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euphronius posted:What has been done for 200 years without controversy IS the Constitution. That is constitutional law. Not only what the document says by how it is interpreted. For 200 years the senate had interpreted the constitution to mean X. Now out of the blue and for entirely base reasons they are saying -X. No, it's not, at least that's not what constitutional law/unconstitutional usually means. The Senate's interpretation of the Constitution doesn't mean poo poo, only the Supreme Court's does. For example, filibustering appears nowhere in the Constitution, and since the Supreme Court has generally stayed out of controlling how Congress runs its business, they're not going to strike it down. You can argue it works against the functioning of government, and be completely right, but the whole scheme is based around each branch having a way to be an rear end in a top hat to the other branches and keeping them from doing what they want to do on their own (that is, checks and balances). There's not a requirement that they must go along with the other branches, and in fact, them stymieing other branches is often well within their job. euphronius posted:Like if this were January 2017 and trump was elected maybe the Gop would have a point. Right, but that's purely due to it being more reasonable politically, it has nothing to do with that being more "constitutional".
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Feb 24, 2016 00:32
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IANAL but if you tried to sue the senate I'm betting you'd get thrown out for lack of standing so fast it'd make your head spin. Your lawyers might even get sanctioned that's how dumb an idea that is.
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Feb 24, 2016 00:35
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foobardog posted:No, it's not, at least that's not what constitutional law/unconstitutional usually means. The Senate's interpretation of the Constitution doesn't mean poo poo, only the Supreme Court's does. For example, filibustering appears nowhere in the Constitution, and since the Supreme Court has generally stayed out of controlling how Congress runs its business, they're not going to strike it down. That's extremely wrong. congress and the president are co equal branches with the Supreme Court and their interpretation is equally valid except in the extreme fringe cases of judicial review. The practice of government over time has always informed "constitutionality" and in jurisdictions without written constitution are even more important, for example. Constitutional law is way broader than the dry words written in the Constitution. Don't let he fact that out foundational written document is called the "Constitution" confuse you from the fact that many sources inform American constitutional law.
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Feb 24, 2016 00:37
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foobardog posted:
No. A vacancy on the sc has never happened in a lame duck period so the senate would be acting in the first instance. So fine. We are not now in a lame duck period so it's situation normal.
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Feb 24, 2016 00:40
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foobardog posted:No, it's not, at least that's not what constitutional law/unconstitutional usually means. The Senate's interpretation of the Constitution doesn't mean poo poo, only the Supreme Court's does. For example, filibustering appears nowhere in the Constitution, and since the Supreme Court has generally stayed out of controlling how Congress runs its business, they're not going to strike it down. The constitution is pretty clear that each house can make its own rules, no matter how assinine. Article 1, Section 5 posted:Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.
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Feb 24, 2016 00:44
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A Winner is Jew posted:Texas is the only state to worry about, and the fact that CA not only equals them in bases but also produces the vast majority of military air craft means that while they have more firepower, the rest of the US that won't rebel has way more than they do. yes clearly all those brand new f-35s would be a strategic advan-bwahahahaha
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Feb 24, 2016 00:48
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foobardog posted:Yes. They are allowed to hold their hearings in a timely manner. But they are not disallowed from holding them in an untimely manner, there's no speed requirement like there is for court cases, unless I'm unaware of existing precedent on it. Either way, it's not there as a strict reading, only possibly implied as being necessary for the actual functioning of the system. crossposting: WhiskeyJuvenile posted:The problem with the Republican argument that they don't have to, e.g., vote on Obama's nominee because it's not Constitutionally required is that while technically true, it nevertheless violates norms of how our government functions. This is just one of many practices of the Republican Congress that, while within the scope of the text of the Constitution, go against the ethos of the historical practice of government that has gotten us to where we are today. Something Republicans may want to consider is that there are also norms that forbid other parts of government from doing certain things that would not be outside the text of the Constitution. For instance, one norm is that the President does not proactively announce that he will grant a federal pardon to anyone who commits an act of political assassination in a federal jurisdiction against legislators of the opposite party. The text of the Constitution doesn't forbid this, nor does the pardon power contain a check by either of the other two branches. The President doing so would do violence to our form of government though. So too have the Republicans.
