Posted on 03/24/2019 4:53:55 AM PDT by Kaslin
“What if there were five justices selected by Democrats,” presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke explored at a recent Iowa campaign stop, “five justices selected by Republicans, and those ten then pick five more justices independent of those who picked the first ten?”
Beto, meet FDR.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried something similar with the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, which would have added six new justices to the nine-justice U.S. Supreme Court. Dubbed “court-packing” at the time, it failed in the Senate, even though FDR’s Democratic Party controlled that chamber.
The gambit may have been the most unpopular action of FDR’s whopping three-plus terms through depression and war. And, as the Washington Post noted, the idea “fell into lengthy disrepute after 1937.”
Enter today’s wildly “woke” Democratic Party.
“We should be talking even about expanding the number of people who serve on the Supreme Court,” former Attorney General Eric Holder has been telling audiences, “if there is a Democratic president and a Congress that would do that.”
Once considered a likely presidential candidate, Holder has announced he will not run — meaning he truly believes in the terrible policies he advocates. You will remember that months ago he made a splash telling Democrats that when Republicans “go low,” Democrats should “kick them.”
“That’s what this new Democratic Party is about,” he added.
Despite the obviousness of this group-interested power grab, “Sens. Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand . . . would not rule out expanding the Supreme Court if elected president,” Politico reported. Ditto even for dark horse candidate Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana.
“It’s not just about expansion, it’s about depoliticizing the Supreme Court,” Sen. Warren explained . . . with a straight face.
The Constitution establishes an independent judiciary. Beto’s suggested “reform” would scuttle any last shred of independence in interpreting the law, transforming the nation’s highest court into a specifically partisan institution.
Like so many modern federal agencies, it would be designed to represent and protect the two-party power structure.
But this is really an attempt to strike back after previous political losses. “Democrats cannot sit back and accept the status quo of a partisan Republican five-seat majority for the next 30 years,” insists Brian Fallon, a former Hillary Clinton advisor who now heads the group Demand Justice.
As for predicting the next three decades, this hack’s crystal ball may be no more accurate than the computer models used by climate scientists. But there is now, unmistakably, a conservative majority, with those five justices chosen by Republican presidents against four liberal justices chosen by Democrats.
And the Democrats cannot stand it.
Moreover, it can be changed. The number of justices on the High Court has been set at nine for a century and a half. Sure, that’s tradition. But it was set in 1869 by statute; it can be altered by a new statute, passed by a majority vote of both houses of Congress and signed by the president.
If Democrats win the White House in 2020 as well as gain the U.S. Senate, they could then completely remake the SCOTUS. Indeed, that is what they are threatening to do.
They make Republicans seem laggard. After all, during President Trump’s first two years in office, congressional Republicans could have passed a statute, which the president could have signed, allowing for two or three or four — or 124 — more justices.
Can you imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth?
From Democrats, I mean. And from the mainstream media.
Should Democrats win the next election and re-create the Court, what seems certain is blowback the next time Republicans re-gain control of both the White House and Congress. We would then witness a Supreme Court whiplashed, tit-for-tat, between one partisan political master or the other.
The number of justices should be placed in the Constitution to avoid this very sort of partisan war. I’m not holding my breath, though, because that requires a constitutional amendment, meaning a two-thirds vote of both chambers of Congress and ratification by at least 38 states.
Court-packing, on the other hand, requires nothing more than a simple majority of both houses of Congress and the presidency. Which makes this next election very critical to the future of the judiciary.
“You need to gain power,” Washington Examiner columnist Philip Wegmann reminds, “before you can abuse it.”
So, all this abuse, at least for now, remains a “mere” Democratic political promise.
It seems they are a day late and a Justice short. President Trump has beat them to it.
He did it with the help of Senator Mitch McConnell and the Republican Senate
What a bunch of packers.
I’d rather see the list of Democrats who don’t want to pack the Supreme Court. I can’t believe this article was even posted by them...the next one will be about the sky is blue.
Supreme Court, congressional districts, 16 year-old voting age, Electoral College.....almost think democrats put themselves together a little a power grab strategy. Anything in store for the Senate?
Not necessarily. Alternatively, require 2/3 of the States. Would be a great Nelson "Ha! Ha!" from the States to Congress, should it go this route.
There are N ways to make the cold civil war hot.
This is in that set of N.
It seems likely that things will get hot. I don’t know when, but it’s moving in that direction.
President Trump did not pack the court. He nominated Justices for existing vacancies.
I love this statement from the story ...
““Democrats cannot sit back and accept the status quo of a partisan Republican five-seat majority for the next 30 years,” insists Brian Fallon, a former Hillary Clinton advisor who now heads the group Demand Justice.”
Inferring that the Republicans should just sit back and suck it up for the next 30 some odd years when the Dems pack the court giving them 10 partisan Dem justices?
Do these people ever sit back and listen to their own idiotic comments?
The notion that policies that have insufficient political support to be enacted into law should instead be backdoored through the Judiciary is a pernicious affront to the Separation of Powers doctrine. It's not the Court's job to "legalize" anything. That's the job of the legislature. If something has insufficient political support to become law, tough. That's the way representation is supposed to work.
The effect of a Conservative majority on the Court will not be to "legislate from the right", as the fearmongers pretend, but rather for the Court to force Congress to do their job and take political responsibility for legislative action--something that both parties are clearly loathe to do.
I wonder what makes them think that anyone would obey anything from a packed court?
Dear American Nazis,
If you think you are going to rule me, you got another think coming.
You are correct. President Trump can only replace one Supreme court justice at a time, not all of them at once.
