Without control of the White House, there is of course only so much Democrats can do with their newfound power. And in the context of the myriad horrors of the first half of President Donald Trump’s second term, talking about what the party “should” do next is roughly analogous to deciding which out-of-control forest fire to fight first: There is not enough water, there are lots of worthy candidates, and all of them are getting worse.
One thing must be true, though: Whatever issues Democratic lawmakers choose to focus on—and, as the 2028 ideas primary gets underway, whatever ambitious ideas Democratic presidential hopefuls choose to support—the party must also have a plan for taking on the Supreme Court, which remains an existential threat to anything Democrats might hope to accomplish. Even if the party is fortunate enough to win a trifecta—the House, the Senate, and the White House—in 2028, things like a Green New Deal and Medicare for All and a new Voting Rights Act do not stand a chance before this six-justice conservative supermajority. Regrettably, what I wrote in 2020 is just as true today: If Congress passes any one of these proposals into law, the only real question is which justice ends up writing the opinion that kills it.
The Supreme Court takes bribes and is biased. That is a complete failure of the intent of what the supreme court should be.
Voters turning MISSISSIPPI BLUE is NOT a Sign that we should do Something EXTREME like This! INSTEAD Voters PROBABLY want to See us HELP Trump with His Agenda!
-Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer!
Here’s another thing that needs to be addressed:
In 1789 each house representative represented roughly 5000 voters.
Each senator represented roughly 14000 voters.
In 2026 each house representative represents roughly 600,000 voters.
Each senator represents roughly 2.5 million voters.
I’m not sure that system was meant for scale.
The Senate was made that way deliberately. It’s not based on population.
The Supreme Court has been proven that it can be corrupted. It needs to be rebuilt so that can’t happen again.
“I think we should have term limits for the supreme court.”
“But no term limits means they aren’t beholden to political interests and can stay unbiased!”
I think 9 judges is probably fine, but they should be term limited to 18 years, and we replace one judge every 2 years. Every president would get to seat a minimum of 2 judges. It would limit all the politicking around placing a judge, it would also eliminate the game of placing a young idealist that can server for 50 years.
I mean at that point just have the supreme court be elected. Split the country up into 9 regional districts and have each one elect a judge. Every 2 years have 3 of them up for re-election and every 6 years you get a full reset.
It should be a pool of judges, and 5 or 7 or 9 or whatever are chosen at random for each case
Ah good old Athenian system. It’s very smart, and it works. If you can get the randomization unbiased and dependable. I think something mechanical, like those old lottery flying ping pong things.
Before there is talk of expansion, let’s talk about pruning Thomas from the tree. His ass is explicitly corrupt. In the normal way, not the “let’s visit atrocities on women and minorities” way the other conservatives on the court are.
He’s an easy impeachment target. He doesn’t deserve a soft landing into retirement. He deserves prison, and so does his treasonous bulldog wife.
Also Kavanaugh, who committed perjury in his hearings. He also lied to Susan Collins. You know those gang rape pervs at Cornell? Kavanaugh was that kind of a guy. He would have been first in line, encouraging the others, and texting his buddies to come over.
I used to believe that we needed expand SCOTUS to 13, but I no longer believe that. Now I believe that we should expand SCOTUS to 29 seats, with rolling term limits, so every president gets to appoint a few.
The number of seats shouldn’t be so low that one bad faith president can negatively affect governmental policy for the next 50 years.
I agree with the rolling term limits, but I’m not sure i understand 29. I can see 9 judges, 18 years limits, replace 1 every 2 years. Alternatively, i think 21 judges, 21 years limits, replace 1 every year.
With 29 seats, are you proposing 29 year term limits, and replace one every year?
Look, I’m definitely not an expert, I just play one on social media posts. I’m not suggesting a complete plan, just a basic framework.
I’m not married to 29, it just needs to be large enough that it couldn’t be skewed too much in any direction. 21 would probably work. There are 13 districts, so maybe there should be three judges from each district, for a total of 39.
I was thinking 18-20 year terms, and mandatory retirement at 75.
There are a LOT of other factors as well, but I’d let the experts decide. My only deal is size. SCOTUS needs to be a lot bigger.
I could see real advantages to having a quite large Supreme Court where the justices who hear and decide a case are a subset of the total and the ones who hear a case are selected at random from the pool. Similar such systems already exist in the circuit courts and it helps to prevent gaming of the system. It’s much harder to game out who you need to appeal to in your arguments when you don’t know for sure who’s going to hear your case. Also makes it possible for them to hear more cases. I think Congress also ought to use their power and tell the Supreme Court that no, actually you DON’T get to say our laws are unconstitutional. That was wrong back when you started doing it and its wrong now.
Who else would determine that laws are unconstitutional? I’m not very familiar with the US legal system.
