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Catastrophizing over a long-ass shot like this is unwarranted. This SCOTUS reform bullshit is less likely to happen than Trump being elected for a second term. Additionally, this catastrophozing has the exact same crunch as the people who cried over Jan 6th, calling the participants traitors.
Therefore, until we have a text that actually states how it would work, there is really no point in debating exactly what would happen.
Additionally, if I was so concerned about this, the solution would simply be to make sure to win and get justices in that will give rulings I want on a consistent basis. That would necessarily require making sure my party continues to get elected.
Similar to how the "fix" to project 2025 for Democrats, should it succeed, is to make sure you win the follow-up elections.
Your solution to turnkey tyranny is to...win every election forever? That doesn't sound stable to say the least.
That is, in fact, the premise of both democracy and republicanism. Until some other form of governance appears, it is what the USA operates under.
No, the premise of republicanism is restrain power to make insufficiently popular tyranny hard to enact.
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Here is one proposal’s specific text.
It describes this as an exercise of the rulemaking power of the senate. What does that imply, exactly? I assume the house would still be needed.
I'm not sure. Confirmation of justices is solely a Senatorial power, so it could just be motioning around that part of things, both to say that the bill's appointment scheduling stuff is not dependent on House votes, and imply that the Senate can change it again at any time they want.
The rest of it needs to get passed as a full law, including House and Presidential approval. There's some serious questions about how well jurisdiction-stripping could work out as a pragmatic question -- AEDPA is pretty illustrative -- but to the extent it does anything it has to be part of a federal law. Limiting when the President can submit a SCOTUS nominee might or might not be constitutional in any case, but it definitely wouldn't mean anything as solely a senatorial rule except to say that the Senate would auto-refuse (or auto-not-vote).
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The severability section at the end amuses me greatly.
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If I'm reading that language right, the effect would be that the president makes his two nominations each term, and if that pushes the number of justices above 9, the older ones don't vote on appellate cases (i.e. most cases).
If this version were enacted President Harris would almost certainly miss the date for the first nomination, and so only get at most one nomination. Doesn't seem like the scenario @Felagund is worried about would occur.
Is there any reason they wouldn't amend that provision?
I mean, I could postulate some, but it's honestly way too early for that. Never mind amending, they could just vote on a differently-drafted proposal.
I've seen plenty of badly-drafted bills and I'm not going to tell you not to be alert and concerned about the potential for negative consequences. But until we see legislation to the contrary I think it's sensible to at least consider the possibility that the intent of this effort is exactly what it's being sold as rather than a stealth attempt to pack the court immediately.
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That depends very heavily on the law not getting passed before January 20th, 2025:
Or, if passed in the new session, not being modified.
True, but there's a Republican house right now, and if the Democrats win the house my understanding is that the new congress doesn't sit until Jan 13th, and it would be pretty remarkable to pass a bill like this a week into a new congress.
It'd be a remarkable bill to pass in any circumstance. I don't see a rule against it, even for the light value of rules that could be nuked a la filibuster.
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We don't have any proposed text. It would all be up to how they design it exactly.
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It's not that long of a shot. Manifold puts it at a 65% chance of happening, should they get a trifecta, which is not too unlikely either. It's entirely possible that I've been overstating things, but it's at least likely enough that it should be on our radar as a danger.
Yes, it is of course less likely than Trump being reelected.
I don't follow your reasoning here.
Do I read you correctly as saying that if this happens, and you win later, you can just install a slate of new justices, and there's no real harm?
If so, I disagree. The role of the federal judiciary shouldn't be a political tool, but should be to faithfully interpret the law and decide cases brought before it. I don't want yes-men on the court, I want men who will faithfully execute their constitutional office. Repeatedly expanding the court or modifying what it could do would, I imagine, tend to increase how much those present are motivated by partisanship. The Supreme Court is in the present moment the only branch that's making any real effort to hold the government to what the Constitution says. Seriously weakening that would be bad.
Sounds like you're strung up on is/ought.
The Supreme Court is an inherently political institution, therefore it is good to ensure that we cycle through members of our highest tiers of government on a regular basis to prevent too much power creep.
I don't see how I'm doing anything of the sort. Could you elaborate?
Yes and no. Yes, people's political views influence their legal opinions, and vice versa. Yes, the political process is how people get onto the court. But the court does not make decisions just based off whatever is politically expedient. Its members often consider themselves to be trying to perform a conscientiously non-political task, which influences how they decide things.
You provide no explanation.
I don't see why this would result in that, in the abstract. That isn't at all obvious to me. It's not like presidents decide to prevent their own power creep, and they're gone in at most eight years.
In the concrete case, Justice Thomas is the most limited view of what the judiciary can do, wanting to reduce its power, so removing him from the court first is not conducive to preventing power creep.
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