The cynic in me believes that this only took place after numerous meetings during which the question "is there any way we can still make money from this" was repeatedly answered with "no".
Interesting. In the past few years, I heard about how expanding the US Supreme Court was a reasonable approach to take. I wonder if proponents were aware of this case in Venezuela.
As with anything, it's all about implementation. The Supreme Court's size fluctuated over time, with different presidents increasing--or decreasing--it, often in response to the Court's actions or the major political disputes of the day. And often for even more partisan reasons than the current arguments for expansion.
John Adams and the Federalist Party reduced the Court from six to five; Jefferson restored the Court to six before expanding it to seven a few years later. Congress bumped it up from seven to nine in 1837, and Lincoln added a tenth during the Civil War. After the war, and at least partially motivated by vacancies that would have offered Andrew Johnson the opportunity to nominate justices who would screw with the Reconstruction plan, Congress reduced the Court from ten to seven. In 1869, Congress increased the Court's size to nine...and nominated two additional justices the very day the Court ruled paper currency--greenbacks--unconstitutional, who would then enable the Court to reverse that decision.
That said, there are non-partisan arguments for expanding the Court. We now have thirteen circuits; historically, each justice was responsible for a circuit but when appeals courts were added, the Supreme Court wasn't expanded. And then there's the expanded use of the shadow docket for more consequential questions. All of that's dramatically increased the Court's workload, and fixing it would probably be preferable...assuming that the act of fixing it didn't cause other issues.
Beyond that, not all of the expansion proposals amount to "add as many as we can." Many of them are tied to other reforms that are meant to lower the perceived stakes of each appointment, and grant a sort of regularity that ought to appeal to both parties without succumbing to what Venezuela current has to deal with.
FDR tried it during his time, wanted to expand it to 13 I think. It didn't work. But what we really need for SCOTUS is time limits and automatic replacements at intervals to take politics out of the process a little bit.
There's a perspective from which FDR's attempt to pack the court did work: He didn't expand the court, but the credible threat that he would do so got the justices to back off on blocking the New Deal policies he was implementing.
We already periodically replace them, that period just happens to be their lifetime. If you shorten that period you lower the stakes if the "other side" gets to fill a slot, you'll get another chance to rebalance in X years, where X is a known value and doesn't require someone to die (or willingly relinquish power).
I am at least. It's "a reasonable approach to take" in that it may be an effective mechanism for accomplishing certain goals like diluting the power currently concentrated there or preventing some specific action the court may take with its current majority.
I don't think there's a framework that can universally tell you whether supreme court expansion is always good in all cases or always bad in all cases. Taking effective action is bad when you do it for bad reasons and good when you do it for good ones. Unsatisfying but there it is.
I personally would not call that a reasonable policy proposal but it is (unfortunately) constitutional due to an oversight by the US Framers in 1787. The appropriate way to stop it from passing would be to vote against politicians who advocate it as they are unfit for office.
Not really. There has been a continuous stream of pro-consumer actions out of the Biden admin since day one. Lots of anti-trust activity in really critical sectors, for example.
You’re not paying very close attention if you can’t spot any substantive differences between the two sides.
Would you like to make a wager on that? I would be prepared to bet money (and give you very generous odds) that, contra your claim, if Biden is re-elected in November the FCC will not undo this change and remove net neutrality afterward.
I'd expect that if Biden gets a second term, then after the election you can basically expect little to no action for the next 3 years. Business as usual... ish. Major changes will likely happen before the next election just to try and keep a democrat in office.
The Trump second term will likely immediately start with rolling back things like Net Neutrality. Biden's admin likely wouldn't do that as that'd keep them from getting cabinet positions in the future and Trump's admin will do it right away because it can both be sold as a referendum on the previous admin and would help them get future positions for the next republican president.
For trump, I doubt he'll do anything at the end of his term different from the beginning. I really don't think Trump cares about keeping republicans in office.
It's true that he cares about himself first, but he only stumps for republicans (as long as they support him) and he packed the federal and supreme court with republicans (and they've won important cases about redistricting rules and other things that keep republicans in power).
So saying he doesn't care about keeping republicans in office makes no sense as he's probably cemented them in office in places they have no business being elected for another 30 years.
I can't say this for certain, but my guess is that Trump's supreme court picks weren't really him looking at potential nominees and instead were done based on the advice of his cabinet. (I'm certain that's how it is for most presidents).
Trump will likely appoint a republican friendly cabinet, for sure, which means their goals and agendas will be centered around the party as much as they are for trump.
But that said, I just don't think Trump cares about the republican party. He cares about it in as much as it's a vehicle for him to maintain power.
Said another way, I don't think trump the person cares about the republican party. I think the trump admin does.
If he wins, the only way I really see him personally caring about the next presidency is if he decide to try and run for a 3rd term (like he's floated).
I switched to Joplin a couple of years back and don't regret the move. Was able to import all my Evernote stuff as well, which was one deciding factor.
When I say "people like ice cream" and you say "not all people like ice cream" I reply "I didn't say all."
"All" is a modifier for a reason.
For example, people are demanding that the SATs should not be used to evaluate students academic ability, because it's unfair that some students do better on the test than others.
Have you ever seen anyone advocate this sort of thing for the school sports program? How about it being unfair and inequitable that top athletes have a leg up on college admissions?
Did any PE teacher shower attention on me or the other inept students to bring us up to speed? Nope. The attention was all on the top 2 or 3 athletic students. The rest of us were just an annoyance. (I'm not saying this to complain, as my interests were elsewhere, just illustrating an example.)
Using the term "people" or "men" or "women" without a quantifier is misleading. I could say "people think the earth is flat" and it doesn't matter if it's one person or one billion people but the difference is very important.
> Using the term "people" or "men" or "women" without a quantifier is misleading
If I say "people have two legs" and you reply saying what about amputees, that's a debate tactic, not a misinterpretation. If I say "people are amputees" that would be a false statement.
> I could say "people think the earth is flat" and it doesn't matter if it's one person or one billion people but the difference is very important.
The term "people" by itself means people in general. Not all people, and not one person in a billion.
English is neither a mathematics nor a programming language, and should not be treated as such.
Seems like you moved the goal posts a bit there. Your first comment indicates "people" could be any quantity, now it seems you mean that "people" means people in general, which indicates a majority of people? It's important to be precise in language if you want your thoughts understood.
