What could possibly go wrong?
The Supreme Court begins its new term this morning, amid front-page media lamentations that the Justices have become too partisan under Chief Justice John Roberts. This is best understood as not-very-subtle lobbying of Justice Anthony Kennedy, the most frequent swing vote on what has been a largely centrist Court. But never fear, Pat Leahy has an idea to create a liberal majority anyway—at least on some cases.
The Senate Judiciary Chairman wants Congress to pass a law allowing retired Justices to pinch-hit on cases in which one of the current Justices is recused. His timing is no accident. New Justice Elena Kagan is expected to recuse herself from some 25 cases that she was involved with as Solicitor General, which would mean one fewer vote for the court’s liberal bloc.
Conveniently for Mr. Leahy, of the recently retired Justices, the three available Supreme Court subs would be John Paul Stevens, David Souter and Sandra Day O’Connor. Justices Stevens and Souter were reliable liberal votes, while Justice O’Connor was once the Court’s swing vote, tilting left in her later years on many issues, especially racial quotas and free speech restrictions.
To folks like Leahy, “justice” means “having the votes beforehand.”
America.
Meh.
(h/t TerryH)
I’m surprised they don’t try to pack the court with more Justices. There is nothing in the Constitution stating that we can have only nine of them. Obama could appoint a lot more if he wanted to (and if they could get past the howling of the people, which they seem to be able to handily ignore at will).
Hmmm. That statute isn’t going to be passed anytime soon with Congress in recess, and while that may sound like a winner to sen. Leahy, all it does for present is make sure that a liberal vote is maintained. It does not take into account the effect when things change – sort of like arguments to do away with the fillibuster only come from a party when it has a majority in the senate. Since the most recent retirements have been liberals and have been replaced with liberals, all sounds fine. But what happens if a conservative is replaced with a liberal who then must be recused? The liberal vote goes conservative.
So while this idea may be out there, I am skeptical of it being brought into being.
You know, if these gits keep working at it, they may convince enough of my fellow citizens that the only box left is the cartridge box….
Wow, that’s some hope n’ change for you. “Hope” you like our “Change,” suckers.
I’m pretty sure the various advocate groups could dig up linkages and second-order connections that would cause every hostile member of the Court to have to recuse themselves. Then their counterparts would do the same for the other side. Then each side would disqualify all the pinch-hitters, too.
Hey — if we could come up with a law that says every law must be blessed by the Court before taking effect, we might have come up with the perfect way to strangle FedGov!
So while this idea may be out there, I am skeptical of it being brought into being.
Agreed.
“I can drive a car with my feet. That don’t make it a good fucking idea.” – Chris Rock
You know, if these gits keep working at it, they may convince enough of my fellow citizens that the only box left is the cartridge box…
George Washington just emailed from Heaven and asked, “What the hell are you people waiting for? Shoot ’em!!”
maybe it’s more better not to nominate and confirm someone what has to recuse herself from like half the cases?
I think this reflects very poorly on president bumblefuck’s judgment.
it just seems we were doing just fine with our supreme court and such and now that bumblefuck’s in charge we need special rules I don’t understand why he thinks everyone should have to make exceptions just for him
I like Squid’s suggestion. Rather than wait for someone to bring suit, force all laws to be reviewed. That will stop them in their tracks.
“You know, if these gits keep working at it, they may convince enough of my fellow citizens that the only box left is the cartridge box…”
Yeah LYBD, I grow increasingly worried the ruling class will need a spanking to correct their grabbyness.
We will see what 2011 brings…
There you go being all sensible and stuff.
Where has this hf been lately?
Tea Party: American tax payers, I’d like you to meet my friend, Tort Reform.
Tort Reform: Hey guys.
Texas: What’s up Tort?
Tort Reform: LOL. Sure ain’t frivolous laws suits. You feel me?
Texas: Sure do buddy. Hey let me introduce you to some other states.
Democrats: NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
Whether this proposal actually goes anywhere it needs to be remembered, particularly as the states begin to discuss efforts to add the repeal amendment to the Constitution.
Maybe for the same reason you think everyone should have to make exceptions just for you.
Well, yeah, moneymen. What squid and cranky-d are suggesting is something different. You know, change.
Regards,
Ric
I think that means a suit is required.
The suit is the lowest common denominator.
