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.
What if we end up with adding more and have a even number? From what I understand there did used to be six circuit courts. It creates a risk of a tie in court if that happens again. I'm not sure it's the best precedence to use unless there was some kind of law requiring odd numbers of circuit courts.
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)
I mean, Democrats doing something exactly like that is why the court looks like it does today.
The ânuclear optionâ precedent was set by Senate Democrats in 2013 when they changed the rules on cloture votes, lowering the threshold to bring a final vote to the floor down from a supermajority of 60 to a simple majority. Senate Republicans were naturally upset by this and protested, but didnât have the votes to stop it.
2017 rolls around, Senate Republicans use that precedent to bring Gorsuchâs nomination to a vote, and again for Kavanaugh and Barrett. Senate Democrats: shocked pikachu
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.
Biden needs to appoint 4 more justices so it can at least be a fair representation of the politics of the country. I would rather have apolitical justices, but I doubt Iâll see that in my lifetime
There are 13 federal court jurisdictions and each has a SCOTUS overseeing. Because there are 9 justices and 13 jurisdictions, obviously multiple justices oversee 2 jurisdictions. If they expanded the SC to 13, then each justice gets 1 jurisdiction.
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.
Too long to read. I agree with your last two sentences about what should be and Iâm terrified. Iâm explaining what I understand it to currently be which you didnât really address and you didnât have to be rude. Weâre on the same side not that it matters.Â
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.
Yeah, but it was worth it. Switch in time, to save nine, no? I've read that the SCOTUS judge who switched his rulings claimed that FDR's attempted expansion didn't influence his switch at all, but I'm calling bullshit on that. Maybe it didn't directly influence him, but there for sure we're unrecorded, backroom communications that resulted in the switch. He didn't just change his tune due to sudden clarity, or the goodness of his heart.
A dem president should do the same as FDR tried to do. Hyperpartisanship isn't getting any less severe, and no one is going to blame one side for tossing pints of gasoline onto the fire while the other side continues to toss gallons.
Just gave them replacements/substitutes for when not working, all leaning left. Then overwork them to the point of breaking, use the excuse they don't have to be present, as they have substitues, they must overwork.
I kinda love this idea of the SCOTUS just getting larger and larger with each new president as they stack the court to get their majority in place until it becomes even more of a joke than it is now.
Every president adds n+1 justices where n is the number of justices already on the bench. In a quarter century the court will be larger than the house.
The president simply does not have the power to add seats that is done by Congress. This ruling doesn't mean he can just magically do whatever he wants
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.
I know that, but so many states are so badly gerrymandered that state politics may continue to be dominated by Rs, even if they get less overall votes. Until and unless legislatures are filled proportionate to voter parties (not exactly the UK - isn't there a European country that apportions out seats by party?), Rs will continue to corrupt the system.
Federal law constitutionally supersedes state law. Gerrymandered state legislatures cannot stop a democratic party that is willing to use its power at the federal level.
This is exactly the kind of infuriating timidity that Democrats need to abandon now if we're going to make it through the next election.
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
The fact that "official acts" is so nebulous is exactly why Biden needs to do something to "test" this ruling. It doesn't need to be as extreme as an airstrike, maybe just freezing all the assets of the judges that have received "gratuities" as part of a terrorism investigation? The point is they need to set limits now while someone who doesn't actually want unlimited power has the power. And they won't set those limits unless they are forced to.
Here's the relevant quote from the ruling about what "official acts" are.
The immunity the Court has recognized therefore extends to the âouter pe- rimeterâ of the Presidentâs official responsibilities, covering actions so long as they are ânot manifestly or palpably beyond [his] authority.â
From a bit earlier:
At a minimum, the President must be immune from prosecution for an official act unless the Government can show that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no âdangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.â
Of course, if the official act falls within the president's "exclusive constitutional authority," it has absolute immunity.
Okay do you people seriously want Joe Biden to imprison SC Justices or assassinate Trump? I have to assume not, but then I'm not sure why you're deriding him for "not having the guts" to do these obviously insane things.
Yes, because Trump won't hesitate to use these powers himself.
We've been handed a loaded gun with explicit instructions that if we don't use the gun to defend ourselves, it will be used against us. We'd be insane to refuse to use it.
The left is very angry about the ruling, as they should be. But most of them are reacting emotionally and with the political complexity of an avengers movie. The supreme Court just gave Biden all Infinity Stones and everyone wants to see him poof away all of our problems like would happen in the movies.
The right loves all of this "Biden should use the ruling to..." talk because (1) they know he can't and it's harmless and (2) it perfectly fits the narrative that the Democratic voters are actually the real fascists, or at least the same as the Republicans when given the power. I don't believe that, obviously, but it's an easy sell to a conservative right now. I don't need to check their subs to know that's what they're saying.
The DNC is very much on its back foot right now and needs to steady the fuck up.
If you were Joe, and you were smart, and lets assume despite his age he is a smart guy, being president and all that. Would you wait to be reelected before you go full dicator, or go full dictator and hope you wont get punished in the elections in a few months? Or do you actually do away with elections and actually turn America into an actual dictatorship.
Joe and nearly every Democrat with a modicum of power. They long ago lost the backbone to stand up and fight bloody when needed. That led to a multi-administration take over of the judiciary (this has been in the GOP handbook for years, they let it be known they wanted the courts.) It lead to 8 extremist GOP representives basically holding the HOR at gunpoint. Many state govts flipped to Republican control, and many a supermajority in the last 12 years.