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Feb 24, 2016 00:56
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So say Mitch McConnell were to say in November 2014, right after becoming Majority Leader, "the Senate absolutely will not hear any appointment by Obama no matter what, we will not hold hearings, and we will not hold confirmation votes, and Obama can nominate people all he wants but no matter who they are we don't give a poo poo and we will sit on our hands. Even if all nine Supreme Court justices die tomorrow in a gas leak, we would rather leave the entire Court vacant for two years, or in perpetuity if a Democratic president is elected in November 2016, than even hold a hearing for any nominee" that would just be absolutely cool and there would be no recourse whatsoever. The United States Constitution posted:[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments. There is no actual responsibility inherent in the Constitution's requirement that the Senate provide "Advice and Consent" to presidential appointees, and they can just flat out decide to ignore that if they want to. Good to know. See, it's interesting because "shall nominate" and "shall appoint" implies that the president himself has an obligation to make nominations (in Canada there was actually a court case on that exact wording because the Canadian constitution says the Prime Minister "shall" appoint senators and the Prime Minister said he wasn't going to, so someone sued saying he was violating the constitution), but the exact wording of the article doesn't make that same distinction for the Senate.
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Feb 24, 2016 00:57
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Platonicsolid posted:The constitution is pretty clear that each house can make its own rules, no matter how assinine. Right, this is my general point. euphronius posted:That's extremely wrong. congress and the president are co equal branches with the Supreme Court and their interpretation is equally valid except in the extreme fringe cases of judicial review. Yes, there's more to constitutional law than the Constitution itself, but we're not the UK with an unwritten constitution (which by the way, Parliament in this case could just change current law pretty much at their whim, it would just provoke a strong negative response from the people). The Supreme Court is limited to considering law in a big "C" Constitutional manner, based on the Constitution and the precedents set by itself. The opinions of the legislative branch and, in lesser cases, the executive only inform, do not decide. If Congress has assumed one thing since the start, but the Supreme Court decides it does not match the system outlined by the Constitution, well, tough poo poo, Congress, fix it. The "extreme fringe cases of judicial review" is pretty much the Supreme Court's only power, and they only got that because they up and decided it, and no one challenged them. You're talking about constitutional law in a small "C" manner, where it's about the constitution of government, and what actions and procedures can be taken. This is different than what the Supreme Court is allowed to consider and rule on. In such you're using the word in a much different manner than it is normally used within the US, the equivalent of pointing out that the Republicans in favoring free markets are the real liberals. WhiskeyJuvenile posted:crossposting: I don't disagree, but calling that "constitutional" is misleading. I realize I'm being pedantic, but it's important when deciding the recourse the other branches of government may have.
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Feb 24, 2016 01:04
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foobardog posted:I don't disagree, but calling that "constitutional" is misleading. I realize I'm being pedantic, but it's important when deciding the recourse the other branches of government may have. I'd describe it as "not unconstitutional" at least. And Congress could always impeach, but they can impeach for things that aren't constitutional violations, so welp
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Feb 24, 2016 01:11
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A Winner is Jew posted:Texas is the only state to worry about, and the fact that CA not only equals them in bases but also produces the vast majority of military air craft means that while they have more firepower, the rest of the US that won't rebel has way more than they do. This is really stupid, "bases" isn't a good metric, lots of those are admin or navy stuff that wouldn't be helpful. And LOL at "producing" aircraft. Component manufacturing is scattered all over the place. Actual combat aircraft are, I believe also heavily concentrated in the south and the west. Guess what liberal, dense, urban areas don't want near them? Things that make lots of noise or explosions. Active duty Army Brigade Combat Team figures, may be off by 1 due to deactivations/consolidations in the last couple of years, I'm mostly low balling and assuming deactivations have happened: Texas: 7 Georgia: 3 North Carolina: 3 Kansas: 3 Kentucky: 3 New York: 2 Louisiana: 1 Alaska: 2 Hawaii: 2 Washington: 3 Colorado: 3 The south dominates. Stateside Marines are mostly in CA or NC, if I recall correctly.
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Feb 24, 2016 01:14
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WhiskeyJuvenile posted:I'd describe it as "not unconstitutional" at least. And Congress could always impeach, but they can impeach for things that aren't constitutional violations, so welp Yeah, that's probably more accurate. It's not like it's supported as what we should do to implement the Constitution, just that in stupid a "there's no rule that a dog can't play baseball" manner, it is "not unconstitutional". I actually feel like given the large focus on the legislative branch in the actual Constitution, they have an outsized amount of power and are the real currently overpowered branch despite the focus on the executive.
