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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

nytimes.com

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Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#161

Post by tptacek »

dlandis wrote: post #155
barney54 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Senator McConnell has announced that the Senate won't take up a Supreme Court nomination this year. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CbIYaMiW4AIU4ZB.jpg

That's not really what that quote says. It sounds more like he is expressing an opinion about what should happen.

He's the Senate Majority Leader and the official spokesperson for Republicans in the Senate. The fact that he said it right away, after two GOP Senators who are also viable Presidential candidates said it as well, is a pretty strong indication of what's going to happen.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#162

Post by tome »

vonnik wrote: post #4

Let's remember him as the man who opposed marriage equality and help to appoint George W. Bush president. http://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/feb/13/supreme-court-jus... "Maybe, in death, Scalia will meet the original Constitution framers and find out their true intent. Assuming they too are burning in hell" -- https://twitter.com/lindsaygoldwert/status/69863873479173324...

Good grief, those replies. Not a particularly pleasant comment but she is a comedian ...

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#163

Post by rosser »

barney54 wrote: post #141
liquidise wrote: post #45

This will likely result in a major political shift of the court. Even if Obama places a staunch centrist, it will be a net left swing, as Scalia was perhaps the second most conservative justice beside Thomas. There have been a great deal of 5-4 decisions since Sotomayor's nomination that in the future could easily fall the other way.

Senator McConnell has announced that the Senate won't take up a Supreme Court nomination this year. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CbIYaMiW4AIU4ZB.jpg

That's not a "won't", it's a "Mitch McConnell thinks we shouldn't."

Those two sets intersect rather less than the Honorable Gentleman from Kentucky would like.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#164

Post by bradleyjg »

tome wrote: post #154
bradleyjg wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scalia was foremost an advocate of judicial restraint, who believed that the further the Courts stretched interpreting law, the more vulnerable the Courts become to the animosities of the Executive and Legislative branches. I don't think that's accurate. There is a position, albeit more in the academy than on the bench, that holds that judges should only in the rarest of circumstances hold that the actions of the oth…

> I don't think that's accurate. There is a position, albeit more in the academy than on the bench, that holds that judges should only in the rarest of circumstances hold that the actions of the other branches are unconstitutional. Scalia can't fairly be described as being an adherent of that school. My understanding was that Scalia himself explicitly claimed to be following this philosophy. What makes you say otherw…

The evidence says otherwise. Scalia voted to strike down laws or held executive actions unconstitutional many times over the course of his career. At some point "the rarest of circumstances" has to have some bite. I'm sure he would have argued that he was compelled to do so by the text of the constitution and by the flagrant unconstitutionality of those laws/actions, but I don't think that's a good answer. He may have wished that circumstances would have allowed him to be an avatar of judicial restraint but regardless that's not what happened.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#165

Post by scrollaway »

tptacek wrote: post #105
themartorana wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Text, tradition, and contemporary practice being far more important than justice, to Scalia.

Text and tradition are uniquely important to the Supreme Court, whose members hold almost absolutely unaccountable lifetime appointments and the power to overrule Congress and thus shape the actions of the administration. Without rigorous traditions and principles, they're a panel of philosopher-kings. More so than in any other government position, it is possible for a Supreme Court justice to be wrong on the substan…

The HN timing is interesting what with the sci-hub story still being on the front page. It's in that very thread that there was intense (and quite correct) discussion on the difference between justice and law.

Texts, traditions and principles are references. Sometimes they're wrong. Also, as a non-american I find it absolutely absurd that for a lot of people there is this fascination with "the constitution" as being this all-powerful scripture and that's what the supreme court is supposed to defend, not the more abstract aspects of morality.

It's all nonsense of course - all supreme justices know exactly what kind of power they have, why they have it and how to use it ... and the constitution is really just a reference.

I remember reading some of Scalia's comments (I believe on marriage equality) explaining away how the supreme court should not "redefine" etc but as another poster said, it's easy to say that when convenient and forget it when even more convenient. Those comments could be applied to just about every single case...