Appeals are the reason Leahy’s bullshit is alarming.
Every lawyers dream is to litigate a case in front of (over time) a collective group of judges that were on his/ her political side 20 years before he/she was even born.
Unbiased, strict interpretation?
Never heard of it.
Some fundamental change to the way things are being done is necessary, but not in the way Leahy would like. As Ric suggested in the piece he linked, one element is the commerce clause. That sucker needs to be narrowly defined, and that will take an amendment to the Constitution. That’s not the only thing that needs clarification, but it’s the one thing that has “given” the Fed the power to impose its will upon the states in a way the Founders would find alarming.
Repeal or severe modification of the Interstate Commerce clause, which all by itself has done most of the really intractable damage
Damn straight.
Ric’s post was awesomely brutal. In the best Paul Ryan kinda way. And Cranky nailed it too. That troublesome sonofabitch has been the government equivalent of an enchanted 8 Ball for waaaaaay too long. It says whatever the hell they say it says, and grants them whatever the hell they want at that moment.
Fucking license to steal everything not nailed down is what it is.
When they want to steal anything nailed down they find a clawhammer penumbra to pry the nails out.
Speaking of clawhammers…
I bought one of these.
I don’t find that I really need it for anything as of yet, but I am sleeping better at night as a result of it’s purchase.
Hush, meya. Yer an imbecile.
Leahy is a nozzle of douche of the highest order.
Wow, Lamont. Here I’ve been getting by with a selection of mauls and crowbars all these years…
Need to get me one of those. Need some tip jar hits first, though :-(
Regards,
Ric
Ric, as a sinner I shamefully look for more & more righteous collection plates.
Will hit yours after poker with the fellas.
A ringer? Along with a second Justice to be named later?
The Supreme Court with a bullpen, hmmm…
So Leahy wants to sub out Justices…
Ok. A question… if it pleases the court, Your Honor. I get that he wants the retired ones first, but, as they’re mostly gumming Jello in various nursing homes at the moment, we see where this is going.
So.
The 5th Circuit is historically conservative. That’s a small “c” and has nothing to do with politics. Strict interpretation, strict adjudication, and a big fat dose of common sense. The result being, they often punch down.
The antithesis of course is the 9th. A collection of ancient liberal fuckwits who pray nightly to atheism or Gaia or what-the-hell-ever that they should get to hear any progressive/ butt-hurt idiot argue before them so they can, in turn, render utter stupidity, and thus by, punch up.
When it comes time for the real substitutions, which Circuit do you think Leahy wants to pull from?
Have you wingnuts even read Leahy’s con-law Treatise?
The brilliant, underrated The Constitution: It Says Whatever?
Read it, if you can manage not to move your lips. Ya might learn something about knowledge.
*spit*
I wasn’t sure if that was sarcasm, so I hit your blog. It was.
Have you wingnuts even read Leahy’s con-law Treatise?
The brilliant, underrated The Constitution: It Says Whatever?
Well done.
Suicide by government cop.
I guess it’s one way to go.
Lithwick = classic Fisk material.
LYBD, @21, that’s no FUBAR.
THIS is a FUBAR.
Rust never sleeps.
I wonder if Leahy would consider seating new congressmen immediately for a lame duck session that swings control of the House, just to “pinch hit”.
This is one of the odder trial balloons I’ve heard floated in awhile. Never gonna happen and just gives the other side another issue to hit them with.
These people are not smart.
Just as the hammer and sickle are the symbols of the Communist Party, perhaps the FUBAR should be the symbol of the Democrat Party? It does kinda work. ‘Course the jackass works pretty well too.
nah the monkey wrench
geez i denounce myself
I just checked and Leahy has been in the Senate since he was 34. He’s now 70. With those 70 years under his belt he was still only in the private sector for all of about two years as an attorney from 1964 to 1966.
Given all this, he’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect him to be.
How about when Obama is vacationing we get Bush to fill in…
from allanpundit:
because the chicomms are holding our debt with a marxist baracky running up exponentially link
link
Nah. The FUBAR works and is useful.
If we really want to be dicks about it, how about Obama as the symbol of the Democrat Party?
It appears that likely voters are already seeing him as such anyways.
