Pete Buttigieg Endorses Court Packing

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

And done with him.

You start packing the court, it continues until one side decides their newly packed court should overturn the election results. And what side do you think is that more likely to be?

The one that already did it once this century.

[Galeel]

Court Packing is a bad idea. I get that Republicans have completely violated norms regarding SCOTUS, but if Democrats pack the courts, what is to stop Republicans from doing so when they next get power? This is how we end up with a supreme court that adds members after every election cycle.

[Dr. Arch]

That's quite bold, Pete.

[Beet]

I'm loving him more and more! But it's not "packing" the court, its expanding the court. Appoint nonpartisan professionals and the issue is settled.

They're all "nonpartisan." Appoint objective interpreters of law, not ideologues who decide cases according to their own views.

I'm not opposed to expanding the Court. But I am opposed to appointing people because of their ideology, who will decide cases according to ideology. Expand the Court and appoint the most objective interpreters of law to the new seats. What else is the Supreme Court supposed to be except the most highly objective interpreters of law that can be found in the country.

Precisely. It's easy to tell a good judge:

It'll be the one where no one is heavily invested in seeing them confirmed or opposed based on their political party.

[junior chįmp]

Sounds good to me. Trump's entire legacy needs to be erased along with Reaganism as a whole

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

The court shouldn’t be ‘packed’ per se, but Gorsuch is definitely illegitimate so at least one seat should be added until his death and Kavanaugh should be freshly investigated and possibly removed depending on the outcome of that investigation.

[7,052,770]

Court Packing is a bad idea. I get that Republicans have completely violated norms regarding SCOTUS, but if Democrats pack the courts, what is to stop Republicans from doing so when they next get power? This is how we end up with a supreme court that adds members after every election cycle.

After the rightful D+1 appointee system is restored, there should be a new system in which the president appoints a justice every year or every odd year or something, rather than replacing justices who die or retire. This way, each president gets a set amount of appointees and it's not just luck of the draw.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Roberts have allied himself with the the moderate wing of the Crt. Crt packing is unnecessary

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Court Packing is a bad idea. I get that Republicans have completely violated norms regarding SCOTUS, but if Democrats pack the courts, what is to stop Republicans from doing so when they next get power? This is how we end up with a supreme court that adds members after every election cycle.

After the rightful D+1 appointee system is restored, there should be a new system in which the president appoints a justice every year or every odd year or something, rather than replacing justices who die or retire. This way, each president gets a set amount of appointees and it's not just luck of the draw.

A revolving door SCOTUS seems interesting.

[GoTfan]

For the billionth time, if FDR couldn't do it after winning two huge mandates, including one of the biggest landslides ever in 1936, how the hell could the Democrats hope to do it now?

It's not a feasible idea. And moreover started worries that FDR was abusing power. These days, it'd be liable to cause rioting and would ensure a hefty 2024 Democratic defeat.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

You still need bipartisan support in Senate and if Dems get the majority back, they said they rather find bills like Campaign finance reform along with Voting Holiday through reconciliation than getting rid of fillibuster altogether

[PaperKooper]

The replies so far in this thread are deeply unsettling.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Let's be honest, if FDR couldn't get it done, it won't get done now.

[NYSforKennedy2024]

And how does this make him at all a worse candidate?

[Karpatsky]

Obviously terrible, but the history of partisan redistricting shows that norms will never be restored so long as one side (in almost all cases the Republicans) believe that the other side will never take advantage of it the same way. Hopefully this will spur Republicans to take more seriously Trump and Republican leadership's massive erosion of political norms to this point.

[DrScholl]

It isn't even really packing when you consider the fact that Obama was denied the opportunity to fill a vacancy or even have it heard by the Senate. Adding two seats would be a corrective measure. FDR's attempt was more 80 years ago and it wasn't under the premise of the other party having played games to steal a court appointment. Plus, there are 11 circuits so you could easily use the argument that having 11 justices would mean that one would not have to double up on being circuit justice.

[Heebie Jeebie]

1.)  There's plenty of precedent for changing the size of the Court.  It happened frequently throughout the 19th century.

