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TyrantWD posted:At the moment. This anger is not going to sustain itself for another 1.5 years, let alone up until 2020. Why? The anger is actively sustained by liberal activists and a rich mine of horrors provided weekly by the conservative apparatus. Republicans kept this up for eight years with far less to go on.
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May 30, 2017 16:29
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mcmagic posted:Why didn't this show more results in Montana and Kansas then? We aren't seeing the massive spike to D turnout that we should be seeing. I think they did. Both of those states gave Trump a 20 point win over Clinton. A few months later, the Republicans campaigning in his name manage to eke out 7 point wins over their Democratic opponents. And while there is plenty to quibble over about the relative strength of the candidates in question, the truth is that if we saw 13 pt swings across the nation then it would be a blue revolution
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May 30, 2017 16:41
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evilweasel posted:Is there any subgroup of reasonable size that has topped 80% in any election since 2000? Like, white people, rich white people, registered republicans, registered rich republicans, any at all. Turnout for senior voters over 65 was 71%, and I bet that if you drilled down (senior white Republicans in certain states) it would probably top 80%. http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/10/black-election-turnout-down-2016-census-survey-238226
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May 30, 2017 16:56
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Chilichimp posted:For real, though, national elections should have polling open Friday-Monday, be open 8am-8pm, double the polling places, and require employers to allot time for scheduled employees to be able to go vote if they work all 4 of the available days. Elections should just follow the Vote By Mail model, which offers increased accessibility, security, and accountability, as well as significant cost savings.
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May 30, 2017 17:05
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stone cold posted:what did turnout out end up being like in Washington, Colorado, etc Voter turnout in currently all mail-in election states, by year for the last nine general elections of eligible voters: pre:Year 2016 | 2014 | 2012 | 2010 | 2008 | 2006 | 2004 | 2002 | 2000 National 60.2% | 36.7 | 58.6 | 41.8 | 62.2 | 41.3 | 60.7 | 40.5 | 55.3 Colorado 72.1% | 54.7 | 70.6 | 51.7 | 71.6 | 48.1 | 67.3 | 46.6 | 57.5 Oregon 68.3% | 53.4 | 64.2 | 53.9 | 68.3 | 53.2 | 72.6 | 51.8 | 65.9 Washington 65.7% | 43.1 | 65.8 | 54.3 | 67.3 | 47.3 | 67.5 | 43.5 | 61.4 Source: http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/voter-turnout-data Oregon, Washington and Colorado routinely top voter turnout comparisons. Oregon implemented vote by mail in 1998, Washington in 2011, Colorado in 2013. As most people know, 2016, 2012, 2008, 2004, and 2000 were presidential election years, with traditionally higher turnout. Oregon has the longest history to look over, but statistics for the critical pre-1998 years are lacking. Vote by mail should have a particular impact on minor/midterm elections, which have very low turnout but also few available statistics. Voter turnout of course varies by the specifics of each election, and the closeness of the contest. Purple states should have higher turnout. Kaal fucked around with this message at 18:40 on May 30, 2017 |
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May 30, 2017 18:34
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evilweasel posted:This might be the downside of eyeballing data, but I'm not seeing any indication that going to mail-in changed turnout in CO or Washington at all. Turnout patterns look unaffected by the date they went to mail-in. I agree, actually, which is why I ended up adding a bunch of caveats after I put the data together. And the volatility of turnout numbers makes it really hard to pick out any kind of trend. I wish that we had Oregon's numbers prior to 2000. Kaal fucked around with this message at 18:57 on May 30, 2017 |
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May 30, 2017 18:43
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RuanGacho posted:Washington has had mail in for 20+ years it was just in 2011 they said gently caress it and stopped doing regular polling places at the same time because most of us were mailing anyway This is a good point, which I didn't realize. It occurred to me is that a good look at this would probably need to be more in-depth. Washington, for example, has a history with vote by mail that goes back to before 1915, when voters could first request their ballots be mailed to them. They expanded the franchise over the decades, and by 1993 they allowed voters to request no-cause mail-in ballots for all elections. By 2000, 54% of Washingtonians used vote by mail, and by 2006 it was 88%. By 2008, only a single county was still operating polling stations. So with that in mind, it makes sense that the impact of officially switching to mail-in statewide was insubstantial. That being said, it would probably take quite a bit of data-mining to sort out the trends, because you'd really want to be looking at the details of individual elections - and particularly the minor ones. https://www.sos.wa.gov/documentvault/WashingtonStatesVotebyMailExperienceOctober2007-2066.pdf
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May 30, 2017 18:58
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Eeyo posted:Seriously. Was there any development done on the plot? Did he get lucky and have a plot somewhere where there was development? There's a big loophole in the tax system where you can allege the value of a property based on what you could develop there; without having to actually develop it. The $100 million figure was probably based on some exaggerated vision of a casino / golf course / hotel empire that hypothetically could have been built. It's tax fraud but the government doesn't fight back very hard about it. The real estate industry is filled with huckster poo poo like this.
