Pack the SCOTUS.

[Yavin4]

Next Dem president/congress needs to pack the SCOTUS with 4 additional justices. They want to play games. Let's play.

[LandOfHopeAndDreams]

1. Ummmmm.....

So you want the current Liberal Justices to just retire?

[Yavin4]

4. I changed it to "additional" justices.

We add four more.

[NewJeffCT]

2. It was pretty common

in the first half of the 19th century. Much more common than impeachment of a SCOTUS

[lapfog_1]

3. change the number of justices to 13 and put 4 very liberal judges there

8 to 5 decisions.

FDR tried it... this time we do it.

Also, we need to impeach every federal judge that Trump placed.

[Yavin4]

5. Hear! Hear!

I'm tired of playing nice with these assholes.

[Amyishere]

9. you and me both

They want a war, they got one. I'm tired of not fighting back. And all is fair.

[fleur-de-lisa]

6. +1,000

[onenote]

7. FDR tried it and it blew up in his face.

It's not going to happen. Nor are any of Trump's judicial appointments going to be impeached and removed from office.

Doesn't it make more sense to focus on things that can actually be done, like getting out the vote, supporting investigations, transparency, etc, and, once we have control of congress and the white house, fixing the damage done to the EPA, CFPB, foreign relations, etc.?

[lapfog_1]

10. We have a illegitimate President

who used a foreign power to steal the vote.

There is no constitutional remedy for this other than impeachment, conviction, and removal. That fixes the executive branch and executive orders (which the caveat that I doubt the Repukes in the Senate will even vote to convict and remove), but suppose we get rid of Trump somehow (25th, resignation, impeachment)... that doesn't fix the Judiciary. Especially the top of the Judiciary (with their lifetime appointments), SCOTUS.

I'm open to other suggestions to correct this theft of the election. The founders never imagined this scenario.

[onenote]

13. The founders imagined impeachment

and yet they didn't create an exception to the lifetime tenure standard for the judiciary or create a different standard for impeaching judges appointed by an impeached president beyond "high crimes and misdemeanors." While that's a pretty flexible standard, it would be deprived of all meaning if it could be used to justify removing a justice or judge because of who appointed him or her -- including members of the judiciary duly confirmed by the senate, sometimes by very large margins (eight of Trump's appeals court nominees have been confirmed with 65 or more votes; all of his district court nominees save one have been confirmed with at least 65 votes and in more than a dozen case, more than 90 votes). There has been one Supreme Court justice impeached in US history - Samuel Chase. And he was acquitted of every article of impeachment. The reason was that the motivation for impeaching him was his alleged political bias. But that case has stood for over 200 years as precedent for the proposition that if the judiciary is to be "independent", judges can't be removed simply because of who appointed them or how they vote.

[lapfog_1]

18. The founders gave the ability to appoint judges to the President

They never imagined a illegitimate President perverting the will the people.

Impeachment is reserved for "high crimes and misdemeanors" but not for "Oh hey, I was appointed by an President who should have never been President" (hard to imagine that being a "high crime&quot . However, we the people need a redress of the wrong done to us by the last election... a big giant "undo" button for the last 19 months. The founders never imagined such a thing.

We can at least blunt Trump's continuing criminal act (theft of the election) by packing the court and making sure that the decisions the SCOTUS issues are more in line (in the future) with the will of the people as expressed by the rightful election of a Democrat as President in 2016.

[onenote]

21. The founders gave the abilty to appoint judges to the president subject to Senate confirmation

As I mentioned, these judges were confirmed by the senate, in many many cases with huge Democratic party support. It would be bizarre for the Senate to say "do over!" simply because the president that nominated them was removed from office.

As for packing the court, anyone whose been around long enough knows that the pendulum swings back and forth, sometimes quite swiftly. What makes you think that the day wouldn't come when a Republican occupied the White House with a Republican Congress and they decided to pack the court? In fact, why wouldn't they do it tomorrow if it was such a safe idea politically?

FDR's experience has kept both parties from trying to pack the court for 80 years and counting. I can't imagine a majority of the Senate supporting it or even a president (okay maybe Trump is crazy enough) proposing it.

[maxrandb]

24. So we shouldn't do it

because we know that when Retrumplicans have power they'd do it.

Seems like Retrumplicans are the ones that have thrown all sense of decency, decorum, norms, civility and rules out of the window.

Yes, let's not pack the court when we have the power to do so, so that when Retrumplicans retake the power, they can go ahead and do what we "thought" about doing.

This is fucking war!

[onenote]

26. No we shouldn't try to do it because it will blow up in our faces politically

Just as it did for FDR.

I guess you didn't finish reading my post.

[W_HAMILTON]

12. It most certainly can be done.

Let it go to the Supreme Court -- a Supreme Court that will have more liberal justices in place to rule on it, and, no, they won't have to recuse themselves given that a precedent is now being set with Kavanaugh claiming that he won't need to recuse himself from any decisions involving the crimes committed by this president.

