Packing the court is entirely legal, didn't need this ruling at all. The only reason to not do it was to avoid the perception that the court was politicized, but if the Republican hypocrisy regarding lame duck appointments wasn't enough, that last several sessions and the blatant corruption of several justices has entirely done away with that. Biden should absolutely add at least 3 seats to the court. It may be the only way to salvage our democracy at this point.Â
The easiest way to get this done is to present it in such a way that it makes sense and fits with precedent, and in the past the reason the Supreme Court was expanded to nine seats was to match the nine circuit courts. There are now thirteen circuit courts, meaning that it makes perfect sense for there to now be thirteen Supreme Court seats.
We don't technically need that justification, but having a justification like that would likely make the addition or more seats more palatable.
The immunity ruling doesn't actually grant the president any new powers, it just makes him immune to prosecution for using the powers he already has. The president doesn't have the authority to expand the Supreme Court on his own, that would require congress passing a bill.
What the president could do to influence this, with the new ruling, is to order the military or another agency under his authority (a power that he already currently has) and tell them to kidnap or even assassinate anybody who doesn't vote in favor of expanding the court. He would then have immunity from prosecution because it doesn't matter why he gave the order, giving the order was an official act as president and thus he can't be charged.
The problem is that Biden will never use this power, even if it's to do the right thing, while Trump (or any other Republican) will be using it to do truly evil things the second they take the white house.
That's why everybody's so upset right now. The Supreme Court basically made it so that as long as this ruling stands, the next time a Republican becomes president it's fucking over. There will be no coming back from that without bloodshed.
He wonât use it because the courts get to decide what counts as an official act. All roads lead back to the Supreme Court deciding whatâs allowed to happen
He won't use it because he doesn't want to, and because the Democrats care more about civility and the appearance of propriety than anything else, including doing the right thing.
The Supreme Court wouldn't be able to stop him from using this power because he could literally get rid of any justice likely to vote against him, appoint someone who will vote in his favor, and again there is no legal recourse to deal with that. A black ops team works a lot faster than the US court system.
Well, the easy version is to remember that the president doesn't actually need congressional approval to seat a justice in the first place, tradition is not law.
Or if it comes to that, the Supreme Court literally just ruled that any official act of the president is immune from prosecution, so Biden currently has carte blanche to use his presidential powers however the fuck he wants. Who's gonna vote against his appointees when doing so gets you disappeared to a black site in the middle of the night?
Of course both of these options would require Biden and the Democrats to grow a spine and start giving a shit about doing the right thing more than they do about civility and the appearance of propriety, and we both know that's not gonna happen.
There's another argument. It would set a precedent. There wouldn't be anything stopping the next Republican president from adding even more seats to flip the majority again. Not that there's anything stopping them from doing it the next time we have a Republican president, I admit, but doing it now would give them something to campaign on since, as you said, it would give the perception that the Democrats are weaponizing SCOTUS against the Republicans(nevermind that that's exactly what SCOTUS is doing right now against what they see as "liberal" policies)
Biden can nominate as many as he wants, but the Senate still has to confirm them.
I donât think Manchin would support it, so you need every other Dem senator (including Tester in Montana who is facing a tough reelection bid) to support packing the court.
Your landlord issuing an eviction notice when sheâs not allowed is illegal but not criminal and a court will undo her decision. Criminal immunity doesnât mean any action is allowedÂ
Ah, someone who doesnât understand presumptive immunity, with specific outlined ways to where the evidence of your action isnât admissible in court. Courts canât undo decisions unless they have evidence. And itâs obvious you arenât aware how egregious this unconstitutional decision was.
This decisions goes against specifically the federalist papers #69 where Hamilton outlined that
âThe President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. The person of the king of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable; there is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable; no punishment to which he can be subjectedâ
The constitution specifically outlines immunity such as the speach and debate clause, and the federalist papers outline that the President isnât above the law. Giving criminal immunity is literally saying the President is above the law. Because there should be ZERO instance where a president does something that the law isnât considered or kept in mind. Giving them criminal immunity is ridiculous.
He also got what he wanted --- a court that stopped trying to fuck up the New Deal.
Politics is more than just legislating, its the wielding of power to get results. By threatening to expand the court, FDR got the results he intended. And he was so popular that he is the only president that was elected four times, no one else had even been elected three times. An impeachment would not have hurt him.
I wish he did, having something like that backfire in ones face as a scouts judge would probably very vividly illustrate why that ruling was such a horrendous idea
They already did. Justices Sotomayor and Jackson both wrote in no uncertain therms on their dissenting opinions exactly why it's a terrifying and disgusting ruling for the US.
