Joe Biden worries that the “extreme” US supreme court, dominated by rightwing justices, cannot be relied upon to uphold the rule of law.
“I worry,” the president told ProPublica in interview published on Sunday. “Because I know that if the other team, the Maga Republicans, win, they don’t want to uphold the rule of law.”
“Maga” is shorthand for “Make America great again”, Donald Trump’s campaign slogan. Trump faces 91 criminal charges and assorted civil threats but nonetheless dominates Republican polling for the nomination to face Biden in a presidential rematch next year.
In four years in the White House, Trump nominated and saw installed three conservative justices, tilting the court 6-3 to the right. That court has delivered significant victories for conservatives, including the removal of the right to abortion and major rulings on gun control, affirmative action and other issues.
The new court term, which starts on Tuesday, could see further such rulings on matters including government environmental and financial regulation.
If only you were in a position to do something about it…
He’s not, unless you want a different coup. It’s up to Congress and the Senate. Executive, Legislative, Judicial.
Technically 2/3 of states could amend by statute
2/3rds of the States can’t even agree whether or not you can marry children.
Asking them to amend anything at this point will fail.
yep
It’s checks and balances, not rock paper scissors
His power here is to set a direction and to nominate new appointees. He could write a bill to expand the bench and/or a constitutional amendment to require a code of ethics… Hell, he could even say “ok supreme Court, you say you can self-regulate… Publish your own code of conduct publicly or I’ll lead the charge in imposing one on you”
Presidents have a lot of soft power. He can write executive orders to demand the problem be evaluated, or he can use his platform to rally support… He can even go to Thomas privately and suggest he resign with dignity while he can, even try to bluff him off the bench
There’s a lot he could do - his hard power over the supreme Court is very limited, but soft power is how most everything works
He’s doing one of the only things he can do: using his soapbox to draw attention to the issue.
The only real fix to this would be for Democrats to hold a majority in the house, a fillibuster-proof majority in the Senate (or remove the filibuster with a simple majority), and the presidency.
The last time this was possible was a brief 7-month period from 2009-2010. Prior to that… 1978.
He could use his soapbox to promote remedies to the situation, instead of finally acknowledging that this is an unmitigated disaster.
Conservatives don’t wait for a supermajority to effect the change they want. You act like Democrats want to build consensus before doing anything, but Biden doesn’t even seem to have consensus on what he wants to do.
What would Biden do with an absolute majority? How would he fix things? That’s what he should be talking about, what he should be promoting.
They don’t need a supermajority. All* they want to do (cut taxes and budgets via reconciliation and stack the courts*) is possible with a simple majority.
* Supreme Court does still need 60 votes to end debate and actually vote on confirming
I thought McConnell actually ended that for Supreme Court nominations with his rule set, and that’s how he was able to stuff acb on the court.
I didn’t spend long looking for a source and what I found just said it goes from committee to floor debate then to a vote, and I assumed anything going to the floor for debate needed a cloture vote to end debate. But looking up the cloture vote for ACB does say it ways 51 to 48, so yeah looks like I was wrong.
Pointing out the problem puts it into play for public debate, and there isn’t anything Republicans can say about the issue that doesn’t make them look bad (because on this issue they are unquestionably the villains).
Getting into details about the solution, however, offers the Republicans a line of attack and a way to muddy the waters. (“They want to pack the court!”).
Nothing is gained by having Biden get into the nitty-gritty, but something is lost.
Surely you meant 1987 through 1995.
I’m fairly certain that Democrats didn’t hold all branches of government with a majority in both houses for a full eight years.
Republican president from 1980-1992. And in 1993-1995 we hadn’t yet seen this insanity of obstruction for the sake of power, so getting rid of the fillibuster at that time would have seemed like an unprompted power grab.
Honest question here … what would you have him do?
There are a few options available. Pack the court, call for ethics inquiries, draw attention to the unconfirmed justices, or literally anything at all. Go on the attack. Be a leader. Demand justice. Biden is content to shrug and say “Ah, well, you see the GOP controls too much, so only if we have all the power can we make things better.”
He’s not governing, he’s campaigning.
Literally what the article is about.
Not at all.
Limit how many years they can stay there?
Not a power that belongs to any branch except through a constitutional amendment. The Constitution says life during good behavior.
You may want to actually read the Constitution one day. It makes no mention of “life”. Here’s the text of Article III, Section 1:
What does “during good behaviour mean”?
Reddit-tier commentary here
Just pointing out that the constitution does, in fact, not say for life as you stated.
While technically true it’s irrelevant as the constitution does not specify any term limits. So yeah - reddit-tier nit-picking over a detail while missing the entire point.