[onenote]

15. It clearly could be done constitutionally. But it won't be done because it would be a bad move

politically, just as it was for FDR.

And no precedent is being set by Kavanaugh saying he won't recuse himself from cases arising from charges against Trump. Clinton's appointees didn't recuse themselves from Clinton v. Jones and Nixon's appointees didn't recuse themselves from US v. Nixon.

[W_HAMILTON]

25. It wouldn't be a bad move politically.

The Republicans are ramming through one of the least supported Supreme Court nominees of all time, after having rammed through another nominee for a seat that had been stolen from the previous president. I'm sure close to half of Americans would approve of "packing the court" to make up for this -- especially as more news comes out about the illegalities this president committed to win election to begin with.

As for your other comment, at least for Clinton, I looked up that claim before and his nominees were nominated BEFORE that case even began in one case and before it was even expected to reach the Supreme Court. That is far different than nominating someone knowing full well that a case directly implicating the president due to an ongoing investigation may end up before the Supreme Court.

[onenote]

28. I don't see a signficant difference

Yes, Trump himself is subject to an investigation that might well end up in the Supreme Court (will it? I can't predict the future that well). But he also has taken a number of actions that might end up before the Supreme Court -- such as the Muslim ban and any number of other executive actions taken by him unilaterally. Should any justice appointed after one of those actions is challenged in court be recused from acting on it? That has never been the standard for recusal and its not going to become the standard now.

As for your certainty that half the country would support packing the court: getting the support of "half the country" under our electoral system isn't really all that reassuring and I think history suggests that is an optimistic point of view. In particular, FDR was massively popular when he won re-election in 1936, carrying 46 of 48 states and 61 percent of the popular vote. Moreover, the Democrats had 74 seats in the Senate and 334 in the House after the 1936 elections. Two years later, the Democrats lost 7 seats in the Senate and 72 in the House (with the Repulicans picking up 81 seats in the House). Was the only reason the court packing plan? Of course not. But historians generally agree it was a factor. And consider the following -- as difficult as it is to swallow, the Republicans are just better at demonizing what we do than we are in demonizing what they do. The public will be reminded over and over and over how FDR's plan was lambasted.

So, while I would personally love to see a raft of progressive justices, I'm convinced it is a pipe dream because our elected officials will be too timid to try it, possibly with good cause.

[rockfordfile]

23. I got news for you when there's un-American judges investigations end

That's the real push here by the un-American republicans.

[Timewas]

34. Curious

Why do you say that adding justices won't happen??? Congress can do that is they so choose.

[BigmanPigman]

8. It can be done...but will they do it is the question.

[onenote]

16. Nope. It won't happen.

You can take that to the bank.

It blew up in FDR's face. That's all that any Democratic senator will need to know to decide not to try it.

[standingtall]

11. This can happen and should happen the next time Democrats

take back the Presidency,congress and the senate along with immediate referendum's to make D.C. and every inhabited U.S. territory states.

[brooklynite]

14. Of course, Republicans can do the same thing...right?

[onenote]

17. And if they tried it, can you imagine the howls we'd hear

from the same people saying we should do it?

[standingtall]

19. And if Democrats have a referendum to make all

U.S. territories states it would make it much harder for republicans to the same. D.C. and all U.S. territories have heavy minority populations. If Democrats keep this weak sauce attitude of being afraid to something because of republican reactions their going to continue to get screwed over by republicans.

[Yavin4]

22. So what if they do? Motivates us to fight them that much harder.

Do you think that the Republicans do or don't do things out of fear of retaliation by Democrats?

[shanny]

27. Sure. Which is why we need to fix

voting BS, the electoral college, campaign finance and a host of other issues. And the biggest mistake we could make is thinking getting rid of Rump will fix anything.

Btw, what makes you think they will wait?

[MoonRiver]

20. I agree.

Exceptional times call for exceptional measures.

[FBaggins]

29. And when will we have 60 senate Dems to get it done?

Just wondering so I can mark my calendar

[standingtall]

32. If repukes can repeal the filibuster to push through supreme court judges

than we can repeal the legislative filibuster to stack over the stacking of the supreme court by republicans.

[FBaggins]

33. Untrue

it was at least arguable that the filibuster wasn’t relevant to votes outside of legislation... but the same can’t be said for the legislative filibuster (which is what the rule was created for). Similarly, it would be hard to argue that reconciliation would apply.

And even if it could be so argued... the courts would have defer to the Senate’s interpretation of the rule (which this court almost certainly wouldn’t)

And the best argument is that if it WERE possible, Trump would have done it on day 1 and not wasted time waiting for Kennedy to retire.

[sarisataka]

30. And what would keep the next Republican

Administration from adding eight justices when they get power? Do we then at 12 the next time time and just keep going until the Supreme Court is bigger than the House of Representatives?

[standingtall]

31. What would stop them is 12 to 14 new Democratic Senators

when we have a referendum to make D.C and all inhabited U.S. territories states.

[sarisataka]

35. At least we are still within the realm of possible

As opposed to the idea of annulling the election.

We have however left plausible far behind