2.)  FDR couldn't accomplish it for a couple of reasons.  He was five years into his tenure and the nation was on the mend economically, so there was less impetus for action.  More importantly, he was working with Southern Congressional leaders who feared a liberal shift on the Court might interfere with Jim Crow.  There would be no such ideological division between the president and Congress after 2020.

3.)  The Founders never intended the Supreme Court to have the authority that it does.  Judicial Supremacy is a lasting threat to democratic society.  This was a central plank of Lincoln's presidential platform, and when he took office he immediately took steps to neuter the Court's power.  He was right to do so.

4.)  For the last 60 years Republicans have correctly viewed the Court as an institution every bit as political as the EPA or NLRB, and they have acted accordingly.  It is political malpractice for Democrats to not do the same.

5.)  It would be good for the country to do this!  Again, the Court as it currently exists is a profoundly anti-democratic institution.  We should be trying to add more democracy to our system.  I am bewildered that this is even a controversial idea.

[John Dule]

The replies so far in this thread are deeply unsettling.

What the GOP did to Garland was deeply unsettling.

I would accept a compromise where Thomas and Kavanaugh are impeached for their sexual crimes and replaced by Garland and (in the spirit of compromise) another centrist/tilt left judge in his 60s. In fact, we'll be so gracious that we'll let Stolen Seat Neil stay on the bench.

Or we can expand to 11 with two socialists in their 30s. Republicans can choose which one they want, or if they refuse, they get the latter. But Democrats must fight fire with fire before we just let it go.

Packing the court is not the same as what was done to Garland and you know it. There is absolutely no defense for this position. Any elected official who so much as suggests this should be pressured to resign from office. I'm disgusted.

It is the same. I would never, ever post claim something that I "know" to be false, and I'm offended that you would suggest otherwise.

The natural order of things would be for there to now be 5 justices appointed by Democrats and 4 by Republicans. Democratic senates previously confirmed Reagan and Bush SC appointees, including in the election year of 1988, so McConnell broke long-established tradition by refusing to even consider a Democratic nominee. He did this for partisan ambition and nothing else. He flipped what would be a D+1 SC to an R+1 SC.

All Buttigieg is proposing is to flip it back to its rightful D+1. Nothing any different than what McConnell did.

So destroying the legitimacy of the highest court in the country is worth it so long as you get what you want. Got it.

[Heebie Jeebie]

The replies so far in this thread are deeply unsettling.

What the GOP did to Garland was deeply unsettling.

I would accept a compromise where Thomas and Kavanaugh are impeached for their sexual crimes and replaced by Garland and (in the spirit of compromise) another centrist/tilt left judge in his 60s. In fact, we'll be so gracious that we'll let Stolen Seat Neil stay on the bench.

Or we can expand to 11 with two socialists in their 30s. Republicans can choose which one they want, or if they refuse, they get the latter. But Democrats must fight fire with fire before we just let it go.

Packing the court is not the same as what was done to Garland and you know it. There is absolutely no defense for this position. Any elected official who so much as suggests this should be pressured to resign from office. I'm disgusted.

It is the same. I would never, ever post claim something that I "know" to be false, and I'm offended that you would suggest otherwise.

The natural order of things would be for there to now be 5 justices appointed by Democrats and 4 by Republicans. Democratic senates previously confirmed Reagan and Bush SC appointees, including in the election year of 1988, so McConnell broke long-established tradition by refusing to even consider a Democratic nominee. He did this for partisan ambition and nothing else. He flipped what would be a D+1 SC to an R+1 SC.

All Buttigieg is proposing is to flip it back to its rightful D+1. Nothing any different than what McConnell did.

So destroying the legitimacy of the highest court in the country is worth it so long as you get what you want. Got it.

You say "legitimacy."  Others would say "supremacy."

[John Dule]

The replies so far in this thread are deeply unsettling.

What the GOP did to Garland was deeply unsettling.

I would accept a compromise where Thomas and Kavanaugh are impeached for their sexual crimes and replaced by Garland and (in the spirit of compromise) another centrist/tilt left judge in his 60s. In fact, we'll be so gracious that we'll let Stolen Seat Neil stay on the bench.

Or we can expand to 11 with two socialists in their 30s. Republicans can choose which one they want, or if they refuse, they get the latter. But Democrats must fight fire with fire before we just let it go.

