US Elections 2020

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Originally Posted by Stavros

I can't comment on Ruth Bader Ginsburg because I know little about her other than what I have seen on tv this evening. It poses a dilemma for the Senate with regard to both the timing issue as far as the selection process is concerned, and the possibility that the outcome of the election might depend on a Supreme Court vote.

Perhaps the President will nominate either his eldest son or Ivana, on the basis that his favourite States such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE are run as family firms, and maybe it is time for the USA to try it out?

Whaddaya think?

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Completely agree that it does poses a dilemma for the US Senate with regard to the timing of the election process,and the possibility that the outcome of the presidential election might depend on a Supreme Court vote,I think that the Demagouge And Malignant Narcissist and Pathological Liar Donald Trump is going to nominate a conservative judge to fill Ruth Bader Ginsberg's seat, and his loyal enabler Moscow Mitch is going to bring it to the Senate floor for a vote,and try to ram it through before election day as a favor to his so-called leader.

https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/09/j...on-dies-at-87/

This was a good short write up on Ginsburg's life and tenure on the court. Mitch McConnell said within an hour of her death that they were going to try to get her successor confirmed before the next president takes office despite the fact that in 2016 Scalia's seat became empty with many more months to the election. Mitch invented some rule about not nominating a new Justice in the year of an election but I'm sure there's some loophole or reason he thinks it doesn't apply here. Or maybe they're just corrupt enough that they don't care to even explain why they shouldn't follow the principle they invented.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/09/j...on-dies-at-87/

This was a good short write up on Ginsburg's life and tenure on the court. Mitch McConnell said within an hour of her death that they were going to try to get her successor confirmed before the next president takes office despite the fact that in 2016 Scalia's seat became empty with many more months to the election. Mitch invented some rule about not nominating a new Justice in the year of an election but I'm sure there's some loophole or reason he thinks it doesn't apply here. Or maybe they're just corrupt enough that they don't care to even explain why they shouldn't follow the principle they invented.

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Not surprised at all that Moscow Mitch said that him and his cohorts were going to try and get a successor confirmed before the next president takes office,they are also the same ones who refused to hold a hearing to confirm Barack Obama's nomination for the Supreme Court Merrick Garland back in 2016,but they sure had no problem confirming Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanagh though,the Republican Controlled Senate is corrupt and doesn't care to explain why they shouldn't follow the principle they invented.

I am probably missing something here, but it seems to me that when it is said RBG's replacement will define the law for a generation, I am not sure how.
It is the case that Conservative Justices do not automatically 'toe the line' on judicial decision, as has happened so many times in the past, and I think Justice Roberts voted against some aspect of the President's law-making this year or last year. What strikes me about the Supeme Court since 2017, is not that they are repealing historic laws, but declining to defend them when such laws appear to be violated or undermined by States, the two most obvious being Abortion, and Voting Rights.

It thus appears that to undermine the historic laws of the 1960s, the Supreme Court actually does nothing, but defers to the State, so that as with the re-definition of term limits that makes an Abortion all but impossible, there is no need to repeal Roe-v-Wade, or in the case of voter suppression, the Voting Rghts Act of 1965 need not be repealed as State's can decide who can or cannot be on the electoral register and if they flagrantly violate the 1965 law, they know the Supreme Court will do nothing about it.

Two more things I take away from today's coverage-

1) Lindsay Graham having dug a hole for himself with his plea 'use my words against me', must find that people do; though I am sure he will find another set of words that relieves him of the embarrassing position in which, on his own evidence, no replacement for RBG should be made until 2021, but the words will not be 'I resign my seat'.

2) Is it not the case that the Constitution does not specify how many Justices sit on the Supreme Court? If he wanted to, could President Biden increase the number from 9 to 11, or 13?

Why is it, that when this President breaks conventions, the Democrats don't do so too?

Last thought -I read someone wants Michelle Obama to be nominated, ho-ho. I was sort of joking with my previous post on this, as the hot favourite so far is as Amy Barrett -one of the Roman Catholics who have ascended to the top tiers of power in the USA, confirming that the historic hostility to Catholics in the USA appears to have abated.

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Originally Posted by Stavros

It thus appears that to undermine the historic laws of the 1960s, the Supreme Court actually does nothing, but defers to the State, so that as with the re-definition of term limits that makes an Abortion all but impossible, there is no need to repeal Roe-v-Wade, or in the case of voter suppression, the Voting Rghts Act of 1965 need not be repealed as State's can decide who can or cannot be on the electoral register and if they flagrantly violate the 1965 law, they know the Supreme Court will do nothing about it.

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This is right. What would happen with Roe is that a state could just pass a law that makes abortion illegal. Or make it impermissibly difficult to get an abortion. Someone would sue the state in federal court and the federal district could provide an injunction against enforcement of the law. If the District Court doesn't provide an injunction (the first layer of breakdown imo), it can get appealed to the Circuit Court of Appeals, which is the first level of appeal in federal cases. And if they don't act, the Supreme Court does not have to take the case. The Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction is discretionary. To hear it four Justices would have to grant a writ of certiorari, which then puts it before the court.

Another way it could happen though is that a ban on abortion could be struck down on appeal and the Supreme Court does grant writ so they can overturn Roe.

