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Being the leader of the highest tier of the government's judiciary branch makes everything you do or say political, Johnny-Boy.
Is anyone else getting mighty tired of that "I don't do politics" shtick in general? I know I am. Even more so in a time where literal nazis are using it to cover up their ideological praxis.
I wonder if he genuinely thinks this. Surely he'd have to if he bothered to say so. I can't imagine a cynical political actor would waste his energy explaining himself to a public that he isn't accountable to. Thomas and Alito for instance don't really say jack shit, because they don't care what you think.
Roberts belief that he can salvage the courts reputation is deeply pathetic. He wiped his ass with the law and made the supremes courts corruption even more brazen.
It's true that they're not political actors. They're political whores. And they're not even high-priced whores.
No, I don't think they're fucking actors. Obviously I'm upset because the jobs are real, you dumb stupid fuck. But I'd gladly take Martin Sheen over you, sure. Good idea.
I’m upset that I view Roberts as a dude who doesn’t have my balls on his chin.
You want that?
I promise you that he won't enjoy it.
Please elaborate.
To paraphrase the philosopher Lynn strait, " my balls is chin."
Fucking liar, Roberts is.
Can someone please remind me who sold out the country to corporate interests and allowed super PACs to exist? Oh yeah, thank Chief Justice Roberts. Go fuck yourself.
It's not political obviously. He is the ultimate harbinger of truth and were just not listening!
I used to think that we had to add another 4 seats to the SCOTUS, but I no longer believe that. Now I think we need to add 20 seats to the Supreme Court.
We have allowed SCOTUS to remain so small so that one bad-faith president can negatively alter the course of the nation for half a century. We should increase it to 29 or 31, with rolling term limits, so every president gets to appoint a handful, but never enough to throw off the balance to any great degree.
Don't assign a set number of seats. Whenever a justice dies, their seat dies with them.
Add one justice every two years, at the end of the first and third year of the presidential term. Every president gets to add exactly two justices per term. This timing pushes the decision as far away from an election as possible.
To further depoliticize the process, I would formally establish a "line of succession" for the court. This line would start with the chief judges of each of the 13 circuit appeals courts, then continue with every other judge in the appeals courts, in order of seniority.
Everyone in the line of succession has been previously confirmed by the Senate to their appellate court seats. To limit the games the Senate can play, I would not require an additional Senate confirmation if the candidate is one of the first 26 in the line of succession. The president can unilaterally elevate any of those 26 to SCOTUS (but, these are the oldest candidates available. They are at the pinnacle of their careers; they can be expected to serve terms measured in months, not decades. The president is not going to want to name one of these geriatrics.)
If a new justice hasn't been added by the 18th/30th month of the president's term, the next in the line of succession is permanently elevated to SCOTUS. This deadline keeps the appointment process at least 6 months away from an election.
The "line of succession" also suggests a way for the court to be apolitically reconstituted in case of a disaster. If the court falls below 5 members, the next in the line is automatically elevated.
Further, it provides a means for a case to be heard even if all sitting justices are conflicted and compelled to recuse themselves. If fewer than 5 members of the court are eligible to hear a particular case, the next in the line of succession is temporarily elevated for that case. In a case where SCOTUS ethics rules are under scrutiny, the case may be heard entirely by temporary members.
I like the way you think.
I think that expanding the court should work a certain way, but to preface: I am assuming that the US is broken into four major cooperative territories, each with a president, with their own regional courts and executives. However, there would also be a figurehead president elected by the regional presidents, whose vote is confirmed by their regional voters. The figurehead represents national policy and acts as a face for it.
00000
The national court draws 4 justices from each region's court system, and has an additional justice appointed by each president. These only lasting while that executive holds office. This means 16 national justices that are chosen by their judiciaries, and 5 appointed by executives. 21 in all.
Toss in term and age limits. We want age limits to prevent mental degradation or the social stratification that comes from age. Term limits help ensure that justices can't remain too long, inviting corruption. I would say 10 years is reasonable for the judiciary justices. The executive justices picked by a president can't have more than two terms for this position, so they can last up to 8 years if picked twice by presidents. This should allow for a reasonable amount of 'churn' in viewpoints, while still allowing the supreme court to have coherence.
The checks and balances comes from different factions - regions and administrations - sending representatives to assert their interests. Hopefully, this prevents the courts from being overly stacked for too long.
Make it a seat for each state in the union.
nah, that’s what messed up the senate.
The Senate was always designed as a wealthy check on the will of the people. We would be better off without the Senate and increasing the size of Congress dramatically.