“Supreme Court, congressional districts, 16 year-old voting age, Electoral College.....almost think democrats put themselves together a little a power grab strategy. Anything in store for the Senate?”
Democrats should shout this from the rooftops. It still won’t get 2/3 of the House and Senate along with 38 Governors to change it.
A New Deal Constitution
by H.L. Mencken
This satirical piece first appeared in The American Mercury, 41 (June 1937), 129-36, and was reprinted in condensed form by The Reader’s Digest, 31 (July 1937), 27-29.
The principal cause of the uproar in Washington is a conflict between the swift- moving idealism of the New Deal and the unyielding hunkerousness of the Constitution of 1788. What is needed, obviously, is a wholly new Constitution, drawn up with enough boldness and imagination to cover the whole program of the More Abundant Life, now and hereafter.
That is what I presume to offer here. The Constitution that follows is not my invention, and in more than. one detail I have unhappy doubts of its wisdom. But I believe that it sets forth with reasonable accuracy the plan of government that the More Abundant Life wizards have sought to substitute for the plan of the Fathers. They have themselves argued at one time or another, by word or deed, for everything contained herein:
PREAMBLE
We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish social justice, draw the fangs of privilege, effect the redistribution of property, remove the burden of liberty from ourselves and our posterity, and insure the continuance of the New Deal, do ordain and establish this Constitution.
ARTICLE I
The Executive
All governmental power of whatever sort shall be vested in a President of the United States. He shall hold office during a series of terms of four years each, and shall take the following oath: “I do solemnly swear that I will (in so far as I deem it feasible and convenient) faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will (to the best of my recollection and in the light of experiment and second thought) carry out the pledges made by me during my campaign for election (or such of them as I may select).”
The President shall be commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy, and of the militia, Boy Scouts, C.I.O., People’s Front, and other armed forces of the nation.
The President shall have the power: To lay and collect taxes, and to expend the income of the United States in such manner as he may deem to be to their or his advantage;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States, and to provide for its repayment on such terms as he may fix;
To regulate all commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and within them; to license all persons engaged or proposing to engage in business; to regulate their affairs; to limit their profits by proclamation from time to time; and to fix wages, prices and hours of work;
To coin money, regulate the content and value thereof, and of foreign coin, and to amend or repudiate any contract requiring the payment by the United States, or by any private person, of coin of a given weight or fineness;
To repeal or amend, in his discretion, any so-called natural law, including Gresham’s law, the law of diminishing returns, and the law of gravitation.
The President shall be assisted by a Cabinet of eight or more persons, whose duties shall be to make speeches whenever so instructed and to expend the public funds in such manner as to guarantee the President’s continuance in office.
The President may establish such executive agencies as he deems necessary, and clothe them with such powers as he sees fit. No person shall be a member to any such bureau who has had any practical experience of the matters he is appointed to deal with.
One of the members of the Cabinet shall be an Attorney General. It shall be his duty to provide legal opinions certifying to the constitutionality of all measures undertaken by the President, and to gather evidence of the senility of judges.
ARTICLE II
The Legislature
The legislature of the United States shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives. Every bill shall be prepared under the direction of the President, and transmitted to the two Houses at his order by their presiding officers. No member shall propose any amendment to a bill without permission in writing from the President or one of his authorized agents. In case any member shall doubt the wisdom of a bill he may apply to the President for light upon it, and thereafter he shall be counted as voting aye. In all cases a majority of members shall be counted as voting aye.
Both Houses may appoint special committees to investigate the business practices, political views, and private lives of any persons known to be inimical to the President; and such committees shall publish at public cost any evidence discovered that appears to be damaging to the persons investigated.
Members of both Houses shall be agents of the President in the distribution of public offices, federal appropriations, and other gratuities in their several states, and shall be rewarded in ratio to their fidelity to his ideals and commands.
ARTICLE III
The Judiciary
The judges of the Supreme Court and of all inferior courts shall be appointed by the President, and shall hold their offices until he determines by proclamation that they have become senile. The number of judges appointed to the Supreme Court shall be prescribed by the President, and may be changed at his discretion. All decisions of the Supreme Court shall be unanimous.
The jurisdiction and powers of all courts shall he determined by the President. No act that he has approved shall be declared unconstitutional by any court.
ARTICLE IV
Bill of Rights
There shall be complete freedom of speech and of the press – subject to such regulations as the President or his agents may from time to time promulgate.
The freedom of communication by radio shall not be abridged; but the President and such persons as he may designate shall have the first call on the time of all stations.
In disputes between capital and labor, all the arbitrators shall be representatives of labor.
Every person whose annual income fans below a minimum to be fixed by the President shall receive from the public funds an amount sufficient to bring it up to that minimum.
No labor union shall be incorporated and no officer or member thereof shall be accountable for loss of life or damage to person or property during a strike.
All powers not delegated herein to the President are reserved to him, to be used at his discretion.
Henry Louis “H. L.” Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956), was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic of American life and culture, and a student of American English. Mencken, known as the “Sage of Baltimore”, is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prose stylists of the first half of the 20th century.
and then the Republicans will pack the court and so on and so on etc etc ,LOL
Trump’s ability to appoint USSC judges is probably the thing libs hate the most. The appointment of non-liberal judges will hopefully keep the fellow travelers from forcing their agenda on the country for generations. At least I hope it does.
The Democratic party has declare war on the representative government of America! Destroying the electoral college, packing the Supreme court, and allowing foreign invaders to vote. This is a full out assault on our country. Time to declare it a subversive organization and terrorist organization. People do not surrender your weapons. Stand by free speech, the.Constitution. It is time to vote every one of them out office.
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