You are absolutely right though that the Supreme Court could allow the stripping of protections through inaction. Trump has not just started to stack the Supreme Court but other federal courts as well. In Pennsylvania, one of his appointments said that certain shutdowns of non-essential businesses is unconstitutional even though there's no case law or reasoning that justifies that view.

I do think Roberts is an honest man though I don't agree with his judicial philosophy. I think Gorsuch seems like a fairly honest jurist but with a fairly extreme judicial philosophy. I don't feel that way about Kavanagh who strikes me as an unprincipled, somewhat amoral person.

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Originally Posted by Stavros

2) Is it not the case that the Constitution does not specify how many Justices sit on the Supreme Court? If he wanted to, could President Biden increase the number from 9 to 11, or 13?

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The Constitution says that Congress can decide the size of the Supreme Court. The law that created a Supreme Court with 9 Justices was the Judiciary Act which was passed in 1869.

If the Republicans really want to say that they feel it's okay to set out a principle that was arbitrary to begin with and then only follow it when it benefits them, I believe Democrats should say they will play politics as well. They could create a Supreme Court with 15 Justices and have Biden immediately appoint 6 of them.

Of course, such a law would be based on backlash to Republican's actions with respect to Garland and now Ginsburg's appointment and would require a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress to pass since no Republican would vote for it.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

The Constitution says that Congress can decide the size of the Supreme Court. The law that created a Supreme Court with 9 Justices was the Judiciary Act which was passed in 1869.

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Thank you for these insights. I have looked up the 1869 Act, and wonder, if a new Administration seeks to expand the Supreme Court, say, to 13, would it also have to increase the number of Circuit Courts across the USA? And why are there only 9 for the whole country anyway?

One other thing: why put up a statue to RBG? Have we not leared how problematic statues are becoming? My view on this, for what it's worth, is that in Ancient Egypt and Greece, Statues were either exclusively of Gods or unknown 'types' -eg, warrior, young girl, boy etc- or in the case of Egypt the Pharoahs, such as Ramses II who were Gods in Human Form, or humans who became Gods. This is crucial in Ancient Rome which has multiple statues of the Gods and Goddessees, and later of humans such as Julius Caesar-who wanted to be seen and remembered as Divine. I believe this concept of sanctity has been part of the Statue Culture in Europe with the regrettable fact that a large number of people in the UK have been 'immortallised' in Statue form who would be best forgotten.

One curious fact here, is that in all of France, there are only two Statues of Napoleon Bonaparte -one is in the Invalides, the other in the Louvre- there are none in public.

It might be better to re-name a street after RBG, rather than build a statue. That's my two-cents worth.

I'm putting the nomination of the Supreme Court Justice, most likely Amy Coney Barrett, in a thread about the election because the nominee will probably be confirmed no matter what happens during the confirmation process.

My objection to the nomination is not the proximity of it to the election but that Republicans invoked a rule that only applies to Democrats. I actually think it's a nonsense rule to begin with. The President has a mandate throughout his term.

I'm sure Amy Coney Barrett will be an awful Justice and cause all sorts of problems over her tenure but I wonder whether there is anything Democrats can do to prevent her appointment. If the answer is no, they should not heavily contest the confirmation process. Everyone always ends up sympathizing with a person being grilled. Unless you uncover treason or that she tortured animals, it will be politically unpopular to grandstand, even if you think that's what the moment calls for.

There's simply no procedural or substantive way to prevent her appointment, no matter how awful it is. And the election coming up is the only thing we have control over. The outcome of that election will be sensitive to public perception about the conduct of congressmen in the Democratic party, fair or not.

The only chance the Democrats had at stopping Barrett's nomination was 4 years ago. But some Democratic voters decided to make excuses for not voting for Hillary Clinton and stayed home on Election Day. You reap what you sow.


As for how the Democrats should conduct themselves during the confirmation hearings, they should debate her on legal briefs and/or decisions and do their best to leave her religious beliefs out of it. Only make it an issue if Barrett makes it an issue.

As my impression so far is that she promotes herself as a moral guardian with regard to Abortion, albeit one who seeks to remove the rights if US citizens when they become pregnant, the line of questioning that might make her uncomfortable would ask why she has accepted the nomination from someone so corrupt.

For example, she could be asked if she agrees the Federal Election Law of 1971 makes it illegal for an American election candidate to canvass or receive support from a foreign national during an election, and then be asked to confirm that the FBI was entitled to investigate the Republican Party’s 2016 campaign for violating that law. She could be asked to confirm that both the Mueller Report and the Senate Intelligence Committee Report documented illegality noting at least 11 counts of Obstruction of Justice, and then be asked why the President was impeached.

What respectable judge would want to be nominated to the Supreme Court by a man who has violated his oath of office, who has never read the Constitution, and doesn’t think its provisions apply to him?

Why would a respectable judge Promoting her personal, Roman Catholic Morals, want to be nominated by a man who has described Americans as “total scum, they’re human scum”; and who has retweeted a description of the former First Lady of the USA and Senator for New York State and Presidential candidate, as a “skank”?

And why would such a morally decent woman want to be nominated by a tax cheat? There is a crook in the White House who could also be a traitor- does she want to be known hereafter as ‘the Traitor’s Judge”?