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Jun 4, 2017 00:31
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Hellblazer187 posted:I think you get 90% the way towards those ones by just having not Hillary Clinton as the nominee next time. That would make a pretty huge difference. Which depresses me because I thought she'd make a great President. But, most people I guess don't agree there. Sadly, I agree. HRC would have been a wonderful president, but there were plenty of people who hated her after 30 years of knocking on the glass ceiling. The upside is by taking broadsides for her entire career, she made it much easier for the next woman to do it. There's a lot of people out there who absolutely hated her but who would love to deny that they are misogynists by supporting a different woman instead.
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Jun 4, 2017 01:51
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GreyjoyBastard posted:Texas is at least 40% Democratic or so. Austin and San Antonio are strongly blue, Houston is on aggregate pretty blue, Dallas... *waggles hand*. poo poo, goddamn College Station had one of the less awful Blue Dogs in the federal House until the teapocalypse. I've been slowly developing the opinion that if rich progressive benefactors like Soros and Buffett really want to start regaining control of the country, the thing to do is to start funding some nonprofits tasked with resettling low-income liberals out of expensive blue states and into urban enclaves in red states. Places like Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Atlanta, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Birmingham, Tucson, Little Rock, and Charleston. Conservatives have seen the way the demographic winds are blowing, and are doing everything they can to push out immigrants and people of color from their last bastions of white hegemony. But a concerted effort in the opposite direction would be very effective at overcoming the systemic disadvantages faced by urban liberals. And there is already movement in that direction - businesses are trying to move out of the expensive coastal cities and into more affordable locations, and they are bringing progressive attitudes with them.
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Jun 4, 2017 02:11
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Krispy Kareem posted:Unless you are talking about enough people to tip the state's popular vote, that does the same thing as gerrymandering. Atlanta and Austin already go Democratic. I wouldn't be surprised if New Orleans does also. Making the areas even more Democratic just ensures the Blue incumbents don't have to actually do anything since they know their seats are safe. I don't quite know what you mean by comparing it to gerrymandering, because if anything I see it as an intentional reaction to gerrymandering, but yeah the aim is to eventually threaten the state popular vote. It won't happen right away, and it probably won't happen in a generation, but it will chip away at the safe Republican states and ensure that they'd have to fight more and more for every representative. State GOPs will be able to use gerrymandering and other tactics to fight against it for a while, but there's statutory limits to how much they can do. Targeting resettlement into specifically purple districts within those states would be even more effective, but invites conservative reprisals that would deter many. It's one thing to move from one urban liberal hot spot to another - it's another to move to a rural community that will probably try to drive you out. Regardless, the idea has a lot of merits. American liberals vastly outnumber the conservatives, even if our outdated system doesn't recognize that democratic mandate. Republicans have only won the popular vote once in the last seven elections. The 2016 vote differential in Texas was 800,000 people, and without Texas' 37 electoral votes, Republicans would struggle to ever put a president into power ever again. If 2,000 additional liberals moved into Texas every month, that would permanently jeopardize Republican power within 35 years. And that would be the hardest target: If that plan was expanded with computerized targeting of vulnerable districts all over the country, it would force a political realignment. Kaal fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Jun 4, 2017 |