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#166

Post by peeters »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #145

A dumb hypothetical because this will never happen, but: could Obama nominate himself to replace Scalia? And if the Senate somehow approved him, would he have to resign the presidency to take his spot on the bench? I don't see anything in the eligibility requirements to be President or a judge of the Supreme Court that would suggest an incompatibility. Is there relevant case law?

IIRC from a West Wing episode (where spoiler, the Speaker of the House becomes president due to an invocation of the 25th Amendment) one cannot serve two branches of the government at the same time. I'll try to find the law that backs that up.

Edit: I think the rule in question is the Ineligibility Clause: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ineligibility_Clause. Contrary to how it was phrased in the WW, this seems to only affect serving in the Legislative branch and the Judicial or Executive branch at the same time. I don't think it in itself puts limit on serving in the Executive and Judicial branches simultaneously.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#167

Post by lawnchair_larry »

rrggrr wrote: post #25

Scalia was foremost an advocate of judicial restraint, who believed that the further the Courts stretched interpreting law, the more vulnerable the Courts become to the animosities of the Executive and Legislative branches. The Judiciary, Scalia understood, was the least powerful and most vulnerable of the three branches of government, and its strength and influence rests in its artful and judicious use of its very,…

He absolutely was not. He was an advocate of interpreting original intent to align with his bigoted social and religious views, voting accordingly, and averting responsibility by acting as though he was merely honoring the intent. When that play wasn't available, he was a fan of playing the "states rights" card.

Truly remarkable were his mental gymnastics allowing him to justify his activism as one of the above. Perhaps his strongest performance was his conclusion that money is speech, corporations are people, and therefore corporations are not to be limited in using their cash for political influence. But he helped the Koch brothers with fundraising, who were the biggest beneficiaries of that decision, so clearly he had to convince himself that what he decided made sense somehow.

Unsurprisingly, he can barely maintain that position with a straight face when confronted head on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgQGJjQq4uk

Anonymous money via a corporate entity isn't a problem because "the reporters can find out" and the amount of money spent to influence politics is insignificant because "we probably spend more on cosmetics anyway". People really look up to this guy?

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#168

Post by tptacek »

trobertson wrote: post #62
gk1 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Republicans oppose the nomination, that could be used as political leverage against them during the election. "Them" being Republicans, or Democrats? Trying to understand.

It will be interpreted as Republicans shutting down the government... again. Moderates and Independents, and Centrists on both sides tend to strongly dislike that, and it could swing the election to a Democrat victory.

No it won't. The Supreme Court will function just fine with one open seat. Ties affirm whatever the lower court decided. Whole Supreme Court terms have elapsed, within the last 50 years, with empty seats.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#169

Post by ikeboy »

[deleted] wrote: post #156
barney54 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Senator McConnell has announced that the Senate won't take up a Supreme Court nomination this year. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CbIYaMiW4AIU4ZB.jpg

[deleted]

A quick look over http://politicalgraveyard.com/offices/pdio3.html says nobody has died in office in a presidential election year in the last century, so the circumstance is itself unprecedented in modern times.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#170

Post by wildmusings »

dalke wrote: post #138
wildmusings wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe a privately run recount was conducted afterwards and Bush still won.

Depends on your standard and which recount you look at. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_election_recount#Post-... : > under the strictest standard, where only a cleanly punched ballot with a fully removed chad was counted, Gore won by three votes.[38] Under all other standards, Bush won, with Bush's margin increasing as looser standards were used. ... because of the possibility of mistakes, it is difficult…

Very interesting. My own thoughts on this are that we should not be trying to determine intent on improperly filled ballots. In the same way that I'm responsible for getting myself to the voting booth, I am responsible for filling out my ballot properly. If I fail at that, my vote won't be registered. Where ballots aren't sufficiently clear to voters, they should be made so.
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