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Feb 24, 2016 01:19
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euphronius posted:No. It happened for Rutherford B. Hayes. Associate Justice Noah Swayne resigned with the understanding that Hayes would appoint Swayne's buddy to the court. Congress ignored it until Garfield took office, and once Garfield renominated Sayne's buddy Matthews the Senate confirmed him. Of course the resignation and first nomination happened at the rear end end of January 1881 and Garfield resent the nomination in the spring after he was sworn in.
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Feb 24, 2016 01:20
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foobardog posted:Right, this is my general point. Not to disagree but English Common Law does also have an impact on not only the Supreme Court but on the lesser courts. Precedents still currently matter even if they were decided when we were still a colony.
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Feb 24, 2016 01:22
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Lowtechs posted:Not to disagree but English Common Law does also have an impact on not only the Supreme Court but on the lesser courts. Precedents still currently matter even if they were decided when we were still a colony.
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Feb 24, 2016 01:28
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Drogue Chronicle posted:
Assuming federal troops are going to join a rebellion just because they happened to be stationed in Texas is pretty dumb. It actually makes it harder to win a war if the enemy soldiers are already occupying you.
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Feb 24, 2016 02:04
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The south also contributes a greatly disproportionate number of enlistments. And servicemen are heavily republican.
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Feb 24, 2016 02:13
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VitalSigns posted:Assuming federal troops are going to join a rebellion just because they happened to be stationed in Texas is pretty dumb. I'm having trouble finding US military demographics by state lived in at time of enlistment, but I did find that they're a pretty even slice of the U.S. population by things like race. Assuming that new recruits are evenly scattered across the bases, any rebels loyal to their state would always be outnumbered just in the fight to take control of the base itself. This would make a fun video game setting. Edit: Drogue Chronicle posted:The south also contributes a greatly disproportionate number of enlistments. And servicemen are heavily republican. Do you have the data on that on hand?
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Feb 24, 2016 02:16
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Just tossing this out there: in my opinion there should be a cap on the number of justices a president can appoint.
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Feb 24, 2016 02:20
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foobardog posted:Yeah, that's probably more accurate. It's not like it's supported as what we should do to implement the Constitution, just that in stupid a "there's no rule that a dog can't play baseball" manner, it is "not unconstitutional". I actually feel like given the large focus on the legislative branch in the actual Constitution, they have an outsized amount of power and are the real currently overpowered branch despite the focus on the executive. good luck trying to impeach the President if you have to dodge sniper fire to make it to the Capitol otoh 
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Feb 24, 2016 02:28
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Cartouche posted:Just tossing this out there: in my opinion there should be a cap on the number of justices a president can appoint. Bakers dozen.
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Feb 24, 2016 02:35
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Wulfolme posted:
http://www.ijreview.com/2015/02/251918-data-shows-highest-numbers-united-states-military-come/
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Feb 24, 2016 02:36
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Drogue Chronicle posted:The south also contributes a greatly disproportionate number of enlistments. And servicemen are heavily republican. Are you counting black people and Latinos from the south in your imaginary tally of who would sign up to fight for Confederacy 2 Electric Boogaloo? E: Also your source confuses "enlistment rates per 1000" with "greatest number of enlistees"
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Feb 24, 2016 02:44
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Drogue Chronicle posted:http://www.ijreview.com/2015/02/251918-data-shows-highest-numbers-united-states-military-come/ I'm sure all of those southerners are white republicans and totally not a sizable number of minorities trying to get out of their poverty stricken towns...
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Feb 24, 2016 02:46
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The minorities are heavily in support jobs and there for the paycheck. The infantry and tankers who signed up to kill someone are disproportionately white. I was a combat arms artillery officer for 8 years. (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
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Feb 24, 2016 02:53
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Any situation wherein a majority of the military sides with anyone other than the federal government is a military coup, not a civil war.
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Feb 24, 2016 03:00
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Ahahaha okay champ. Go ahead and start a war again, I'm sure the reasoning "blacks and yanks are too cowardly to put up a fight" was always flawless and it'll totally bring victory this time around. Haha
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Feb 24, 2016 03:01
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I keep having this feeling that when the founding fathers wrote the constitution they didn't account for the potential of there being so many massive assholes that just stall and block and refuse to do their jobs.
