The US Supreme Court and its decisions

Pale Rider

...and Hell followed with him.
Citizen
FB friend:
Imagine being an American lawyer and believing your whole life that the system is based on all sorts of principles, and then it turns out that all it takes is the GOP controlling the Senate for 20 years and they can turn the American Supreme Court and therefore federal law itself into the sock puppet of a political party.
It must feel weird to be an American celebrating your independence day shortly after your Supreme Court declared that the president is above the law, like a medieval king.
Clarence Thomas's wife exudes the energy of someone who looks at a black couple entering a posh restaurant and whispers "what are THEY doing in here?" And Clarence Thomas himself would have no problem with this even though he's black.
 

Axaday

Well-known member
Citizen
Imagine being an American lawyer and believing your whole life that the system is based on all sorts of principles, and then it turns out that all it takes is the GOP controlling the Senate for 20 years and they can turn the American Supreme Court and therefore federal law itself into the sock puppet of a political party.
I read a book a few years ago about Heller and how we got there and it was enlightening. At the end of the book, I expected the author to be very angry and he was surprisingly zen in his conclusion. Aside from that it was NOT originalist at all and the people deciding it act like they were originalists, he actually comes to the conclusion that this is the way the Supreme Court is supposed to work and the way progressives have general operated it. You gradually build the court that can be a stronger, if slower, legistative branch. So aside from the hypocrisy of claiming to be an originalist, he basically said he didn't like it, but fair's fair.

Plessy v Ferguson was actually decided according to originalist principles. The Constitution didn't give the Federal government the right to interfere on segregation and that's that. Decades later, Brown v Topeka Board of Eduction was decided by a couple generations of building political capital and making a court that was willing to say Plessy was wrong. But it wasn't, based on originalism. That court decided that desegregation was what the Constitution SHOULD say and we've all been better for it. It really isn't the process that is wrong. We just don't like having the sock puppet on the GOP's hand.

If originalism is what you're into, Roe v Wade wasn't. It was a progressive court saying what the Constitution SHOULD say. Dobbs is correct, by originalism. There has been no amendment to the Constitution giving the Federal Government power to regulate any medical procedures. The 10th Amendment is firm here. The states get to decide about abortion. If you want it to be universal, an Amendment is required (which wouldn't get ratified by enough states) or you have to persuade a supermajority of the populace to take the issue out of the fight or you have to be in charge enough of the time or at the right time to build a court that agrees.

I just had a funny thought here, because I think the Founding Fathers were really proud of how they'd made a workable process for amending the Constitution to make sure it could keep up with future needs, but the way things panned out with the 2 party system and so many states and whatever else, it is now REALLY HARD to amend the Constitution. They meant for it to be challenging, but not practically impossible. There are a bunch of things in there now, such as the Electoral College, that really make no sense. Not from an originalist approach or a logical approach. Its actually usefulness ended a long time ago, but it gives an advantage to a political party and so they won't allow it to go. I don't know how much harder or easier it is to change the rules in Canada and England and France.
 

Tuxedo Prime

Well-known member
Citizen
Canada's constitution has a "7/50" amendment formula -- one requires at least 7 provinces comprising 50% or more of the population. This ensures that the Ontario-Quebec axis of population can't change things to suit only themselves, though getting even seven provincial legislatures to agree on anything is enough of a task that we've only had a handful of minor tweaks to the Constitution since it was repatriated from the UK in 1982. (Because it took that long since the passage of the Canada Act in the UK House of Commons for us to agree on a proper Canadian document....)
 

Rhinox

too old for this
Citizen
As someone studying law, I can say that there are a ton of teachers and students freaking out about this Supreme Court. They're figuratively shitting all over a lot of what were once bedrock principles and people are not handling it well at all.
 

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
At the other end of the spectrum, we have individual states (e.g. Ohio) whose constitutions are stupidly easy to amend, easier than even passing a law, so we end up with constitutions that are a zillion pages long and cover every conceivable topic.
 

NovaSaber

Well-known member
Citizen
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wonko the sane?

You may test that assumption at your convinience.
Citizen

It'll go nowhere.
We know, that's not the point. The point is to get the objection ON PAPER for the future: when they will be able to start impeaching justices. Also to get the names of all the people whom will openly support corruption at the highest levels of justice.
 

abates

unfortunate shark issues
Citizen
It's good. It's like someone is actually trying to do something instead of sitting around saying "well, the Supreme Court is against us and several of its members are blatantly corrupt. There's nothing to be done."

It tells people that something can be done, if the Democrats are given enough power.
 

Ungnome

Grand Empress of the Empire of One Square Foot.
Citizen
She's also 100% THIS is exactly what impeachment is for. It's not simply to remove your political rival from office(I'm looking at YOU, members of the so called Freedom Caucus), it's to fight against power grabs and corruption. It definitely WON'T go anywhere with the current house and senate, but, if we can retake the House and get a decent majority in the Senate...
 

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
Doesn't it take a two-thirds majority to convict, or something? We'll never get that. No one will.
 


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