U.S. Senate confirms Supreme Court pick Barrett in nearly party-line vote

[cmarshall]

1 hour ago, mtraveler said:

Several people have noted this is payback for Bork being voted down.  A few historical facts:

 

Bork was the person who fired Archibald Cox in the Saturday Night Massacre during Nixon's Presidency.  He did so after the Attorney General  and Deputy Attorney General refused to do so.  I think that's pretty disqualifying.    

 

Bork also was on record condemning parts of the Civil Rights Act, and defending Jim Crow Era Poll Taxes.  So, I think based on these facts, there was good reason to reject him. (Six Republicans voted no.)  After Bork was rejected, Anthony Kennedy was nominated by Reagan, and was approved unanimously.  After that, Souter also got unanimous approval.  So, it's not like the Democrats were just rejecting for no reason.  

 

The point is that Bork was a problematic nomination, and there is no equivalency between him and any other nominee.  

 

As to Amy Coney Barrett being the bookend for the Bork rejection, what about Garland?  Should that have not evened the score?  Is Bork the excuse the Republicans will use for or against every Supreme Court nomination for the next 100 years?  

 

I agree that Bork should not have been seated on the Court, because of his retrograde judicial opinions.  However, his firing of Cox during the Saturday Night Massacre is surprising not such a reason.  When Nixon ordered Atty General Eliot Richardson to fire Cox, Richardson went in person to the White House to resign instead.  Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshouse to fire Cox.  Ruckelshouse refused and so Nixon fired him immediately.  The third in line in the Dept. of Justice was Robert Bork.  Now Bork didn't want to fire Cox and discussed with Richardson and Ruckelshouse what he should do.  Both Richardson and Ruckelshouse were worried that there was not clear successor to Bork should he be fired which might result in a constitutional crisis if Nixon were to fire Cox himself.  So, Richardson urged Bork to go ahead and fire Cox, which he did.

 

Therefore, it cannot be said that Bork acted dishonorably in the episode.  Aside from that there is not much good that can be said of Bork, but the facts are the facts.

[cmarshall]

So, the crisis of the Supreme Court can be rectified readily, consitutionally, and without restructuring the Court itself.   Assuming that Biden wins, the Dems take the Senate and keep the House, and that the filibuster is promptly dispatched, the Congress can pass bills by simple majority signed into law by President Biden that re-establish Obamacare with improvements and legalize abortion in the fifty states and the territories, for instance.  And each bill can include a provision that states that legal cases brought under these laws are exempted from the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.  

 

The Congress's power to do so is provided in the Exceptions Clause of the US Consitution, Art. III, § 2, Cl 2, which states, “…the Supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make,”

 

There is historical precedent for such used of the Exceptions Clause.  During Reconstruction Congress passed a law giving Blacks in the South the right to vote on the pending Fourteenth Amendment, the "equal-protection" amendment, but was afraid that the reactionary Supreme Court of the day might rule it unconstitutional, so they just exempted the law from the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court altogether.  

 

Just think of the possibilities.  Now that the Republicans have succeeded in stealing so many seats on the Court, the Congress can just cut the extreme right-wing Court off at the knees.

[ThailandRyan]

2 minutes ago, cmarshall said:

During Reconstruction Congress passed a law giving Blacks in the South the right to vote on the pending Fourteenth Amendment, the "equal-protection" amendment, but was afraid that the reactionary Supreme Court of the day might rule it unconstitutional, so they just exempted the law from the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court altogether.  

 

Just think of the possibilities.  Now that the Republicans have succeeded in stealing so many seats on the Court, the Congress can just cut the extreme right-wing Court off at the knees.

Reconstruction was never truly completed after the Civil War.  I hope that you are not advocating a rehash of the truly failed reconstruction bills which never completed the reconciliation and instead ended up creating the Jim Crow Laws.  How backwards that would be, and in light of the black lives matter movements and the racial disparity being protested about, I do not think that would be a good move at all. 

[Pattaya Spotter]

Great work Mitch...took a seat from Obama and a seat from Biden...Trump's one Supreme Court nomination magically became three!

Edited October 28, 2020 by Pattaya Spotter

[cmarshall]

53 minutes ago, ThailandRyan said:

Reconstruction was never truly completed after the Civil War.  I hope that you are not advocating a rehash of the truly failed reconstruction bills which never completed the reconciliation and instead ended up creating the Jim Crow Laws.  How backwards that would be, and in light of the black lives matter movements and the racial disparity being protested about, I do not think that would be a good move at all. 

So, neither reading comprehension nor history are your strong suits then?  The Jim Crow laws came about, not because of Reconstruction, but because of the end of Reconstruction with the removal of federal troops from the South in 1876.  In any case my discussion was not about Reconstruction, but the power that the Congress has to exempt its laws from the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, which happens to have occurred during Reconstruction.

 

Sheesh.

Edited October 28, 2020 by cmarshall