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This blog is the work of an educated civilian, not of an expert in the fields discussed.

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Responding to 2016 Elections: Supreme Court

[And Also: Congress passed a joint resolution regarding the white supremacist events, which means the ball is now in Trump's Court. This is a footnote of sorts to Art. I, sec. 7.  A single house of Congress can simply pass resolutions, but a joint resolution goes another route.]
 
Some SCOTUS orders going on, including no dissent to not intervening in an execution and staying a 9CA judgment involving the travel ban.  Four justices (guess what four) did publicly (if without comment) dissent to a stay an ongoing Texas voting rights case.  Analysis with Gorsuch photo.

One comment wondered what we should do regarding the Supreme Court. I'll post what I said.  It's depressing but we have been down this road before. Unfortunately, conservative justices are not as old as they were in the early 1930s. And, the one that is ... well, we don't want him to retire.

A major thing to do is to wait them out. Hard but was done in the past with let's say segregationist justices. Second, reduce the harm as much as possible, including finding ways to get wins at least in limited ways. So, e.g., privacy rights are a concern of some conservative justices as seen in the cell phone case. Third, protect as much as possible by other means, including state courts and legislation. This clearly will require getting more political control such as in the House of Representatives.

Impeachment is not really a credible approach and there is a concern it will be used against you (see the original "Justice Chase" precedent). The Kennedy (assumed) replacement process will be a major act of war here & Democrats must find some means to get something to hold over Republicans to try to get at least a half-way decent replacement. The same with lower court judges.

Finally, there is already thought of adding seats to the Supreme Court if Democrats regain control after 2020. I'm not sure that will work out though it might be something to think about when the time comes. Overall, I'm really concerned about this especially if RBG or Breyer are forced to retire.

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