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Jun 4, 2017 03:21
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Krispy Kareem posted:Except any program of resettlement to tip voter scales will result in independents and moderates voting in greater numbers against Democrats. People are loyal to their states or cities and won't appreciate outside billionaires trying to influence elections. And if it was someone like Soros that would play right into RWM descriptions of him. In a generation neither party is going to look like it does now anyway because the voters won't look like they do today. poo poo will shake out over time. I'm sure the RWM would flip out with all sorts of accusations, but it would be easy to defend them so long as the optics of the program was focused on job creation and affordable living. States with the closest margin of victory in 2016 Presidential election: Michigan 13,000 votes / 16 electors (R) New Hampshire 2,701 votes / 4 electors (D) Wisconsin 27,257 votes / 10 electors (R) Pennsylvania 68,236 votes / 20 electors (R) Florida 114,455 votes / 29 electors (R) Minnesota 44,470 votes / 10 electors (D) Nevada 26,434 votes / 6 electors (D) Maine 19,995 votes / 4 electors (D) North Carolina 177,009 votes / 15 electors (R) Arizona 91,682 votes / 11 electors (R) HRC needed 43 electoral votes to beat Trump. If you give her the five that she lost to faithless electors then she needed 38. That's Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania (46 electors) with a total differential of 108,493. There are literally hundreds of thousands of coastal liberals who aren't being represented by our political system, can't afford to live where they are, would be willing to live in an urban area that was different but similar, and just need the right job offer to move. Kaal fucked around with this message at 15:03 on Jun 4, 2017 |
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Jun 4, 2017 03:59
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Trabisnikof posted:Or instead of mass resettlement, maybe we can find 25% of the 4 million people in Texas who could have voted in 2016 but aren't registered and convince them to vote Democratic instead of them doing nothing. Or idk maybe the 11 million registered voters who stayed home might yield some voters. Why not do both? No one is saying that we should stop outreach efforts, but the fact is that when you see millions of wasted votes in California, New York, and other bright blue states, and pair that with soaring business and livability costs in those states, there is a clear opportunity for spreading out the liberal population in a politically opportune way. This is hardly the first time that this sort of thing has been done here in America - people have been moving around for a mix of employment opportunity and political representation the whole time.
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Jun 4, 2017 04:10
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Trabisnikof posted:Because any amount of time or effort spent trying to get Californians to move to Texas to vote Democratic is wasted compared to using that effort on GOTV in Texas instead. We don't have unlimited money or volunteers for GOTV. But that's the same argument that has also dissuaded Democrats from investing in GOTV efforts in Texas at all. Or Arizona, or half a dozen other states that we write off as Republican in spite of their clear political value due to special representation. We try harder and harder to scrounge up votes in a system that is heavily tilted toward conservatives. And whenever the scales get thumbed even more, we shrug and promise to double down and educate - to push voter participation ever higher. But a viable demographic response is staring us in the face.