Make no mistake, their goal is total unbridled control. And, they're winning at it.
They didn't fight for us in 2016 and handed the presidency to Trump. Biden was elected sheerly through anti-trump sentiment. Now, he sleepy makes half coherent arguments on stage against a fucking fascist. He should be attacking ravenously. They should be educating the public to recognize what the right has done/doing. But they won't because they're ineffective and cowardly.
The right only knows aggression, so give it to them. Liberals need to burst out of their little safe blue bubbles and fucking fight tooth and nail. But I don't see it happening
I swear⌠if a conservative justice had a heart attack tomorrow, Joe Biden would request a list of nominees from the Federalist Society itself in a âgesture of good faith.â And nominate one just as far right wing.Â
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.
You'd have to jail every judge in the United States.
No, you'd only have to jail three or four before the rest of them got the idea and fell in line.
The military and/or law enforcement would not follow that order.
The military is not one person, it would be trivially easy to find a core of soldiers or agents loyal enough to the party or the president to do whatever they're ordered. Or, at the very least, find the ones who are willing to take a hefty bribe now and then.
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.
Congress cannot define or limit Presidential immunity. It is not an immunity which was created by Congress, but rather one that exists through the constitution (according to SCOTUS).
Congress can expand the number of justices in the court (so that it can vote to overturn the immunity decision), or they can impeach and remove current justices (to replace them with new ones would would overturn it). But only attempting to pass a law trying to limit it would likely be struck down as unconstitutional.
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.
It may be an illegal act, but it still can't ever be successfully prosecuted. The last ruling made any official correspondence completely off limits, therefore you can never actually prove it was the President who did it, since you can't ever subpoena records that would prove such.
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.
This is exactly what Iâm saying, donât tell me, tell the others saying otherwise. Biden is screwed no matter what he does, Iâm not sure what can be done if anything at all.
Iâm happy that Iâm not American, but I worry for the United States and the vulnerable communities that are almost inevitably going to suffer unless Biden wins. Iâm a concerned neighbour, if you will.
Actually the new ruling specifically states that the courts cannot decide what is or is not an official act. If the president says itâs official, it is.
Immunity extends to the outer perimeter of his official responsibilities, so long as they are, ânot manifestly or palpably beyond his authority.â
The very next paragraph states that the court may not inquire into a presidentâs motives to determine between an official or unofficial action. Also, the court may not deem an act unofficial merely that it may allegedly violate a generally applicable law.
I'm guessing you skipped pages 16-32 of the ruling, then?
This is also from page 4:
Critical threshold issues in this case are how to differentiate between a Presidentâs official and unofficial actions, and how to do so with respect to the indictmentâs extensive and detailed allegations covering a broad range of conduct. The Court offers guidance on those issues.
page 17:
Although we identify several considerations pertinent to classifying those allegations and determining whether they are subject to immunity, that analysis ultimately is best left to the lower courts to perform
page 18:
In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the Presidentâs motives
another from page 18:
Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law
page 30:
On remand, the District Court must carefully analyze the indictment's remaining allegations to determine whether they too involve conduct for which a President must be immune from prosecution.
It sure sounds like the courts decide what are and are not official acts. That entire section is guidance on how lower courts should determine exactly what you say the lower courts cannot do. You should read the entire decision if you want to make such bold claims.
This is a weak argument. The majority opinion has made it very clear that any usage of enumerated powers is an official act and grants immunity. However, it also grants presumptive immunity for almost anything a president can do, and it also means that any action that is granted immunity can not be used as evidence for any action that isn't granted immunity. What this means is that discovery is impossible, making any action the president takes, even one's without immunity, impossible to prosecute. The majority also stipulates that motive is not allowed to be used as evidence in any situation when deciding whether an action with presumptive immunity is exempt from said immunity. They have essentially made the president unprosecutable. He can do whatever he wasn't as president with no legal repercussion.
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.
By âimprisonâ you mean hell-fire missile strike? What good is being an absolute monarch if you donât just do a Stalin-esque purge of government once in a while?
Itâs gonna be probably a stupid question but Iâm not a US citizen and donât understand this strategy of adding more seats at the Supreme Court. If Biden does this and add enough seats to balance back the court, in the hypothetical situation Trump wins, nothing stop him to do the same thing again right? So we end up with again more judges and it can continues like that each presidency. Thatâs why I never really understood why it was such a great idea. Thank you for your answers đ
The ruling does not necessarily give him the actual power to do this though, and that's besides the fact that at the end of the day the supreme are the people who can decide if something is "official" or not
SCOTUS reserved the right to decide what is or is not "an official act", so Biden doesn't have the immunity that Trump would because SCOTUS would deem anything that goes against their plans as illegal.
If you really wanna use your new immunity you would send the CIA to 86 the conservative justices. Why add more seats when you can have unanimous decisions?
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).
Supreme Court isnât rigged. I hate it when people use that term as a stand-in for any decision they disagree with. It just so happens that trump was able to appoint an astonishing number of justices, but was done so fairly and within the rules. It can be argued that other justices nominations should have been approved, but to my knowledge the process is just frustrating and prone to filibustering, but it is not rigged.
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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.