Comrade Pickles is right about rolling term limits. I propose 20 year terms, first two years are as a clerk to get them up to speed on SCOTUS procedure and ethics. then 18 as a justice. i haven't decided how we choose the chief justice, maybe russian roulette. none of this "you rule the country the rest of your life" bullshit. Taft would be appalled and he was both President and chief justice. The court is currently far too small. 27 seems about right so like a new justice every year or something someone else do the math. That could make for much of the court clerkship to be future justices. WHAT FUN. If someone dies or retires during their term, there should be enough other justices to fill the court. No replacement is allowed unless the court falls below quorum, or let's say... 14? At which point an emergency session of government is called, the party in power submits 7 new justices and the party out of power submits 6. assuming good faith from both parties (don't start), because forgive the tautology but that's how functional government functions (i'll let someone else figure out mechanisms to prevent bad faith actors i'm only halfway through coffee today) all of the proposed justices will be qualified and impartial, just ideologically different.
This is pretty close to my thinking as well: just keep adding members on a set schedule; don't fill vacated seats. (I'd add one seat at the end of the first and third year of the presidential term, to keep this process as far away from the presidential and midterm elections as possible.)
The only major difference is that I would not use emergency sessions to reconstitute the court! I would strongly isolate the court from politicization.
The foundation of my plan would be to establish a formal "line of succession" to SCOTUS. We have 13 circuit courts of appeal, each with a chief judge. Those chief judges, in order of seniority, are the first in the line of succession. Next, every other appeals court judge, in order of seniority.
Every one of these judges has been through a Senate confirmation. They are pre-approved. If every SCOTUS justice dies from a Hantavirus outbreak, the next court has already been selected, without needing to expose the court to the political process.
This line of succession offers some other possibilities as well. When it comes time to appoint a new justice, the president can name anyone they want, and the Senate can confirm. But, we can say that the first 26 (2 * number of circuit courts) in the line of succession are pre-confirmed and don't require an additional confirmation to be named to the bench. The Senate can fairly consider the president's preferred, younger nominee, or the president can ram one of these 26 senior candidates down the Senate's throat. The president has a veto-proof pool of candidates that the Senate can't play games with.
The line of succession also offers the possibility of temporary elevations for specific purposes. Suppose most/all of the justices are conflicted and forced to recuse themselves from a particular case. The line of succession allows us to elevate temporary replacement justices for this case. This would allow an ad hoc supreme court to hear cases involving, say, SCOTUS ethics.
So, not a lawyer, take this with a grain of salt, they already have a system for temporarily seating justices/federal confirmed judges on courts they normally don't sit on. Like sick days or something? For when a judge needs to recuse themselves from a case, more realistically I imagine. Not sure how it works for scotus but the lower courts use it a lot.
20 is to long. Fuck them. 5 year terms. Only 1 term each.
With 9 justices, that's a new justice appointed every ~7 months. Are you sure Trump should be putting 7 people on a 9-seat court right before that court will be hearing issues related to the next presidential election?
chimp justice rawbutts wrongly reads the american people as stupid
Undoing decades of settled law to strip rights from women, minorities, and everyone else. You're damn right we view you as political. You're a disgrace to the law and should be impeached yesterday.
Suuure Johnny.
this fucking guy. He is just saying that so his wife can get more multi-million dollar contacts from democrat leaning orgs. The court isn't only partisan, it's illegitimate.
His name will forever represent the most corrupt SCOTUS in history, and he's trying to mitigate that despicable legacy.
Just like PEDOnald will represent the worst president in history - at least so far.
If not political, why political shaped?
The Republican justices thought December was too close to the election to do anything about Texas's gerrymandering that favored white poeple/Republicans, but somehow last week wasn't too close to the election to shoot down Louisiana's changes that boosted minorities. That's pretty clearly policy at work, not the law.
Spare us your denial asshole. We are knee deep in the bullshit you have created already.
I am just calling it the SC Voting Rights Interpretation now, the Act Congress approved has been completely hollowed out. If they want to create laws they should have ran for Congress.
If it walks, talks and looks like a political shill...
Just a reminder that between his Ivy League connections, his Reagan/Bush services, and Chief Justice Rehnquist's untimely demise, Mr. Non-Political-Actor here went from mere well-placed attorney to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States in less than five years, mostly by way of his work on Bush v. Gore in 2000.
Not a political actor, lol.
Oh, then give us back voting rights, abortion, and presidential accountability
Homeboy has been incrementally gutting the voting rights act as part of the Republican agenda for 40+ years.
https://theprogressivemedia.substack.com/p/john-roberts-spent-44-years-killing
Fuck this partisan sack garbler:
If you don't want to be seen as political actors, don't act like political actors.
Or maybe just stop playing the villain roles, and try out a hero role for once. Broaden your range, goddamn.
Oh fuck all the way off you political hack. You’re playing for a very specific team, and that team is not us.
Does anyone still remember that the Supreme Court - which already included a certain Clarence Thomas at the time -ensured during the 2000 election that the votes in Florida would not be recounted, thereby guaranteeing that Bush Jr. would become president?
I would certainly say that this is exactly how a political actor behaves.
Roberts, in a hot-dog costume, trying to figure out who did this