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Jun 4, 2017 04:49
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Trabisnikof posted:Convincing enough people to move from blue states to swing Texas isn't a viable political response to anything. Texas would take a generation, but eventually it would be utterly fatal to the Republican Party. Places like Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin are much easier targets, and there is already plenty of coastal movement in and out of those states. I should probably stop pumping the idea any further, but right now the biggest issue for liberals isn't convincing more people to vote, it's contesting gerrymandering and special representation directly. There were 2,868,691 more votes for Clinton than for Trump, but the election came down to where 108,496 of them lived. Kaal fucked around with this message at 15:05 on Jun 4, 2017 |
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Jun 4, 2017 05:05
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Trabisnikof posted:Are you imagining people moving to a more conservative state just to vote D because they got a targeted ad on facebook? Are they moving because a volunteer knocked on their door? Are they moving to Pennsylvania to vote Democratic straight ticket because of a meme that they saw on Reddit? You can't convince enough people to move to a state with laws they probably don't like and keep them voting Democratic once they move just through ads and outreach. Jobs and culture. Advertise in blue cities for work in purple cities and help with relocation costs. Encourage business expansion in these areas and connect municipalities with coastal companies that want to move themselves and their employees to somewhere more affordable. Municipal governments would jump at the chance of helping their economy, and probably would be happy to help with the effort. Counter conservative state reputations by painting the cities as modern, progressive, and cultured. Showcase these places as an attractive alternative to cities with highly competitive job markets, and skyrocketing business and livability costs. History has shown that if you can establish foundational support for bringing groups of new people into an area - connecting them with initial housing, jobs, and a welcoming community - then it makes it much easier to interest people in taking a chance. In many ways, shifting the economy and demographics of a state is much more straightforward than changing the opinions and political engagement of its existing citizenry, because it is less oppositional and more permanent. The same concept could be extended to encouraging immigration into the United States, and converting more legal residents into citizens - because the demographic changes that are engendered in that effort are far more concrete than trying to pull the strings of American political opinion. And Republicans recognize this: Their desperation to eject people of color from this country is out of a fear of looming political impotency as much as anything else - each POC represents a step forward on the road to white pluralism in the United States. Kaal fucked around with this message at 06:03 on Jun 4, 2017 |
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Jun 4, 2017 06:00
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boner confessor posted:all of these places already vote democratic. there's no point to putting more liberals in liberal enclaves, you'd need them to move to rural areas to tip those districts which is even more wildly impractical than whatever nonsense you're pushing here All the those cities are suggested precisely because they are already Democratic. Tipping districts in red states is pointless because Republicans just move the district lines whenever they please, and they'll continue doing so until gerrymandering is banned. And few people want to move to a jobless rural area that haven't already anyway. But moving to another liberal city with a strong municipal government that is providing the kind of services that you'd expect in an urban area in a bluer state ... people are more open to the possibility. The idea is to solidify blue control of state governorships, the Senate and presidency by spreading out the liberal population so that they are represented fairly. And it takes advantage of existing economic trends, as opposed to doubling down on our old political plans that don't seem to be working very well. If you prefer the optics of "promoting the image of blue cities in purple states", then go with that. Kaal fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Jun 4, 2017 |
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Jun 4, 2017 18:40
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Fitzy Fitz posted:It's intended to be a single nonprofit corporation. I have no idea how that is supposed to improve anything. At the very least it will provide an opportunity to attack the controller's union.
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Jun 4, 2017 19:09
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Rigel posted:The piss tape would be amusing and would hurt him, but at this point its a lot less important than Mueller's investigation into Russia collusion and obstruction of justice. At this point anyone who cares about collusion and obstruction of justice is already furious with Trump. If anything will seriously damage Trump's Republican support, it will be tabloid scandal poo poo like this.