We don’t need just more justices. We need age and term limits. Being allowed to feather their nests with bribes forever has clearly corrupted many of the justices on the bench.
I like the idea of 13 justices, with one overseeing each of the federal circuits.
Betcha 10 bucks they don’t
There’s a whole big ole bucket list of things to take care of right now, remember we still have an infected pus sack of obstruction, corruption and mayhem in the WH.
I think right now it’s about holding people accountable, stop the war and restore healthcare, and by god those alone won’t be easy.
Term limits first. Lifetime appointment is stupid and you might as well ask for corruption up front.
Then electoral college. 0 reason for that shit to still exist. Farmers can pick up their farms and move to Canada or Mexico if they dont like being outvoted.
Then we can worry about universal accountability, starting with the removal of absolute and qualified immunity. The concept of immunity in law is a cancer to actual justice. Once we actually start holding justices and judges accountable for their actions, we can consider having more.
Elimination of the Electoral College is at hand. They only needed two more states to vote for some new Electoral College Pact, in which states agree to give their electoral votes to the popular vote winner, essentially making the el action a popular vote, which it should be.
Enough statehouses flipped that if two of them voted for the pact, it would automatically take effect, or something like that. I don’t know all the details, I’ve just heard some really positive talk about it.
Or at least age limits. No one over 65.
Age isn’t the problem, corruption is. Politicians who have been in office longer are more corrupt, age is just a by product.
My life is seemingly filled with dementia-addled seniors at the moment. Age is definitely a problem.
A revolving door would just make them get all their corruption done quickly. There isn’t really a good solution, because power will always still attract people who want to abuse it.
If term limits are good for the President, why not Congress. Or, should we eliminate term limits for the President?
I disagree. Newly elected folks who aren’t career politicians are far less corrupt than those who’ve been in office for decades and who have established relationships with the filthy rich.
Power doesn’t initially exclusively attract people who want to abuse it, the corruption comes over time. Power corrupts, but not immediately.
Its not like the farmers are getting much good out of the vote they made anyway
Talk about impeaching judges who took bribes now. Expand the court next.
The latter would make the former infinitely more possible.
Impeachment of Supreme Court justices doesn’t involve the courts at all. It’s done solely through Congress.
But it does require a 2/3 majority.
anything the shitstain doesn’t like also requires a two-thirds majority (of both chambers) to override his veto.
the bar is slightly lower for impeachment, as laying the charges only requires simple majority in the house.
Annoyingly, getting a 2/3 majority would be easier in Congress.
In the Senate.
Yes, but that’s even worse as it requires more Republican representatives to flip.
SCOTUS settles numerous disputes and could, like they did in the early 2000s, change the outcome of contested elections. If they do so to those that may have the plan to impeach the court, there is little anyone can do to stop them. Therefore expanding the court first takes priority, to prevent the court from retaliation.
You want to expand the Supreme Court before the next election?
Tell me, who nominates Supreme Court justices for the Senate to vote on?
You, specifically, are why I support reeducation camps for all Americans. Reading comprehension has gone downhill so rapidly since AI’s invention.
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Based on your extensive comment history it’s not really a wonder that you feel that way. I would bet you also feel that way about the average person on the street or anyone else you intentionally misread.
Actually, that would have to be the opposite order. The court can’t be expanded until there isn’t a republican in the Whitehouse. So priority must be given to impeachment so that the current bad actors don’t try to overturn the next election to save themselves.
They can’t expand the court before the SC can fuck with the midterm elections.
Very hard to imagine. Most Democrats genuinely believe that the system can be fixed by sheer force of ‘civility’. Packing the court is too far outside of ‘the norm’.
Most Democrats don’t even believe the system needs fixing, and that we only face problems because Republicans are too… Republican. After all, American democracy is the only kind of democracy.
They need to do a lot more than just “talk” about it
Also need to talk about putting three or four of them in prison for fraud, corruption, and graft.
Yeah you right
While I agree in principle with expanding the court and breaking its power, I don’t think the time is right for seriously proposing it.
The midterms were more a rejection of Trump than an endorsement of a Democratic agenda. The upset, red-state victories were about ending the war and lowering gas prices, not about fundamentally transforming the balance of power in the state. The senators in those states will not support those measures (if they want to have a chance at reelection), so even with a trifecta it’s unlikely to go through. In the meantime, the Democrats will appear power-hungry and the right will have plenty of material to fear-monger, and there’s also legitimate concerns about the right taking power and doing the same thing.
The best way to approach major judicial reform would be to put it directly in the hands of the people, through something like a national referendum. There isn’t really a process for national level referendums here in the States, but even some kind of non-binding resolution could better assess the popular will and provide a clearer mandate. Currently, what we have are polls, which show a roughly even split for and against, with clearer support for term limits. So enact term limits, say you don’t think it goes far enough, but promise that you won’t go further without a clear mandate from the people.
