The major questions doctrine, explained.
This major questions doctrine, at least as it is understood by the Court’s current majority, emerged almost from thin air in the past several years. And it has been wielded almost exclusively by Republican-appointed justices to invalidate policies created by a Democratic administration. This doctrine is mentioned nowhere in the Constitution. Nor is it mentioned in any federal statute. It appears to have been completely made up by justices who want to wield outsize control over federal policy.
This is the scariest thing I’ve read. I hope we have a way to fix all this before the next election. Adding many, many justices is the first step.
Never going to happen. Not a chance with the current congress.
The President could stop this at any time. All he needs to do is pack the court with more justices to rebalance it. Not doing so makes him complicit.Foot meet mouth. I’m an idiot.
Exactly how does the president do that? He cannot expand the court on his own. Congress doesn’t have enough Democrats to do it. None of the current justices are going anywhere unless they die.
Or, charge several of them with taking bribes. As there is plenty of evidence already, they are not above the law.
The moronic general public already thinks holding 45 accountable is “political persecution” source. This is with rocksteady evidence. And now you people are talking about charging R-aligned Justices on loose bribe accusations? Just… no. This is how you fire up their base and hand R’s the election with a supermajority.
This is the Congress’ job to fix. Want it fixed? Stop relying on the president and start figuring out how to make Congress actually work again.
This is how you fire up their base
Not sure what more firing up the base needs in your opinion? That part of society is lost for quite a while now and if you think these morons could be ‘pulled back in’ as long as you do not insult/antagonize/etc. is a myth. A dangerous one at that. I would even wager that this attitude of soft gloves to not insult or fail to fairly accommodate the other side is what partially got us here.
The choices aren’t Democrats or Republicans. It’s Democrat, Republican, or stay at home and not vote. I’m not dumb enough to think people are willing to change positions easily these days. But R’s just got fed some good red meat (Dobbs), which means some of them will become complacent. There isn’t one issue at the moment which motivates their base as good as abortion, which is why they’re flailing around and trying to demonize trans folk
The choices aren’t Democrats or Republicans. It’s Democrat, Republican, or stay at home and not vote.
Staying home and not voting is a vote for Republicans. The GOP are still beating the abortion drum by pushing for national bans and even more restrictions on abortion in the states where it’s still legal. Demonizing trans kids is their new boogeyman to keep those who are past the abortion issue in line and make sure that there’s something new for them to fear.
The GOP are masters at scaring their voters to the polls, and one of the things they hope for is that Democrat voters stay home in “protest”. You’re not protesting anything by staying home. You’re helping the GOP.
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Ending the fillibuster would do a lot to make change, but in part the cery purpose of it is to force some measure of consensus by preventing a simple mahority from steamrolling the minority. When one side refuses ANY level of meaningful compromise however you get trades that are so massivly out of balance as to be counterproductive to the wishes of any progressive movement.
Ending the fillibuster would do a lot to make change, but in part the cery purpose of it is to force some measure of consensus by preventing a simple mahority from steamrolling the minority.
This is why I’m actually against removing the filibuster. Yes, Democrats would be able to make some short term gains in the process. But all it would lead to is the GOP just taking note of everything the Democrats did and just reversing it all on day one the minute they regain power. And then after that, we get to sit back and watch as they continue to steamroll over other rights as well.
I really don’t want to live in a society where my rights are dictated by the whims of whatever party is in power and likely to change multiple times a decade.
You’re delusional. That will never happen.
They’re making a case for removal, we’ll see. They should not be this powerful.
They made the case for removal twice against Trump. It did exactly nothing.
Unless you have 67 senators willing to remove them, none of it matters. And right now, I have a better chance of getting blown by every one of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders in alphabetical order than getting 15 or so Republican senators to be willing to remove one of their own.
Never happen.
Everyone chip in to make sure all the conservative justices have free chicken and big macs at all times. While signing up the liberal justices for free gym memberships.
Just pointing out there is a public mailing address for the supreme court that I’m sure would happily forward gift certificates, and a chik fil a almost within shouting distance. Don’t make them walk too far, it’d defeat the purpose.
You’re right, and I’m an idiot. The US is truly and royally fucked. At this point it’s an unsalvageable shit-show slaughter-fest of slavery and oppression.
The French had a solution for that
…and the Senate put itself in charge of the Judicial branch. Anything the President could do to offset either power grab is checked by the Senate. We need to stop pretending that the Presidential election is the most important.