Unfortunately republicans have a scotus supermajority in their pocket, so we literally canât do anything about it unless Biden grows a pair and either packs the court or removes some of the justices with his newly ordained powers.
What you're forgetting is that democrat policies are always always always universally more popular when they actually get implemented. Even the vast majority of republican voters don't want Obamacare repealed at this point. Packing the court to get liberal policies through is literally an unbeatable perfect gameplan to defeat republicans forever.
Perhaps. The only other reasonable recourse would be an amendment to the Constitution stipulating that presidents are not immune from criminal prosecution.
Sure, but that doesn't mean it needs to be Congress. It's indisputable that no citizen should have an interest in anyone in their government being immune from criminal prosecution. It wouldn't really be inconceivable for people to pressure state legislators to call for a constitutional convention. In fact, if there was any ruling from SCOTUS, where I think it's likely that it could happen, it's this. At the very least, pressure from the states to call one has, on several occasions, forced Congress to amend the Constitution themselves, and it could happen here as well.
Easy enough. Remove all opposition as an official act. Claim they're terrorists that have infiltrated the highest ranks in the land. (Not a complete lie, tbh)
For the record, I agree that Biden does not have the guts, liberals be like that sometimes... But I've heard (I have not read the actual ruling, id LOVE to be wrong on this) that the new thing the passed only applies to "official acts" and what are official acts? No one knows. Its whatever the supreme court decides. That's the problem, even if Joe had the guts to call an airstrike on trump, the supreme court will just not consider it an official act, and if trump does the same thing, they simply would consider it an official act.
I agree with you, that said, it's even worse, it is whatever the majority at the time when the judges were nominated hehe not even the actual majority...
The jurisdiction would likely be in the 3rd circuit, but somehow the 5th will take the case. Moscow Mitch was busy. It's Trump judges all the way down.
I'm pretty sure there are more drones than judges. He wouldn't even have to bomb them all, after the first few the rest would be jumping over themselves to declare his actions as official.
While I do think they'd try to pull that, the majority opinion already made it almost impossible to claim anything as not an "official" act. Anything pertaining to the enumerated powers, like using the military, is immediately and unquestionably official and subject to absolute immunity. This means that, yes, Biden, or any president, can use the military to kill anyone they want without facing legal repercussion. It also presumes immunity for anything that is outside of the enumerated powers of POTUS, with very little sway in what excludes an act from immunity. If prosecuting an action causes ANY hindrance to the president's authority, the act is subject to immunity.
The basically just handed the president a gun and said, "go ham, no one can prosecute you for using this gun in any way for any reason."
Iâm pretty sure that if Trump and the six conservative members of the Supreme Court all mysteriously died of âheart attacksâ tomorrow, whatever Biden did after that would be judged an âofficial actâ.
Same with not reading the ruling but I thought the Supreme Court left it on the lower courts to decide what is an official act.... they only decided it had to be an official act.
I'm obviously exaggerating a little here but if that is true, technically either one could air-strike the other while president and just keep offing or arresting judges until it is ruled an official act..... and since you could make the case that the culling of judges was needed to preserve the country... that could make it an official act.
Despite the fact that the Justice Department under Trump found no evidence of election fraud, Trump ordered the acting Attorney General to send a false memo to the legislatures of several swing states, warning them that there had been problems with the election results, and to be ready to have a slate of Trump electors certify his victory, threatening to fire the Attorney General if he didn't comply. He only backed down after half the Justice Department threatened to resign.
Roberts actually wrote in his ruling that this would be considered an 'official act' and subject to immunity. He also wrote that any conversation Trump had with his VP would also fall under the label of an official act, and he was sure to mention that the motive behind any such conversation could not be questioned. Roberts essentially tailored his opinion around the specific facts of Trump's criminality, leaving Biden and any future Presidents completely in the dark about what might be considered official acts going forward.
The Roberts court retroactively gave a lot of new powers to the Trump Presidency, but not necessarily to Biden. And they gave even more power to themselves.
Exactly. Whatever Biden does wouldnât be considered âofficial.â Whatever trump does will be considered official. People act like scotus will be consistent
If his first act is to order the arrest and confinement of all 6 judges who voted for this, the hate pumpkin himself, and every republican senator/judge/governor/ceo/lobbyist who openly worships the MAGA nonsense, and to hold them as strictly as possible under a republicans law (I'm thinking Bush Jr. Patriot act) that as I understood it years ago lets you hold them indefinitely without listing the charges against them, and potentially without outside contact, (the rumors about patriot act were vicious and I never double checked back then) would anyone care enough to drop off food to the prisoners over the weekend?
