I mean, also, they haven't packed the court yet.

Nor should they.

Oh, you just wait, mother fucker! In 6 months, after Biden's 36-member commission meets and delivers him a list of pros and cons related to court packing. He's gonna read the executive summary of that report. and then ... THEN ... Biden's gonna know the pros and cons.

Larry Elder replacing Diane Feinstein might throw a wrench in the works, should that occur.

I thought he was supposed to be your next governor.

If he becomes governor, he gets to name her replacement if she passes.

The idea that circuit splits are necessary for SCOTUS to hear a case is really overblown in major contentious issues. They can grant cert on whatever cases they want that come their way, and if the 5th Circuit eventually upholds this law, at the very least Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan will issue a lengthy dissent from cert denial, and if Roberts feels like making the rest of the Court hear the case then it's game on.

The alternative of at least another decade of right wing rule at SCOTUS isn't really better for the left either. The main problem with court packing is that the other side will do it right back at you when they get power, and eventually will disintegrate the Court's immense judicial review power. Which given where things are now, the left might prefer that to the status quo, even if they can't get Democrats to actually do it.

Gotcha. Misunderstood.

We've probably already crossed the Rubicon on this, but in addition to the obvious "Republicans will do it right back" the bigger fear to me is a further degradation of the norms that are necessary to maintain political institutions and I can't imagine an outcome where it doesn't accelerate the race to successively more extreme actions on both sides.

I do think that Democrats need to wield some credible threat if they want to prevent SCOTUS from running them over. Roberts is already receptive to that. Time will tell on Kavanaugh and Barrett, but they'd only need to motivate one of the two. Thomas and Gorsuch aren't going to be moved by such threats, but they are willing to go against the political right wing grain occasionally if it crosses their somewhat incongruous ideologies, so they can sometimes prove useful. Alito is the only Justice that I think is a complete lost cause as far as making wildly unpopular opinions/votes goes.

All that being said, it obviously gets much more difficult for Dems if Breyer doesn't step down before 2022 and the GOP takes the Senate--or even if Pat Leahy or Bernie Sanders bite the dust at any moment. Or Dianne Feinstein if Newsom gets recalled.

Mark this post. The next Republican President is gonna pack that Court.

who cares

if they're another trump type candidate, which is likely. this is a fundamental difference between the two parties: the current GOP will go to any length to push through their agenda, whereas dems are still trying to hold onto the idea of balance between the two.

basic human rights whatevs

why did i even bother to keep the first sentence gender neutral

we're all slaves bruh

No need for them to unless the Democrats pack before them, and that doesn't look like it'll happen.

And really, given how much the right wing disliked O'Connor and Kennedy for being too squishy in their opinion, if they were going to pack it they would have back in 2003 when they had the White House and the Senate.

They weren't the ones to threaten it initially, either. I don't know if its because they recognise that its a no-win arms race or they want to maintain the high ground, but I don't recall the R equivalent of Vox posting think pieces on court packing.

if you get raped, you won't get pregnant