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Jun 4, 2017 22:24
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galenanorth posted:Marco Rubio just tried to cast shade on Comey for leaks that happened from within the Senate Intelligence Committee, regarding there being or not being an investigation, after the Senate Intelligence Committee was to blame for the leak of his letter to them about Anthony Weiner. This whole thing has cleared up a lot of misgivings that people have had about Comey, that he intentionally did that to undermine the Clinton campaign because he's a Republican, and that he went public with the Clinton investigation because they told him to call it a "matter" and because of Bill Clinton's meeting with the Attorney General on the airport tarmac. I, too, suspected he was using his office to try to sway the election, but this hearing has persuaded me that he has acted with the intentions of a model American citizen. It should be noted that this impression is precisely what Comey is trying to put forward. He is quite conscious of his own image, and is always keen to protect it. Look at often he puts forward the idea that "My momma raised me well" and other forms of apple pie Americana - of course people are going to be inclined to think he's a model citizen. But that charitable perspective ignores how exceptional his behavior was throughout the entirety of the Clinton investigation, in particular due to how targeted it was and how he completely ignored precedent or DOJ oversight. To my mind, while he isn't a naked partisan he certainly saw Clinton and the Democrats as an opportunity to further his own image and his FBI constituency, and pursued it without regard to its poisonous effect on our democracy. The fact that he ended up ultimately being brought down by the sequence of events he set in motion, and was bit by the snake he was helping, doesn't really change that. Kaal fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Jun 8, 2017 |
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Jun 8, 2017 16:23
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Archonex posted:When I think of viable candidates to run against Trump and his appeal to misogyny and bigotry I think of women that have been systematically slandered by conservatives since they obtained even an iota of power and influence. That will certainly win everyone over and stop the Republicans from destroying our rights! Agreed completely. The reality as we're staring into 2018/2020 is that the American liberal movement was self-destructing throughout the primaries, and while the ascendancy of Trump has papered over the ideological differences that are tearing apart the Democrats, it has done nothing to cool the slow-burning cultural war over the Democratic Party. Whoever gets picked to lead the DNC efforts in the coming elections, they're going to need to be as uncontroversial as possible, or else the next major primaries are going to seriously damage the party and will probably lead to more losses. Preferably we can find a Trudeau or a Macron: A charismatic pragmatist with decent progressive credentials, ideally a woman in their 40's. Kaal fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Jun 8, 2017 |
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Jun 8, 2017 19:08
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FateFree posted:If Comey was so nervous about these conversations I wonder why he never secretly recorded them. Is that a crime? It would be nominally legal in the District of Columbia to record someone without them knowing, but successfully doing it in the White House would be very difficult and failure would invite all sorts of potential problems.
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Jun 8, 2017 19:23
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Trump's lawyer just said that Comey lied under oath about Trump's loyalty demands and that lying under oath is punishable by jail sentence. Please let this end by Trump having to go under oath because it's a he-said/he-said, Please let this end by Trump having to go under oath because it's a he-said/he-said, Please let this end by Trump having to go under oath because it's a he-said/he-said ...
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Jun 8, 2017 19:26
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The Glumslinger posted:No, it was actually asked a ton during Watergate and that is when the current precedent comes from Actually it was asked a ton during Watergate and never settled because of the resignation/pardon outcome.
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Jun 8, 2017 21:24
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Rigel posted:The only reason to vote against banishing Scott Brown into kiwiville would be to run for president proudly declaring you opposed Trump harder than anyone else. Well that and really what purpose is served by cooperating with Republicans without the merest quid pro quo?
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Jun 8, 2017 22:52
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evilweasel posted:No. You have to have an intent to do the bad thing the law prohibits. You do not need to have the specific knowledge that bad thing is against the law. I'd love to see someone try to prove specific knowledge of the law. Defense: "Sure we have video footage of Trump reading that law book, but did he fully comprehend it? It's not like he took a test on the material." Judge: Thank you councilor. Innocent. Case closed.
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Jun 9, 2017 00:26
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evilweasel posted:If Trump had a functioning brain and a functioning political party he could easily propose an infrastructure bill that would put Democrats in a really bad place and potentially get 60 votes. Fortunately, he has neither of those things. But the thing is that for all that Trump wants to build 1,000 Trump Memorial Highways, Republicans are actually pretty shy about funding government projects of any kind. It's a pork project, and he'd have to shell out a ton of money into Democrat districts to get the 60 votes he'd need.
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Jun 9, 2017 16:14
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There Bias Two posted:"There will never be another Great War!" said many right before the bombs dropped on their cities. This is definitely not true, there was a wide understanding that the Great War hadn't fundamentally changed anything, and that a second war was very possible, particularly after Hitler was elected. Part of appreciating risk is recognizing the various degree of threats. Realistically the possibility of a worldwide war is very low, in particular because the US has the only significant naval fleet. The world wars were predated by military buildup on all sides.
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Jun 25, 2017 14:51
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mcmagic posted:I'm talking about adding 2-4 seats to the court. (This will be a major plank of the Dem planform in a few years) Not to mention adding term limits because these 40 year appointments are insane.