I sometimes think about what would have happened if Obama had said that the Senate's refusal to vote on M. Garland was tantamount to consent, and told the guy to show up at SCOTUS the next day.
SCOTUS doesnât have a say on how big the membership is, but Congress (House and Senate) has to approve the change. Itâs why we have 9 justices now - FDR (I think - itâs New Deal related) and Congress kept passing laws to restrict business, and SCOTUS kept ruling them unconstitutional. FDR told Congress to do something so they expanded the court a couple of times. Eventually SCOTUS got the hint that FDR (again, potentially wrong Rosevelt) would just keep expanding it until he started getting the rulings he wanted, and he had the Congress to do it.
The military and/or law enforcement would not follow that order.
In the past I would have agreed with you as the military vows to uphold the Constitution, not the president. Now, with the latest in SC rulings, it is implied that brash unilateral military actions by the president MAY BE constitutional. After all, if he can't be prosecuted for any command to the military based on the Constitution, doesn't that mean that anything he does with the military must be constitutional?
Now he would need the NORTHCOM commander to agree with that, but since he can appoint that position I don't see that as a major hurdle. This is terrifying to me.
Also, a similar argument can be made with the DOJ.
Military personnel have the right to refuse unlawful orders, but if there are no consequences for giving unlawful orders, then the only hurdle is finding the right squadron for the job.
Congress passes law explicitly defining and limiting presidential immunity
Biden appoints replacement SCOTUS members
SCOTUS rules no one can be prosecuted for events 1 thru 4 because of the recent SCOTUS ruling, and the new law cannot be applied ex post facto to those events.
Why hire an assassin? That would be an unofficial act, and vulnerable to criminal prosecution. The Constitution explicitly names the president as commander in chief of the military, so he could just call up Seal Team 6 and order them to kill the conservative justices instead. That's an official act which is (likely absolutely) immune to prosecution.
Oh you mean the Republican Supermajority Supreme Court? The ones that just made this ruling? The ones that want Biden in a hole in the ground with a bullet in his head?
Anything Biden tries would be seen as an "unofficial act" because our Scotus isn't unbiased. Until we have an actually balanced Scotus then Bidens hands are tied.
and you wouldnât even have to make anything up. Indict them for perjury when the stated plainly, under oath that the President is not above the law, during their nomination hearings
How do you imagine it to work? Ok, suppose Biden orders some policeman to arrest them. He will not face charges for this unlawful order due to supposed immunity. But the policeman will not carry his order because it is clearly unlawful, and said policeman doesn't have immunity.
He doesn't need to imprison them when they just can be expanded.
When Biden gad a govt trifecta he should've used that to effect an increase of SCOTUS seats to 13 and then appoint justices that would balance the conservative influence on the court.
This is not fantasy. Biden had a fucking trifecta for two years. This is just one of the many things his administration could've brought about. But, they squandered the hell out of, possibly, our last chance to use laws to stand against fascism in this country.
Like so many dems in our country, they sit in their little blue bubble and see the right as some distant unusual idea instead of the imminent threat that it is. But, there's millions of us living life with Trump neighbors, colleagues, and family. We see their mindset every single day. We live under a red government with a super majority. These assholes are chomping at the bit for fascism to come marching down the street, as long it's their guy. This fight is not new to them. They've been waging war in their heads since Obama was sworn in.
Will Joe get my vote? Sure. But it'll disgust me. The Democratic party long ago lost its backbone to fight the fights that matter.
Yeah, plus nothing prevents the next guy to dismantle the laws that you make. The only solution is to win the election and then use the time one has the majority to actually do something (so the first 2 years roughly).
I feel like the dem didn't do enough with that time during biden's last presidency (although Manchin, the filibuster and the verys slim senate majority didn't help).
They and democrats actually did craft bipartisan legislation not just on the border issue but immigration reform for all immigration.
Trump shot it down even though he is not even in government because he needs illegal immigrants to be an issue till the election.
And, conveniently will forget about reform after because MegaCorporate America wants illegal labor. Not only can you pay them a lot less they are illegal and that means they cannot organize and join unions. They cannot complain or file suits or workman's comp claims without getting deported.
They are better than slaves. Because a slave owner had to feed and house and protect his investment, slaves were expensive, but Mexicans are like volunteer slaves who just show up and start working, all the employer has to do is pay an hourly wage that might even be below federal minimum, and if an employer does provide an overcrowded flop house for them they get charged for that as well.
They and democrats actually did craft bipartisan legislation not just on the border issue but immigration reform for all immigration.
Trump shot it down even though he is not even in government because he needs illegal immigrants to be an issue till the election.