Technically true? Well, what the other person said was entirely false. It’s not nitpicking when someone says that the constitution says justices have lifetime appointments and it actually doesn’t say that.
It becomes relevant very quickly when you want to change the system. An act of Congress requires a majority vote and signature by the president, fairly simple. A constitutional amendment requires 2/3 of both chambers and ratification by 3/4 of the states (or a convention by the states).
Right? Fucking hell…
If I’m so ignorant of the American democratic system, when I’m not even American myself and was never really educated on the system, would it bother people to explain to me why what I ask is not possible instead of throwing insults?
The comments in this thread are appalling.
If their term is given no limit, it’s for life. This isn’t rocket science.
Do you have any basis in fact for that assertion? If it’s not controlled by the constitution than Congress can set a limit.
The Democrats did that a month ago (and in Aug 2022 as well).
Notice that it only has a 1% chance of passing at this point (as it’s got to get through the committee first).
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Do you want a dictator? Or do you not understand that Biden can’t do that?
Take a chill pill. I’m not American. I don’t know everything about your system.
You’re good. Sadly, if you don’t repeat the approved narrative you are treated with hostility.
By “approved narrative” do you mean “the law”?
You would do well to indicate in your posts that you know absolutely nothing about the topic and have no business discussing it then. It sounds more like a suggestion than a question.
Man, fuck off. What are you? The boss of the internet?
Lol, man your trigger was sensitive.
I’m “not the guy admittedly opining on a subject I know nothing about”.
No you’re “the guy who’s being a jerk and telling people what they can and cannot say or ask on the internet”.
That’s up to Congress, executive branch has nothing to do with it.
I assumed that he could propose a bill or something. And what about executive orders? How does that work? I saw Donald Trump sign some stuff into law while he was in office.
Sorry, not American. I don’t fully understand how your system works.
He can suggest a bill, but he can’t submit it himself, someone in the House of Representatives would have to do it for him.
And as far as executive orders go they can be overturned by Congress or the next sitting president, and there are limitations as to what can and cannot be done via executive order.
You’re the only person so far that hasn’t freaked out and have me an explanation. Thank you!
Pack the court it’s with in his power to add justices to the Supreme Court. Democrats have the majority in the Senate so it can be done.
Nobody wants to be the first to add justices, because that can become a game of one-upmanship where you’d could theoretically end up with a 91 person SCOTUS.
You’re not wrong, but the number of justices could be linked to them number of judicial circuits, which now sits at 13.
What’s wrong with that? More brains the better and when bribes are involved billionaires will have to spend more.
They still own the house and senate and there’s a whole bunch of those.
The court is limited to 9 by law. He’s need a majority in the house and eliminate the filibuster to change that.
Where are you getting this idea the president can do this? When you see an article on this type of thing at least check the wikipedia page. I understand how the misunderstanding comes about due to the talk around the new deal in history classes but roosevelt only pushed for congress to act. This is something you see a lot with presidential tenures. They will push congress to act but they themselves can only do so much. It is only in recent times executive orders have been used extensively but this is still limited to what congress did not define and the constitution does not define in law.
That sounds like a good step. Where are Biden’s speeches on pushing Congress to pack the Court?
I really don’t think he should. It was not a great move by roosevelt either. It was actually about judges retiring. I actually think no one should be holding an office of any kind after 60 myself. Just adding more though is not going to help. Better to impeach them.
And yet after it the votes changed and they allowed the New Deal. Courts become less extreme when their comfortable power is threatened.
What’s your solution to a corrupt court throwing away precedent and making law from the bench? Just pat Mitch McConnel on the back and say “shucks, you got us Mitch, guess we’ll just live the rest of our lives under conservative rule”? Because waiting for 67 Democratic senators or multiple conservative justices dying under Democratic rule isn’t likely to happen.
Adding more justices may instigate a tit-for-tat, but it’s no worse than just accepting that they get to make law for the rest of your life, and the credible threat of doing it (or the actual practice) is likely to lead to real functional reform.
I don’t believe the courts “allowed” the new deal because of the court packing idea. The court by its nature can’t change votes whatever you meant by that. I have no solution except impeachment and indictment which I would truly love to see. Taking bribes like that should never be acceptable.
You get that this is functionally no solution at all, right? Even in Obama’s first term there were only 60 Democratic-caucusing senators and a few of those were unreliable DINOs. 67 is a fairy tale. It’s only marginally more likely than just hoping they get raptured.
And if that’s the case, which do you prefer:
He could introduce a plan to reform the courts, but it would ultimately have to go through Congress.
Step down and be replaced with Bernie.