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Jun 26, 2017 15:09
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Teddybear posted:That would require constitutional amendment. Actually it would not, there's no constitutional mandate for lifetime appointments at all.
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Jun 26, 2017 15:12
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mcmagic posted:Yeah. It's a one way ratchet but the only recourse is to exercise political power wherever and whenever you can. Well the parties could also just shrink the size of the court and boot justices they don't like. That also would only take a majority in both houses.
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Jun 26, 2017 15:19
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evilweasel posted:They "shall" hold their offices "during good behavior." There is no other explanation for that clause besides "lifetime appointments, except for impeachment." Teddybear posted:I'd argue holding for good behavior necessarily implies lifetime appointments. That constitutional mandate also applies to all inferior courts, and yet the "lifetime appointment" interpretation only is applied to the Supreme Court. We change and limit the terms of the vast majority of our judges. It's clearly a misinterpretation that could be easily rectified - either by narrowly recognizing that the line is discussing Good Behavior as grounds for impeachment, or by prima facie interpretation that Good Behavior means holding office for 10 years. Either way, there is no bright line there that a determined congress would have to cross.
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Jun 26, 2017 15:24
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Teddybear posted:It would require impeachment of the sitting justices. evilweasel posted:Likewise unconstitutional. I believe every court shrink that occurred in history simply provided that the next vacacy that opened would not be filled. No court shrink has ever proposed that certain justices would be eliminated. Actually it also would be constitutional. There's nothing barring it at all. The judges hold their Offices - but without an Office they have no grounds to stand on for Continuance. This is an issue that has come up many times in the inferior courts. The reality here is that while we think of the SCOTUS as having a firm constitutional role and grounding, the reality is that most of our rules for it are based entirely on precedent that could be easily changed (and often has been in the past).
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Jun 26, 2017 15:28
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evilweasel posted:I agree with Teddybear, I'm pretty sure you're confusing federal judges and state judges. Nope, there's plenty of federal judges who have limited tenures, they're just considered "Non-Article III judges". In addition to bankruptcy courts, there's also a variety of tax and claims courts, territorial courts, and military courts helmed by judges without lifetime appointments. And of course magistrate judges, if you want to consider them as well. Not to mention that judges can change Offices or be promoted out of them, despite the nominal "lifetime" duration. I understand that there's an orthodoxy here that considers lifetime appointments to be constitutionally based, but it really isn't. All it would take would be a determined congress to change it. It would go up to the SCOTUS for review of course, but so long as Congress made it clear that it was a political issue, then I think the Supreme Court have little choice but to acquiesce.
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Jun 26, 2017 15:36
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Teddybear posted:Yeah, we're all talking about article III judges here. The whole conversation has been article III judges. Article III doesn't actually offer any room for there to be "Article III judges" and "non-Article III judges". Once you accept limits on inferior judges, you open the door for those same limits to be placed on superior judges. The fact that there are many federal judges who don't have lifetime appointments makes it clear that such tenure is optional and revocable. And it should be recognized that since the language here is so vague, there are a variety of less confrontational methods of limiting tenure as well. The Carrington/Cramton proposal would simply re-task the supreme court justices to other duties - thus avoiding the issue of ending lifetime tenure entirely. Federal judges routinely take on different duties - Neil Gorsuch himself was a federal appeals court judge before being appointed to the Supreme Court - and there is no controversy about whether that violates their lifetime appointment to that office. Kaal fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Jun 26, 2017 |
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Jun 26, 2017 15:42
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evilweasel posted:Article I v Article III judges You might disagree with this perspective, but that certainly doesn't mean that you're correct about it. The idea that there is a bright line between different types of federal judges runs face-first into the blanket language of Article III, which clearly recognizes the inferior courts separately authorized, and includes them in the "Good Behavior" provision. Your perspective tries to make an argument that there is some sort of fundamental division of "inferior courts" into "Covered by Art. III" and "Not Covered by Art. III", but there just isn't any substantiation for it. Inferior courts have a wide variety of powers and jurisdiction, but they're clearly all being invoked in that line. There's a lot of clarity there. And beyond that, it's important to recognize that this perspective relies on a flexible interpretation of language on this line - and once accepted, that same flexibility could be applied in a different way, i.e. interpreting "Good Behavior" as being a limited term. You can't have it both ways.