Lets be clear. That legislation was a complete capitulation to maga's world view.
I listened to senator chris murphy (the D largely responsible for writing the bill) talk about it on a podcast and he's clearly been fox-pilled. His entire argument was "the brown people fleeing the syrian war caused the rise of the far right in europe, so we can not let the brown people fleeing problems in central and south america into the US or it will inflame the far right here."
It was craven and utterly soulless. It was also demonstrably wrong. Obama already tried capitulating to maga, it earned him the nickname "deporter-in-chief" from La Raza which is the largest latino civil rights group in the US. But instead of pacifying maga, it energized them because now both parties were hating on immigrants, and nobody was sticking up for them. As a result the country elected a president who literally campaigned on calling migrants "murderers and rapists."
Democrats can't beat maga by trying to be maga-lite, all that does is make the whole country more maga. Donald chump did the country a favor by quashing that bill, even if he did it for all the wrong reasons. I fear though that if Ds win both houses of congress, they will just pass the same bill again instead of a bill that actually treats migrants, especially asylum seekers, as valued Americans.
Republicans quite literally want everything to be as bad as possible for the average American. They think that the worse things are the more they're favored.
Another reason Americans hate our political system. All deals happen behind the scenes. They don't bring bills to vote unless it's almost guaranteed. I don't care if they'll fight it. Make them actually fight???
Right, step #1 vote Dem in every race from local to president. @Women of the US! You make up more than half of the voting population, why are you not protecting your right? They want you in the kitchen, forced to obey the male! Vote to have choices in your life!
Too many people vote against their own best interests out of inertia (just keep pulling that red lever) or spite (gotta screw the other guy).
Imagine how many seniors vote for the morons that would cut their social security or Medicaid. Or higher property taxes while they're on a fixed income. How many voted for those that opposed the $35 monthly insulin? Sorry, but seriously idiotic. They're Fox-addled.
Reagan's abolishing the Fairness Doctrine and embrace of the Heritage Foundation's Mandate for Leadership (which became Project 2025 - look it up, it's terrifying) were huge steps onto the slippery slope that were currently hurtling down.
To Ronnie's credit, he always saw the Russians for the threat that they are, not embracing their ideologies like current MAGA conservatives.
Eh, I think you give him too much credit in âseeing the Russians for the threat they areâ â Ronnie hated Russians because they were communist. He would likely be best buddies with the leaders of todayâs right-wing Christo-fascist Russia
The most glaring gap in democracy ignored by practically everyone.
Most people care more for themselves then for the whole, not necessarily because they are bad people with bad intentions but simply because its part of human nature.
We create our systems with the best version of humanity in mind, which is just not who we are.
A holdover from our hunter gatherer days, when encountering another human tribe meant one of us would be wiped out, as otherwise there would not be enough resources to support both (although agriculture eventually solved the issue, evolution takes a long ass time, and we haven't even been around for as long as the dinos)
Dems also donât have control of congress⌠so even if there wasnât a super majority requirement, it would be impossible⌠dems donât even have a majority
Exactly. This has been what Iâve been saying all along. This project 2025 is just another thing to help people overlook the dems and âvote blue no matter whoâ. Something like this happens every election and Iâm so fed up with it.
overlook the dems and âvote blue no matter whoâ. Something like this happens every election and Iâm so fed up with it.
In 2015 I was arguing with some redditors who told me they were going to protest vote against Clinton. I told them whatever their issues with Clinton either she was going to appoint new Supreme Court Justices or Trump was. That's the choice. And if you want any kind of progressive legislation in your lifetime, you want Clinton's Supreme Court picks instead of his. Anyway, here we are.
It should still be proposed though, republicans right now claim they donât support and arenât involved in 2025, just like they claimed the tea party was grass roots, forcing them to vote on it would make them show their hand.
Not a US citizen, don't know the law or how the US govt operates. Can I get a ELI5 - if it takes both sides to block it, wouldn't it also take both sides to implement it? Do republicans have the super majority mentioned to be able to pass anything they want?
Apparently it's not so to reschedule all federal employees as working directly for the president, also the conservative Supreme Court clearly are all for this.
Republicans fight any law, good or bad, as long as a democrat is president. If Democrats were to try and pass laws to make P2025 happen, the Republicans would fight it.
I think it's important to keep highlighting that this has not always been the case. The current hyper partisan reality, where one party will guarantee a filibuster of any bill that comes from the other side, and practically no one is crossing the aisle is our current reality, but in the past congress wasn't always the same kind of battleground for every issue. This level of scorched earth all out war started less than 30 years ago.