Local elections have a lot more impact on your quality of life, and there’s usually at least one every year.
The key to voting, as shown by the Evangelicals managing to overturn Roe, is to do it consistently. Every primary, every election, for decades. Unfortunately that’s what it takes to effect change in our system of government.
They do have more impact in general, but national allows malicious actors to overrule local laws and suppress votes.
Both are critical even though I agree people should increase their focus on local politics.
Agreed, but state elections can also allow malicious actors to overrule federal mandates, like Medicaid. Besides, if you vote in every election you vote in the federal ones, too.
Getting good people elected to local offices also builds a pipeline of people qualified for higher office. (Although, here in Georgia, there’s also a habit of running or appointing “outsiders” to high office whenever possible)
You mean you aren’t supposed to just bitch about how your elected official didn’t magically do everything you wanted and then stop voting?
I’d be fine with a Presidential Review of the Supreme Court every four years offset by two years of the Presidential election. This would allow a President to replace members of the Supreme Court with a simple majority of the House and Senate as part of the conformation of a new judge. The President would have to justify the replacement for criminal or ethical reasons confirmed by both houses of Congress.
I’d be fine with a Presidential Review of the Supreme Court every four years offset by two years of the Presidential election. This would allow a President to replace members of the Supreme Court with a simple majority of the House and Senate as part of the conformation of a new judge. The President would have to justify the replacement for criminal or ethical reasons confirmed by both houses of Congress.
This would be great until Trump 2.0 comes along and throws out liberal judges he doesn’t like or that he knows won’t rule in his favor, backed by a complicit Congress. We just got finished with four years off watching one man almost singlehandedly corrupt every single branch of government with ease, so it’s not like this idea is far fetched.
Rulings would no longer be about what is (supposed to be) best for the American people but instead would be about what rulings to give so they can keep their cushy jobs, especially when the White House and Congress are both controlled by the same party.
I understand the sentiment behind trying to get the corrupt judges off the bench, but this would likely just make the situation worse, not better.
That is why there is still a check by Congress and it occurs at the Midterm.
This is going to be uncomfortable to say but I feel that it is crucial that it be said.
In case you were not aware of the situation in Israel right now, the state is on the brink of civil war. This is not hyperbole. The situation that ultimately boiled over to cause this is in a narrow certain sense a mirror image of what’s happening in the US. The conservatives have gotten hold of the executive branch whereas the supreme court, while officially neutral, acts as a bulwark of liberalism. As a result, conservatives have raised many of the same frustrated points that US liberals are raising now: “How dare the judiciary put itself above the executive branch? Vox populi vox dei”. Under this banner they justify a ‘judicial reform’ which will do just that and, bluntly, put the government above the law.
I implore you not to reach the conclusion that there is something wrong with the judiciary having oversight over the executive branch – that because the government is democratically elected, it therefore must be the case that putting the government above the law will result in maximum democracy. This “maximum democracy” is precisely what they have right now in Hungary and Poland, and its ultimate end result is what they currently have in Russia and China. A strong, independent judiciary is necessary to keep the executive branch in check and make sure it doesn’t abuse its power to take control of the media, the electoral process, the state’s functioning institutions, to secure more power and act with destructive impunity. An oft-mocked hypothetical question in the Israeli public discourse today, which is also a completely valid argument, goes: “If the government forces through a law that all gingers be executed tomorrow, what then? Who will put a stop to it?”. A strong, independent judiciary is the only possible answer. “The people” cannot and will not keep a rogue populist government in check. Again, look to Hungary and Russia.
Now, this does not mean that you have to be content with the current state of the US supreme court, and meekly accept what it does and the values it stands for. I certainly don’t. Indeed, in Israel too, there have been many voices over the years which have called to temper the supreme court’s perceived political activism, and the previous (much less extremist) government contained several non-populist elements which successfully advocated for “their candidates” to reach the supreme court. Maybe the required reform in the US supreme court should be different and could be achieved by different means than this, but please, don’t follow Israel off this cliff, don’t fall in love with the notion that a strong judiciary is a burden on democracy. The opposite is true.
Netanyahu’s legislation would give the Knesset the power to overrule their Supreme Court with a simple majority vote. I’ve not seen anyone make an argument for such extreme measures to redress the US Supreme Court, and certainly not in this article. The most common arguments I’ve seen are,
- Impose a Code of Ethics, and possibly to impeach the most obviously compromised justices
- Add term limits, possibly retroactively
- Expand the court
These all have risks, but so does taking no action.