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Jun 26, 2017 16:11
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The Supreme Court would never rule in favor of that because it would harm them personally. Separation of powers cuts both ways; they'd be totally free to rule that Congress was unconstitutionally interfering with the judiciary. They're of course free to rule however they wish, but there is extensive precedent that Congress should hold sway over political matters, and that the judiciary has and should submit themselves to that authority in those instances. If Congress is changing up the Supreme Court for reasons of political balance - particularly if it was being done in an even-handed way like imposing uniform tenure limits - then precedent would suggest that Congress has the authority to do that. If the Supreme Court wanted to upend that precedent in a defense of their own personal power, and thereby start a fight with a clearly determined Congress, then that would be their choice. But it probably would not end there.
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Jun 26, 2017 16:17
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evilweasel posted:No, I am absolutely correct about it, and like I said even if you accept your argument that all this Article I stuff is wrong you get only that we should strike down the Article I stuff. There is no basis in the constitution for "well, this stuff was in violation of the constitution, therefore we have to allow this other stuff in violation of the constitution." If you manage to get a court to accept that the Article I courts are really in violation of Article III, you get the Article I courts struck down - just like has already happened twice in history. And you definitely cannot extend it to the Supreme Court because the Constitution is specific that the Supreme Court is an Article III court and the judges on it have the protection of Article III. I know this is an orthodox position and therefore it's easy to just say "Well that's the status quo, QED", but frankly it's a really limited perspective on what is actually possible. Your argument is basically predicated on the idea that SCOTUS would knock down a tenure-limitation passed by Congress, based on a hazy back and forth about how some inferior courts are more inferior than others, one that you yourself don't really seem to be defending so much as holding up as a nominal speed bump. Here we are on a day where the courts backed up a blatantly unconstitutional religious ban that would have been laughed out of court 100 years ago when societal views on immigration were quite different, and you're making an argument that the laws and codes of our society are firmly fixed and never open to reinterpretation.
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Jun 26, 2017 16:31
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evilweasel posted:as other posters have repeatedly pointed out to you, even if we assume the supreme court no longer gives a drat about precedent, the constitution, or anything at all - which is what you're basically claiming - they still care about themselves You're absurd if you think that SCOTUS, when presented with a bill imposing term limits based on precedent, political principle, and clear constitutional language, would ignore everything in order to save their jobs. It's farcical. And you seem to have it in your head that they'd somehow turn this into making bankruptcy judges stay in their position for life? Or that Gorsuch would have to return to his previous position because he hadn't finished his lifetime appointment of that office? It's ridiculous to assume the courts have such an extreme adherence to the status quo - particularly when they hand down sweeping rulings all the time - often with little precedent. Beyond that, pretending that the idea of changing the term limits is an impossible "gold fringe" fantasy ignores the reality that it's an open discussion that comes up routinely in our system and has adherents on all sides. There's no consensus on this at all, so there's no use pretending that this issue is some sort of dictum. Kaal fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Jun 26, 2017 |
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Jun 26, 2017 16:43
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The argument that Article III does not oppose term limits is simple: The Good Behavior language does not offer any clear mandate of such, and there are a variety of inferior courts that already do not observe lifetime appointment. Your counter-argument (that the framers intended Good Behavior during Office to mean lifetime appointments, and that some courts are neither supreme nor inferior courts) is much more convoluted. You might find that orthodoxy more persuasive, but it's hardly the only valid interpretation available. Pretending that SCOTUS is going to uproot the entire justice system before permitting Congress to impose term limits is an exercise in fantasy. Kaal fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Jun 26, 2017 |
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Jun 26, 2017 17:02
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