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Feb 24, 2016 04:08
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Drogue Chronicle posted:The minorities are heavily in support jobs and there for the paycheck. The infantry and tankers who signed up to kill someone are disproportionately white. So all the Born-To-Kills will pecker off in their tanks and kill about a dozen dirty darkies each before dissolving into infighting over who gets to eat the 3 MRE's someone forgot in one of the tanks seven years ago. While I haven't really contributed any meaningful discussion here, I do wonder how that would work out, logistically. Do military bases all have a siege's worth of food and fuel and furthermore stowed away that a coup attempt could rely on for a while, or do they need everything contiguously trucked in to keep working? Everything is so interconnected these days that it makes you wonder how feasible anyone has even tried to make that.
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Feb 24, 2016 04:14
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Ra Ra Rasputin posted:I keep having this feeling that when the founding fathers wrote the constitution they didn't account for the potential of there being so many massive assholes that just stall and block and refuse to do their jobs. I think it's the opposite, though obviously there were political differences. The paralysis and weakness of the federal government under the Articles of Confederation was meant a feature, not a bug, and many of them did not want to go too far away from that. Basically it was meant to be a lot like the EU, the idea of America as a nation instead of a collection of states didn't really take off until after the Civil War. It's also worth remembering that quite a few just assumed that there would be another revolution or civil war or something that would shake things up again, so if the government is stuck in paralysis, that was expected and the ultimate solution was war.
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Feb 24, 2016 05:52
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They were also actively hostile to the idea of political parties and expected the president to be a statesman with broad appeal across the nation, and the Senate at the time represented the states because Senators were appointed by state legislatures, so the theory went that the president would have the support of most states through the electoral college and his nominations (and treaties and other stuff the senate had to ratify) just had to be checked to make sure they were still okay by the states. The idea of a political party banding 50-plus percent of the Senate together to obstruct everything the president tries to do because he's of the other party didn't occur to them.
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Feb 24, 2016 06:02
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Ra Ra Rasputin posted:I keep having this feeling that when the founding fathers wrote the constitution they didn't account for the potential of there being so many massive assholes that just stall and block and refuse to do their jobs. You're talking about the electorate, right?
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Feb 24, 2016 06:03
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vyelkin posted:There is no actual responsibility inherent in the Constitution's requirement that the Senate provide "Advice and Consent" to presidential appointees, and they can just flat out decide to ignore that if they want to. Good to know. See, it's interesting because "shall nominate" and "shall appoint" implies that the president himself has an obligation to make nominations (in Canada there was actually a court case on that exact wording because the Canadian constitution says the Prime Minister "shall" appoint senators and the Prime Minister said he wasn't going to, so someone sued saying he was violating the constitution), but the exact wording of the article doesn't make that same distinction for the Senate. It's almost like the Constitution has no provision for what happens when one branch of government just flat-out refuses to do their loving job, because why would it?
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Feb 24, 2016 06:08
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Kilroy posted:It's almost like the Constitution has no provision for what happens when one branch of government just flat-out refuses to do their loving job, because why would it? The Missouri Compromise seems almost polite these days.
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Feb 24, 2016 06:30
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What if none of this matters because Scalia gets to continue voting after death? http://www.rawstory.com/2016/02/wtf-arizona-lawyer-says-scalia-can-vote-from-the-grave-to-keep-supreme-court-conservative/
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Feb 24, 2016 06:50
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Cartouche posted:Just tossing this out there: in my opinion there should be a cap on the number of justices a president can appoint. I think everyone can agree that 10 is a bit much.
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Feb 24, 2016 07:34
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Parahexavoctal posted:What if none of this matters because Scalia gets to continue voting after death? it's a dumb non-story that I don't know why "random loon says thing" got any coverage
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Feb 24, 2016 13:28
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Parahexavoctal posted:What if none of this matters because Scalia gets to continue voting after death? This makes good sense.
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Feb 24, 2016 16:16
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I think the better argument for why Scalia can't vote isn't that we don't know how he'd vote: it's that being a justice is a lifetime appointment. Once you're dead, you're not a justice anymore! You can't vote even if your will says OH GOD PLEASE STRIKE DOWN PUBLIC UNIONS IT IS MY FINAL WILL AND TESTAMENT.
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Feb 24, 2016 16:21
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Scalia based his entire judicial career on his claim on the ability to read the thoughts of dead men, so this isn't entirely out of line with his character.
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Feb 24, 2016 16:26
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