Why should the dems not pack the court?

If Biden wins, which is a big “if” since I think that Trump and the republicans are doing all they can to steal the election and have a good chance of being successful, it seems fair game to me that if the dems get both the senate and the presidency that they increase the number of supreme court justices to have a more balanced supreme court. The supreme court justices are supposed to be independent of any political party, but as it stands now, they are biased towards extreme conservative views. Outside the supreme court, Mitch McConnell blocked many or most? of Obama’s nominees and the republicans are basically stealing power all over the place. The dems need to fight back, and this means increasing the number of supreme court justices if they have the chance. On the ao, someone was saying that this would make the dems worse than the repubicans, but I disagree. I think it is necessary to balance the court. I also don’t like the term “pack the court”. “Balance the court” is a better term.

This is all pointless discussion if the republicans steal the election as I suspect they will though.

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I think Harry Reid probably helped to set some of this in motion as well, but yes, Mitch has helped weaken democracy and has ceded power to the Presidency. We need to balance out power across government, not just the views of the court.

4 more seats and at least 2 more states.

I am hoping the Dems will take back the WH and possibly even the senate.

yes, also 2 more states. they need to get on that!

why hasn’t the 2 more states happened when the dems were in power before?

If we have the WH but not the senate we can neither add states nor SC justices.

right, but I thought that Obama had both for 2 years. Why didn’t he add states?

There was an AO thread that packing the SC would be disaster for the Dems. HMB was arguing, fairly plausibly, that moderates would view it as totally unacceptable. He could be right.

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those “moderates” need to be entirely oblivious to what the republicans are doing right now to deem dems doing that to be unacceptable. I think the dems can spin it as balancing power, which is entirely out of wack right now. the supreme court is not supposed to be biased in favor of one party.

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it was someone other than HMB arguing too. i forget who though.

No legislation Democrats pass would survive a challenge with this court.

Expand by 2 permanent seats (neuter Kavanaugh/Barrett), pass legislation for 18 year term limit for any prospective Justices, to be added in the 1st and 3rd years of each presidency (and add the 12th Justice immediately), add PR/DC as states, and pass legislation expanding voting rights.

Attempt to pass a Constitutional amendment, adding 18 year term as a permanent amendment instead of just a law that can be overturned by another Congress.

A fairly high % polled that they wanted the seat filled after the election. If that shows up in the election results, you could have a decent justification for moving forward with adding two seats.

Senate republicans have shattered norms, turned a blind eye to corruption, and weakened our democracy to fulfill a decades-long mission of tilting the Supreme Court in their favor.

I personally dislike the idea of expanding the court for political gains, but doing nothing would reward abhorrent behavior. Pack ‘em tight.

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I think Biden avoided answering the question because of potential voter backlash. If the Dems pack the court, Biden’s fears may be realized.

yes, same reason why he’s pussy footing around the fracking issue. voter backlash.

still think he should do it if he wins.

right now, the country is in huge trouble with COVID. we need someone who is at least semi-competent with a pandemic and listens to the experts. If Trump wins re-election, I think a lot more people will die. We are still in deep trouble in terms of COVID since even if Biden wins, he won’t take office until January 20, 2021. The main goal needs to be to vote Trump out. If answering those questions directly hurts his chances, he needs to avoid answering them. He hinted though that he would consider packing the court with having a bipartisan committee to explore the issue.

I have argued elsewhere that they have taken in the crazies as part of this mission, because nothing has mattered more than delivering the promise of overturning RvW. QANON and other followers - it is all part of what the republican party has become, because it is the only way they could get it done.

DC wants to be a state, but PR is fairly divided on the topic. They currently don’t have to pay federal income tax, which is a huge plus for them to remain a territory. DC has to pay FIT whether they are a state or not, so there’s not really any downside from DC’s perspective.

I don’t think you can add a state that doesn’t actually want to be added.

You could split an existing state, but the state’s governor and legislators might see that as a dilution of their personal power and be resistant.

I’m confused by the numbers. If we added two justices, that would be 11 justices, right? So where is the 12th justice coming from?

Also, if a justice’s term was 18 years and you had more than 9 justices then some bienniels you’d be adding two justices and some you’d only be adding 1. That would be… weird. If you’re going to have terms for justices, then it might make sense to have the terms be 2 years * count of justices. In other words, 18 year terms would make sense in the context of a 9 justice court but not 11 or 12.

And whatever you do, I think it makes sense to have an odd number.

It isn’t supposed to be partisan at all. Can’t always get what you want…

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I like the idea of 18 year terms for justices though. Vacancies will still come up, but not nearly as often. Justices could still die before their 18 years are up or decide to retire when a POTUS they like is in office.

But then at least that POTUS would only be replacing for the remainder of the 18 year term… not a lifetime appointment.

So I say keep it at 9 justices, add in 18 year terms for new justices, suck it up and let the existing ones serve for life but assign each to an 18 year term so that their replacement only serves out the remainder of an 18 year term to get everything on schedule. It’ll take 30 years for this to be fully implemented, but it will leave the country in a better place.

And while you’re at it, require that the Senate absolutely must hold a vote within 120 days of nomination, unless the POTUS withdraws the nomination or the nominee declines or something.