Dems flip the court in Biden's term, Republicans will try to court pack at the first opportunity, whenever that may be. So I completely understand the argument there.

I'd almost be willing to gamble on this, just because Thomas and Alito are so bad and are not going to willfully step down under a dem POTUS anyway. If you're a RWNJ, Thomas and Alito are the only rock solid picks you've made in he last 30 years. The rest range from laughable (Harriet Myers) to massive misses (Souter).

Looks like we will be getting the Trump tax return/business record case opinions tomorrow.

Hopefully there will be some salty dissenting Kavanaugh tears on behalf of his god-emperor Trump.

Trump 0-1 on the day so far. POTUS is absolutely not immune from state criminal subpeonas.

https://www.scotusblog.com/wp-conten...9-635_o7jq.pdf

7-2. Kavanaugh actually concurred. Alito/Thomas dissent. Hopefully Trump goes on Twitter and cries about how the two judges he appointed don't like him.

Confused as **** on this second ruling re congressional subpoenas on POTUS. I might have to actually read the thing later.

https://www.scotusblog.com/wp-conten...9-715_febh.pdf

Something like Congress can subpeona in theory, but certain standards have to be met so they remanded the case back down?

I duno, paging Grizy. He smells like a lawyer.

No Taxes is what I think it means

In effect, yes.

the best take i saw was- the Court has ruled that no president is above the law and congress has the right to scrutinize, and then postdated that for Biden


i will say i haven't read the opinions yet, but im intrigued to see how alito and thomas decided to twist themselves into Shall doesn't mean Shall/

So, bizarre. It seems we have sensible SCOTUS, but twitter and Slighted is going on about Clarence Thomas. The decision was 7-2. That should be good news.

You ignore the fact that time is of the essence when grandstanding about how bizarre the reaction is.

They basically punted.

The ruling roughly says the following:
1. confirmed Congress DOES have the power to subpoena POTUS' personal financial records (Alito and Thomas rejected this)
2. remanded on the question of whether Congress' subpoena met the standards of old case law (some of which from Nixon era) where the subpoenas must be "specific" and to advance "valid legislative purpose."

Courts in general are loathe to get in on political questions like this (despite what many of you think, they really try to find ways out of settling disputes that are political in nature). With SCOTUS punting, I think it's unlikely the lower courts will move this quickly in time for us to see taxes before the election. But you never know. If Trump gets re-elected and Dems get Congress, my guess is they'll get subpoenas through and SCOTUS will decline to review. "Valid legislative purpose" is traditionally defined pretty broadly to be just short of police powers so I am sure Democrats' lawyers can find something to get at least some of the subpoenas through.

SCOTUS is also sending a signal to Congress that they really don't want to deal with this (note Kavanaugh and Gorsuch both were in the majority with the liberal justices + Roberts) kind of political question and they'll try their best to punt again if it gets to that.

In a rather passive-aggressive way, the SCOTUS just called POTUS and/or Congress children. Something about the legislative and executive branches managing to settle subpoenas for over two centuries without sending the issue to SCOTUS something something.

Thanks,

That does give me some hope for any potential post election Trump/GOP shenanigans.

No mention of McGirt here?

it's pretty much all my lawyer buddies and i have been talking about, but i figure it doesn't impact/interest the general 2+2 crowd much at all.

I would have thought that now was an appropriate time for a reexamination of how the American Empire was founded on genocide.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/14/polit...zed/index.html

"She was initially evaluated at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C. last night after experiencing fever and chills. She underwent an endoscopic procedure at Johns Hopkins this afternoon to clean out a bile duct stent that was placed last August. The Justice is resting comfortably and will stay in the hospital for a few days to receive intravenous antibiotic treatment."

Not sure if this deserves a separate thread but it sure feels like an earthquake under my feet.

No biggie, there’s a rule that you can’t confirm a justice in an election year, senate wouldn’t even allow a vote.

It's definitely worrisome...but at the same time, she's been in and out of the hospital so many times over the years that I don't think it's reason to panic.

Of course it would be fitting if it was a hangnail that finally killed her, after she survived cancer 4 times or whatever.

Since the separate thread was almost completely off topic, I just moved the OP here and deleted it. Maybe it will work better here

She's safe for now, but still 87 years old. Breyer is getting up there as well. There are scenarios here involving COVID I really don't want to think about.

I think the best term to describe the senate GOP's reaction to this scenario would be "stampede".