Interesting Bill Planned By The Democrats

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John6185

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In other words, "it was fine when we were getting our way with 'cultural issues', but now that it looks like the court could potentially lean Conservative, we have to change the rules".
Similar to abolishment of the Electoral College, if it works in their favor they like it and if it doesn't, they want to eliminate the Electoral College or anything else that doesn't give hem the edge. Some things have worked for a couple of centuries and thre is no need to wreck the nation to satisfy any political ideology.
 

cktad

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If they don't limit their term as a SC justice then at least have a retirement age. RGB is the prefect example of hanging on to long and the odds are she didn't do her job the last 10 years.
iu
 

dennishoddy

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In this area, the Constitution allows for Congress to decide on how many Justices sit on the Supreme Court’s bench. Article III, Section 1, starts with a broad direction to Congress to establish courts. “The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish,” it reads.

The Judiciary Act of 1789 established the first Supreme Court, with six Justices. “Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the supreme court of the United States shall consist of a chief justice and five associate justices, any four of whom shall be a quorum, and shall hold annually at the seat of government two sessions, the one commencing the first Monday of February, and the other the first Monday of August,” the act read.

Since 1789, Congress changed the maximum number of Justices on the Court several times. In 1801, President John Adams and a lame-duck Federalist Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1801, which reduced the Court to five Justices in an attempt to limit incoming President Thomas Jefferson’s appointments to the high bench. Jefferson and his Republicans soon repealed that act, putting the Court back to six Justices. And in 1807, Jefferson and Congress added a seventh Justice when it added a seventh federal court circuit.

In early 1837, President Andrew Jackson was able to add two additional Justices after Congress again expanded the number of federal circuit court districts. Under different circumstances, Congress created a 10th circuit in 1863 during the Civil War, and it briefly had a 10th Supreme Court Justice. However, Congress after the war passed legislation in 1866 to reduce the Court to seven Justices. That only lasted until 1869, when a new Judiciary Act sponsored by Senator Lyman Trumbull set the number back to nine Justices, with six Justices required at a sitting to form a quorum. President Ulysses S. Grant eventually signed that legislation and nominated William Strong and Joseph Bradley to the newly restored seats.

Since then, aside from President Franklin Roosevelt’s ill-fated threat to support an effort to add new Justices (who sympathized with his policies) to the Supreme Court, the number of Justices on the Court has remained stable. In 1937, Roosevelt had won a second term in office, but the makeup of a conservative-leaning Supreme Court hadn’t changed since he took office four years earlier. Roosevelt supported a Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937 to add as many as six new Justices.

The legislation struggled to gain traction, and it was opposed not only by Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes but also by the liberal Justice Louis Brandeis. Soon, changing voting patterns on the Court along with vacancies made the Court Packing plan a moot point.
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/why-does-the-supreme-court-have-nine-justices

I thought I would introduce this to the discussion as a point that any party can pack the Supreme Court. It has been a part of the decorum of the legislature to let it stay with 9 justices.
It appears the "decorum" of the left has waned and court packing will be used as a threat to defeat Trumps nominee although that is now a mute point as the Senate has enough votes for a confirmation.
They may use this tactic WHEN THEY get back the Senate which historically they will, but as Mitch Mcconnell said when Harry Reid eliminated the filibuster and the 2/3 majority in the senate to appoint a candidate to the Supreme Court it will come back to bite you and it certainly has.
You reap what you sew.
 

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