What does a BIDEN Presidency look like?

[Jacob]

I've seen some stories about Biden proposing to reform the Supreme Court. Now Bill Barr is apparently saying this will "purge the Supreme Court's conservative justices", which sounds pretty OK to me.

How real and realistic a thing is this?

Are these reforms something the President can do, or does it require support from the House and Senate?

And if it can be done in theory, is can it be done in practice before Biden's term is up?

[Valmy]

FDR needed some sort of congressional approval, pretty sure Joe would also need something similar but I don't know the details.

[HVC]

The three fold plan seems overly complicated in detail. Also, a code of conduct thing is weird. Who watches the watchmen.  Just add a 70 year old retirement age, if any change is possible. Right now that would get rid of 2 of the bush's judges, and a third in January. You'd lose an Obama judge, but leaves only 3 trump judges.

[Tonitrus]

I've seen some stories about Biden proposing to reform the Supreme Court. Now Bill Barr is apparently saying this will "purge the Supreme Court's conservative justices", which sounds pretty OK to me.

How real and realistic a thing is this?

Are these reforms something the President can do, or does it require support from the House and Senate?

And if it can be done in theory, is can it be done in practice before Biden's term is up?

His proposals looked like a Constitutional amendment (and if not and only a law, ironically, would probably be shot down by the current USSC as "unconstitutional")...which would be nearly impossible to get done in the current political environment.

An amendment would need large majorities in Congress, and most of the states to approve...a process that could taker forever/never.

[Admiral Yi]

That's my read.  Would take an amendment.

[grumbler]

I've seen some stories about Biden proposing to reform the Supreme Court. Now Bill Barr is apparently saying this will "purge the Supreme Court's conservative justices", which sounds pretty OK to me.

How real and realistic a thing is this?

Are these reforms something the President can do, or does it require support from the House and Senate?

And if it can be done in theory, is can it be done in practice before Biden's term is up?

Bill Barr is, as is his want, trying to whip up hysteria over an issue that won't come up in his or our lifetimes.  It's a bit ironic that Barr moans that "it only takes a majority vote and the signature of the President" (which, of course is a lie) as though any legislation that has a majority vote and a presidential signature is somehow "undemocratic" and "threaten(s) the Constitution." 

There was a time when I had a grudging respect for Barr, but he's successfully convinced me that I was wrong back to do so.

[crazy canuck]

I've seen some stories about Biden proposing to reform the Supreme Court. Now Bill Barr is apparently saying this will "purge the Supreme Court's conservative justices", which sounds pretty OK to me.

How real and realistic a thing is this?

Are these reforms something the President can do, or does it require support from the House and Senate?

And if it can be done in theory, is can it be done in practice before Biden's term is up?

Bill Barr is, as is his want, trying to whip up hysteria over an issue that won't come up in his or our lifetimes.  It's a bit ironic that Barr moans that "it only takes a majority vote and the signature of the President" (which, of course is a lie) as though any legislation that has a majority vote and a presidential signature is somehow "undemocratic" and "threaten(s) the Constitution." 

There was a time when I had a grudging respect for Barr, but he's successfully convinced me that I was wrong back to do so.

The main thing that gets the Christian right out to vote is control of the court.  That explains Barr's intellectually dishonest comments, but  I don't understand why Biden thought it was a good idea to propose this idea.

Is he just looking for his legacy now?

[Valmy]

FDR had large majorities when he tried his plan and he still failed to get the votes. Hard to imagine even getting close today.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Eh, I actually think a 51 Dem Senate majority that doesn't include Joe Manchin or Kirsten Sinema would be likely to pack the court--obviously it presumes control of the House and White House. The court has drifted into pretty open and extreme partisanship, including injecting vast new powers to the judiciary that it really hasn't had before, just in the last few years. That is quite dissimilar from FDR's scenario. FDR was trying to find and develop broad new powers, many of which actually were quite contested as a matter of constitutional jurisprudence of the time. FDR's court packing was directly viewed as an attempt to make the President more powerful, in an era when Presidential power was seen as rising.

This new reform movement appears designed to trim the court's decisions where the court has unilaterally decided it gets to have vast new powers, and to even push back against things like the court granting too much power to the elected President. That makes it a lot different than FDR's. That doesn't mean it won't be politically divisive, any court reform will have to be partisan, the GOP will never participate in reform of the judiciary.

I also think there are ways that, in spite of it being a partisan process, you could try to do it in a moderate way. For example they might present it as an effort to mitigate the effects of a justice staying in office "too long".

What you could craft the legislation to do would be to say, "the current size of the Supreme Court will increase by 1 for every current justice as of x date who has had a tenure in office of 18 years or longer, in the future anytime an additional justice's term exceeds 18 years, a new seat will be created to be filled by whomever is the President. Anytime a justice with a tenure of over 18 years leaves office, their seat will not be filled but instead the court will shrink by 1, to a minimum size of 9."

[grumbler]

FDR had large majorities when he tried his plan and he still failed to get the votes. Hard to imagine even getting close today.

To be fair, though, FDR was just firing a shot over the bow of an obstructionist (as he saw it) court.  The court backed off on opposing his policies (the "switch in time that saved the nine"), and FDR backed off on adding more justices when his ramrod on the issue, Senate Majority Leader Joe Robinson died in the summer of 1937.

The modern Supreme Court doesn't have the ability that the 1930s court had of realizing that it was getting too partisan and backing off.  Our current court struck down Chevron deference but substituted Divine Deference.  Unfortunately for the rest of us, only judges can tell us what the Catholic God wants in the way of laws and regulations.

[Grey Fox]

I think they really don't want to ask the Pope about what the Catholic God wants. 

[HVC]

Don't go blaming catholics!


Actually, is there a catholic SCJ? I mean you've only had two catholic presidents and the current one is getting kicked to the curb

[Admiral Yi]

Actually, is there a catholic SCJ?

Six.

[HVC]

I stand corrected. 

[Admiral Yi]

I stand corrected. 

So close.