251–260 of 382 posts
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Point of Inquiry, Is there a parliamentarian in the house? There may be one or more ways to force McConnell's hand.
The president can use a recess appointment. It would probably end up looking worse than blocking a nomination for 11 months so it seems unlikely, if technically possible.
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Where ballots aren't sufficiently clear to voters, they should be made so. Well there's the problem. What do you do when you have ballots that are objectively unclear, like the infamous butterfly ballot? You can't invalidate the election and have a new one--apart from the logistical problems, the turnout is going to differ significantly based on the media attention and the knowledge that the cancelled ballots were so…
"objectively unclear, like the infamous butterfly ballot" I saw a reproduction of this ballot in the newspaper at the time and I remember wondering what the problem was supposed to be. It seemed perfectly clear, but journalists were jumping on the bandwagon of calling it confusing.
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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…
No no no. This thinking is sideways. The injustice of the removal of freedom from an innocent person trumps tradition. The Founding Fathers et al so disliked the injustice of tradition they started a new country. To your other point about being unaccountable, the Supreme Court is checked by the balance of power between the three branches as much as the other two are. They aren't all-powerful beings, and I've seen it…
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Won't they be under an awful lot of pressure considering it will be obvious they are obstructing normal business?
I said this above, but I'll repeat: if they do not reject, their Republican base will revolt and not vote in the upcoming election. They will absolutely be expected to reject and oppose until Obama is out of office. There are 2 sides in the political game, remember. And since supreme court nominations are so important, and this changes the balance, voters will demand they reject his nominees.
The upcoming election is a general election; they need to appeal to more than their base. In the past year the Republicans in Congress have been trying to shed their obstructionist, irresponsible reputation as the party that shuts down government, holds the solvency of the U.S. hostage, etc.
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
Of course. The question is, why do the Democrats let the GOP get ahead of and frame every debate? Will they roll over this time or draw every bit of blood they can and make this position cost the GOP more and more politically until they give in.
Unfortunately, I would not be surprised if they roll over. You'll know they did if they don't respond soon to McConnell, or not with an effective message, and Obama nominates someone as far to the right as he can stand.
I usually disagreed with Scalia, but I have tons of respect for the man. He's always struck me as one of the best examples of the idea that two intelligent, educated people with reasonable minds may legitimately come to different conclusions about the same set of facts. I also found when reading transcripts of oral arguments that Scalia was really terrifically funny pretty often. Once, I was doing some computer repai…
Then came Eldred v. Ashcroft. Larry Lessig, argued the case before the Supreme Court. In his retrospective on the case [1], Lessig describes how he built his argument on the Lopez/Morrison line of decisions which said that Congress's enumerated powers had to be interpeted so that they are structurally limited. In Lopez/Morrison, Scalia agreed with the argument that Congress can't regulate whatever they want simply by declaring it to be related to interstate commerce. Lessig's argument in Eldred was that a similar structural limit should apply to the copyright power: Congress shouldn't be able to establish effectively unlimited copyright "on the installment plan".
I want to be clear what I am claiming here. I'm not saying Scalia was intellectually dishonest because Lessig lost. I'm claiming it because (as described in the retrospective) the Court didn't even address his core argument. Even if Ginsburg didn't want to include it in her majority opinion (perhaps because she didn't agree with the Lopez/Morrison decisions), Scalia could have explained why Eldred was different in a concurrence, but he didn't. That's where I see the intellectual dishonesty.
[1] http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/March-April-2004/story_le...
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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…
People have very large disagreements over what is morally right.
In the American system of government, it's the role of the legislature to ensure that the laws represent some consensus of justice and morality. It's the role of the judiciary to resolve ambiguity and contradiction in those laws. If the judiciary were to rule based on their subjective views of morality, it would subvert the will of the people, as expressed in laws and constitutional amendments passed by the legislature (and legislatures of the states).
The courts are courts of law instead of courts of morality or justice, largely due to interpretation of morality and justice being much more problematic and arbitrary than interpretation of laws. It's the role of the legislature, not the judiciary, to determine consensus views of justice and morality.
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Totally agree. The stay he supported on the Florida recount was rampant federal interference in a state matter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore#Stay_of_the_Flori... Indirectly, he gave us eight years of incompetence and Iraq, a horrible farce of a war.
This comment needs to be better supported. It is intuitive that votes for POTUS would be a federal matter, and Wikipedia does not mention a jurisdictional issue for that case, nor any other federal interference conflict whatsoever. Also, singling out Scalia when four other justices voted with him is biased. It is also an incredible stretch to cast responsibility for an incompetence in handling an unanticipated war on…
I usually disagreed with Scalia, but I have tons of respect for the man. He's always struck me as one of the best examples of the idea that two intelligent, educated people with reasonable minds may legitimately come to different conclusions about the same set of facts. I also found when reading transcripts of oral arguments that Scalia was really terrifically funny pretty often. Once, I was doing some computer repai…
The outcomes are pre-determined. Then they have to work backwards to justify them. It is extremely obvious when you read e.g. the Dred Scott or Korematsu decisions that were decided a long time ago, but it is still very obvious when you read recent decisions like Obergefell or Citizens United.
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A liberal would never elect a conservative and vice versa, but there's an expectation to maintain the court's approximate balance (which is why Scalia's death is such a big deal). So if a very right-leaning justice stepped down under a liberal president, he'd elect a center / center-left justice. If the most left-wing justice in the world stepped down, then a left-wing president could elect the most left-leaning pers…
Can you provide an example of when this has happened?