Wow. When you’ve lost Gallup…. That’s outside the margin of fraud.
omg it’s all my fault
I am sooooooo sorry you guys. I swear to god I had no idea.
nah. there’s alot fraud sown in the land. ax baracky?
it works for restaurants
well the english will kill their children go team Islam you too chuckie
-= Three states are preparing to sue the Fed to opt out of Bumbblrfuck-care.- Tonight on Greta!
Oh, if only…
o_O
From ‘feet’s George Soros-penned FT article…
He speaks of hardware. If you want to put stimulus monies in hardware, then fund 50 new nuclear reactors; serving the purpose of both the TVA (producing power for the grids) and the Triborough Bridge (a crossing from coal-powered plants to much cleaner nuclear). There’s a stimulus plan I’d support.
Oh, and George, do us a favor and jump off that aforementioned bridge, would you? )
– All political issues are tie breakers, but with the Demorats every bill they pass you get sudden death.
*rim shot*
Goldfinger:
Oh bullshit. Bad government is bad government. Blaming the criticism of government for government failure and corruption is patently absurd – and just the sort of lie one would expect from a Statist.
Oh, the TVA and the Triborough Bridge were only a tiny fraction of the “stimulus” money spent during the Great Depression, and the great majority of it WAS wasted, even FDR’s Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau admitted as much.
FDR was a dictator.
Said Mark Levin last evening.
a quarter-century of calling the government bad has resulted in bad government.
I’m sure some of you are old enough to remember how awesome government was in the 60s and 70s: conscription, gas lines, race riots, Watergate, 444 Days, misery index, Bay of Pigs, sweaters, malaise….
Good times!
It’s funny to see Soros praise the Triborough Bridge since it wasn’t an example of good government, but of the unchecked power of a fascist unelected bureaucrat named Robert Moses. A guy who, for instance, tore apart whole neighborhoods, built overpasses at a height which precluded buses (full of poor people) from accessing beaches and deliberately built parks in Harlem with monkeys as part of the decor.
Abe, well, considering Soros background, it may have been a Kinsleyian slip…
Thanks for that mention of Robert Moses. Never heard of the guy before but now The Power Broker is on my reading list.
People might be interested in this piece.
No, that’s exactly who I expect Soros to praise.
Now there’s an objective of modern revolution: namely, overturning government by Commission and Authority (or Fiefdom, as it used to be termed), the brilliant legacies of by-gone dictatorships.
Wait – if she’s me, then who am I again?
Perception is reality eh?
For a system to change over time there must be a form of selection pressure operating on it. For many years now one political group has, not only in government but in every area that they had the ability to, selected for blind adherence to their own political philosophy over all other criteria. Who gets hired, who gets fired. Who advances, who stays at the bottom. Who gives the orders, who is ordered.
It is said that the selection is being made on merit, which is true, but hides purposefully what is the thing considered most meritorious. What is now called “the long march through the institutions” was simply the result of the long term implacable selection pressure, made by billions of small decisions over many years for that one most desired thing of merit.
There are also many areas which, because other factors have to be considered in all selections, are resistant, at least to some extent, to this pressure to select for political reliability to one ideology. The “One Nation Together” rally was a public display of the areas that have mostly succumbed to this selection process as the “Restoring Honor” rally can be seen as composed of those that are most resistant.
The main purpose behind all that the Obama administration has, is, and will be doing is to extend this way of selecting, this one main selection criteria to all areas of life throughout the entire nation. That the result could be referred to as bad or even thought of as such simply means the process is not complete yet.
FDR was a dictator.
Less so than Wilson, but yeah. Franklin’s (ever notice how no one ever calls him “Frank”) saving grace was that he wasn’t a terribly doctrinaire dictator.
Greetings:
I wonder what Justice Kagan’s opinion on “equal work for equal pay” is; herself excepted, of course. I seem to remember that there was something about quality and quantity in that law.
Our esteemed host wrote:
Well, duhhh! Senator Leahy is a Democrat!
happyfoots wrote:
Surely you don’t think that this is the first time . . . :)
Oh. By that logic, nearly a decade of claiming that 9/11 was controlled demolition will have made that happen.
Even more apropos: several decades of calling the United States evil and imperialistic has resulted in that having happened! You have no one to blame but yourselves!
Thanks for that mention of Robert Moses. Never heard of the guy before but now The Power Broker is on my reading list.
I had to read it in college. It’s a very interesting book, but so big that you could kill large rodents with it.