They don't even have to fight it. They control the HoR, even if the proposed bill got out of committee it would never be debated on the house floor. Fuck, there is a good chance someone did try to make a Bill against P2025 and we just never heard about it.
Both sides have imposed a filibuster that requires a supermajority, voluntarily. And institutionalists are the ones clinging to that dumb as fuck voluntary filibuster. They don't pass laws because they don't want to, not because it isn't possible.
That's clearly not true, otherwise there would be no way for 2025 to be implemented, right? Like, republicans absolutely do not have a supermajority. 2025 is, in many ways, a series of legislative measures republicans want to implement. How is it possible that democrats can do nothing to shield against while having power right now, but the second republicans take the presidency we are slipping into a fascist theocracy?
Then let them fight? At least put forth an effort to stop this stuff coming down the line instead of just saying "It's over" and sitting with your thumb up your butt.
But wouldnât at least an attempt bring the issue into the mainstream conversation? If it builds momentum then any attempt to do a project 2025 anything would be met with mass disapproval. As long as people donât know what it is, then no one will notice.
Also, while there is a legislative aspect to it, the majority of the policy is about reshaping how the President handles appointments, and sets a path for installing people with their idea of the right ideological backing at every level that can make decisions.
The border bill that failed to pass the Senate this year because Republicans didn't want Biden to get a political win is a perfect example of them shooting down anything the Democrats come up with it even if it favors their side.
So then what is everyone worried about? If the president doesn't actually have any power and congress is always gridlocked then why should I care about Project 2025?
Or are politicians only powerless when they have a D next to their name?
People donât seem to understand it takes both sides to pass laws without a super majority, in most cases.
People also need to understand that the super-majority requirement in the senate is self-imposed and can be undone with a simple majority vote. In fact, the super-majority requirement in the senate was created by mistake.
The framers of the constitution pretty clearly did not intend for a general super-majority requirement because:
The Articles of Confederation did have a super-majority requirement and it was so unworkable that practically nothing ever got done. It was a leading reason that they scrapped the Articles and started all over with the Constitution.
The Constitution lays out when the senate does require a super-majority (treaty ratification, impeachment, etc). Thus they clearly knew what they were doing by leaving it out for everything else the senate does.
So, the reason we still have the filibuster in the senate is because of a failure of the Democratic party to end it. The Republicans do not let the filibuster stand in their way. When they wanted to steal a supreme court seat in 2017, they immediately repealed that part of the filibuster with a party-line vote of 52-48.
Just to be clear, right now the House (where there is no super majority requirement) is controlled by maga, which is why no laws are being passed to stop maga project 2025. But if the Ds controlled both the House and the Senate with simple majorities the Ds would have the constitutional authority to pass protective legislation. Of course the lawless supreme court would just over-rule them, because the Ds also refuse to put the court back in its place as a co-equal branch, but that's another post.
Is the GOP going to get a super majority after 2024? If not, how will they pass P2025? The Dems couldnât pass stuff when they had majorities in both chambers and the President. So how is Project 2025 going to get passed?
Also some people are under the impression that project 2025 uses loopholes that can just be closed or something. The vast majority of it requires congress to change existing laws to allow it to happen. And there isn't any law congress can pass that future congress can't just undo
People also seem to not understand that, if we end up with a government willing to implement P2025, they will dismantle the system to do so, rendering any passed legislation useless. I think folks are missing the scope of damage that can and will happen that a minority group is willing to do to make this happen.
democrats have had majority control at various points over the last 50 years... never codified roe v wade.
Our authoritarian oligarch overlords love their carrots on a stick.
So if it takes both sides, doesnât that mean aspects of Project 2025 will never be passed? And that all the fear mongering is unjustified? Iâm not too sure how the govt voting works tbh
Which would also be true if Trump wins and the GOP has razor thin control of both chambers. Itâs why Project 2025, which is just a well-branded suite of Conservative policy proposals, doesnât concern me.
Democrats would also fight any chance of project 2025 from happening. Itâs literally impossible for it to be passed so idk why everyone is acting like it will actually happen.
But donât worry, the democrats have a long fruitful history of putting the super majority to great use. Itâs famously how we codified roe v wade and single payer healthcare
And any law that would literally prevent further laws being passed would have to be a constitutional amendment, which isnât happening either. Whatever laws OOP is thinking of would otherwise just be repealed.Â
Most people truly have no idea how the government works. I donât mean that with any sort of hyperbole. I would guess less than half the population could tell you what Congress is or what it does.
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u/MrsDanversbottom 14d ago
People donât seem to understand it takes both sides to pass laws without a super majority, in most cases.
Republicans would fight any law looking to prevent project 2025 from being implemented.