Packing the court is not the same as what was done to Garland and you know it. There is absolutely no defense for this position. Any elected official who so much as suggests this should be pressured to resign from office. I'm disgusted.

It is the same. I would never, ever post claim something that I "know" to be false, and I'm offended that you would suggest otherwise.

The natural order of things would be for there to now be 5 justices appointed by Democrats and 4 by Republicans. Democratic senates previously confirmed Reagan and Bush SC appointees, including in the election year of 1988, so McConnell broke long-established tradition by refusing to even consider a Democratic nominee. He did this for partisan ambition and nothing else. He flipped what would be a D+1 SC to an R+1 SC.

All Buttigieg is proposing is to flip it back to its rightful D+1. Nothing any different than what McConnell did.

So destroying the legitimacy of the highest court in the country is worth it so long as you get what you want. Got it.

You say "legitimacy."  Others would say "supremacy."

I mean, it's literally called the Supreme Court, so I don't know what you expected.

[Heebie Jeebie]

I mean, it's literally called the Supreme Court, so I don't know what you expected.

That doesn't address the substance of the concern.  Are you really okay with a small body of people with lifetime appointments, granted their authority through anti-democratic means, arbitrarily declaring which laws shall stand and which shall fall, all with no accountability or recourse?  We rightly disdain this kind of legal system when we observe it in other countries.  We should be equally as outraged that our own politics have grown around this warped system.

[R.P. McM]

You start packing the court, it continues until one side decides their newly packed court should overturn the election results. And what side do you think is that more likely to be?

Then we'll finally get to test the mettle of the Hoveround generation! Somehow, I question their ability to institute an authoritarian regime when they can barely make it up a flight of stairs. They wouldn't last long if things turned ugly, and make no mistake, they represent the brunt of the opposition.

[R.P. McM]

So destroying the legitimacy of the highest court in the country is worth it so long as you get what you want. Got it.

The legitimacy of the Court has been on life support since Bush v. Gore. It isn't our job to blithely accept whatever the right dishes out so as not to imperil the institutions they're on an active mission to destroy. If you have a problem with the current state of affairs, you ought to focus your ire on the folks responsible. As it stands now, we've had an appointment stolen from us. Our proposed redress is perfectly constitutional, it just involves the abrogation of a few norms. Norms which are completely meaningless in a context in which the opposition has jettisoned any pretense of civility. Any norms being violated at the Justice Department these days? Whether you recognize it or not, it's incumbent on us to destroy this monster before it metastasizes into something truly abhorrent. And yes, that entails getting our hands dirty.

[wesmoorenerd]

These practices are always "inconceivable" or "extreme" or "illegitimate" until the GOP does them, then they're just "how you play the game".

[7,052,770]

The replies so far in this thread are deeply unsettling.

What the GOP did to Garland was deeply unsettling.

I would accept a compromise where Thomas and Kavanaugh are impeached for their sexual crimes and replaced by Garland and (in the spirit of compromise) another centrist/tilt left judge in his 60s. In fact, we'll be so gracious that we'll let Stolen Seat Neil stay on the bench.

Or we can expand to 11 with two socialists in their 30s. Republicans can choose which one they want, or if they refuse, they get the latter. But Democrats must fight fire with fire before we just let it go.

Packing the court is not the same as what was done to Garland and you know it. There is absolutely no defense for this position. Any elected official who so much as suggests this should be pressured to resign from office. I'm disgusted.

It is the same. I would never, ever post claim something that I "know" to be false, and I'm offended that you would suggest otherwise.

The natural order of things would be for there to now be 5 justices appointed by Democrats and 4 by Republicans. Democratic senates previously confirmed Reagan and Bush SC appointees, including in the election year of 1988, so McConnell broke long-established tradition by refusing to even consider a Democratic nominee. He did this for partisan ambition and nothing else. He flipped what would be a D+1 SC to an R+1 SC.

All Buttigieg is proposing is to flip it back to its rightful D+1. Nothing any different than what McConnell did.

So destroying the legitimacy of the highest court in the country is worth it so long as you get what you want. Got it.

     

McConnell destroyed the legitimacy, and I want to make the Supreme Court legitimate again by restoring the rightful D+1 balance.