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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA Republican Supreme Court
If Mitt Romney were president and one of the four liberal justices stepped down, it would be the end of 5-4 decisions. It would also be the end of all the "What will Anthony Kennedy do?" discussions, since Kennedy won't matter much anymore. There would be five highly partisan, ideologically ambitious justices who would have the majority on every question that came before them. If Kennedy retired during a Romney presidency, we'd be left with many 5-4 decisions, but they'd all be decided in the conservatives' favor, and the effect would be the same.
http://prospect.org/article/end-5-4
Pab Sungenis
(9,612 posts)Obama is going to actually appoint liberals this time around, unlike his last two? I don't want the choice between "do you want the Supreme Court to be fascist?" and "do you want the Supreme Court to be horribly conservative?" as it's shaping up now.
Especially since Ginsburg is one of those likely to retire, I want to see a real firebrand liberal nominated next time. No more Elena Kagans!
SoutherDem
(2,307 posts)I will set the SCOTUS for many years.
WI_DEM
(33,497 posts)but point is taken that it would get much worse unless Obama is re-elected.
SunsetDreams
(8,571 posts)Kennedy, who is ranked tenth in that study, will be seventy- six next November. If a Republican successor of Obama gets to replace both Kennedy and Ginsburg, its fair to predict that the Roberts Court may include five or even six of the most conservative jurists since the FDR era. Following the ideological disappointment that was David Souter, Republicans have been spectacularly successful in selecting and confirming justices who consistently vote for conservative outcomes. Indeed, the replacement of moderate Sandra Day OConnor with Samuel Alito may have produced the most consequential shift at the Court in our lifetimes; in a few short years OConnors pragmatic legal doctrine in areas ranging from abortion to affirmative action to campaign finance reform has been displaced by rulings that would make Edwin Meeses heart sing.
But its not just the Supreme Court that would tilt further right. The high court only hears seventy-some cases each year. The vast majority of disputes are resolved by the federal appellate courts, which are the last stop for almost every federal litigant in the country. And the one legacy of which George W. Bush can be most proud is his fundamental transformation of the lower federal judiciarya change that happened almost completely undetected by the left. At a Federalist Society meeting in 2008, Bush boasted that he had seated more than a third of the federal judges expected to be serving when he left office, most of them younger and more conservative than their colleagues, all tenured for life and in control of the majority of the federal circuit courts of appeals. The consequences of that change at the appeals court level were as profound as they were unnoticed. As Charlie Savage of the New York Times put it at the time, the Bush judges have been more likely than their colleagues to favor corporations over regulators and people alleging discrimination, and to favor government over people who claim rights violations. They have also been more likely to throw out cases on technical grounds, like rejecting plaintiffs standing to sue. In short, they have copied and amplified the larger trends at the Roberts Court: a jurisprudence that skews pro-business, pro-life, anti-environment, and toward entangling the church with the state. Under the rhetorical banners of modesty and humility and strict construction, the rightward shift has done more to restore a pre-New Deal legal landscape than any legislative or policy change might have done.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/january_february_2012/features/the_courts034474.php
This article and several others were written in response to the question, "What If Obama Loses?" The reporters and scholars were asked to imagine the consequences of a GOP victory.
It's a comprehensive look at the consequences in different areas from Foreign Affairs, Financial Regulation to the Environment.
Have a look: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/january_february_2012/features/what_if_he_loses034501.php#
rustydog
(9,186 posts)5 to4 6 to 3 doesn't matter. As long as you have the majority, GOP wins. Ideology not justice has taken hold of the Supreme Court.
You hear it in people advocating any vacancy be filled with a "liberal" judge, or progressive, rather than by a person who interprets the law and constitution objectively leaving their bias out of it.
datasuspect
(26,591 posts)geez, when will people fucking realize the cat is already out of the bag, the barbarians are inside the gates, and the damage is already done.